This Is Horrible! ***spoilers***

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Edinboro

Member
By the way, does anyone know what might have happened at the end of this book? I just figured that the winner was hallucinating and felt that the hands on him made him think it was a soldier. So he kept running; however I have heard other people say because it's a Bachman book that the winner actually died in the end. I keep reading the last line and don't get it. Surely it wouldn't happen in front of the crowd. After all, he did win.
 
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guido tkp

Well-Known Member
Oct 1, 2009
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outside the dome
it remains one of my favorite books ever...

not really hard to see any of it if you just pay attention to what is, and has been, going on all round the world...in alot of places...right now

mans inhumanity to man....over trivial things even

no wonder the apes will rise and take over
 

blunthead

Well-Known Member
Aug 2, 2006
80,755
195,461
Atlanta GA
By the way, does anyone know what might have happened at the end of this book? I just figured that the winner was hallucinating and felt that the hands on him made him think it was a soldier. So he kept running; however I have heard other people say because it's a Bachman book that the winner actually died in the end. I keep reading the last line and don't get it. Surely it wouldn't happen in front of the crowd. After all, he did win.
I feel sK left the climax to The Long Walk open to personal interpretation, which was a wonderful choice on his part. It's a very moving ending to me, consequently.
My own interpretation is torn between two primary likelihoods: one, that the protagonist dies and his subsequent experience describes his spirit finding final release from the anguish he'd endured to the end; the other, that he loses his mind.
Either explanation works for me, but sK's genius is in not specifying what happens.
 

Pucker

We all have it coming, kid
May 9, 2010
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While the tone is obviously much darker, I don't know that the society that wants to watch Garraty and his friends "get their ticket" is not that far removed from a society that likes to watch people eat raw fish anuses on Fear Factor.

The general message seems to be that life is not only not worth living, it's not worth watching.
But death is.

These kids won a lottery to get their chance to be shot in the head (if they play nice) or elswhere (if they don't).

That's the prize: Death with honor.

None of them but Scramm and the kid who thinks he's the Major's son really believe they can win, and I suspect most of them don't really want to. King never really tells us why.

That's up to you to figure out.

That's what makes it such a fantastic story.

Good as any I've read.
 

mal

content
Jun 23, 2007
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I just finished reading this again after a whole lot of years and I loved it! I'd like to think that he was rested and freshened up after the end and went on to help his fellow travellers families and subversively worked at destroying future long walks. Happy reading, mal.
 
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duf70

Well-Known Member
May 27, 2008
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Monterrey, Mexico
Amazing story and the fact that it was his first it's even more amazing (if not, it must have been one of his first ones, I believe he wrote it when he was 18).

I really need to rush and start re-reading this one! I am not sure what I will make of the ending this time....
 
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recitador

Speed Reader
Sep 3, 2016
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think gladiators of ancient rome. those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. looking at worldwide society, can you honestly say we're really learning? technology doesn't count btw, i'm speaking of character
 
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