Not only do I feel "The Long Walk" is King's best Bachman book, but one of his best books overall. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for subtlety/brevity within a story. I enjoy a novel that refuses to hand the reader everything all at once, instead it drops bits and pieces gradually. Setting up a tone that says "hey, you need to make sure to pay attention!". This style of writing has been my main inspiration as a writer of short stories.
It's horrifying that you have this alternate reality/dystopian setting that's kept purposefully vague. It refuses to give you a set time period. You know it takes place in Maine, in the US. However, there are little differences thrown into the mix that become more apparent as you read on and make you question the setting even more. My favorite part, and something I enjoyed in Dolores Claiborne as well, is the dialogue. Instead of King describing things to you as narrator, each tidbit is given from either Garratty's perspective, or through conversations he holds/overhears with other Long Walk participants.
Which is an interesting concept in itself, WHY. Why would these young men sign themselves up if they truly knew the outcome? That only one will survive. As they all talk and discussion with each other their individual reasoning it starts to become more and more apparent that they have their eyes set on the prize at the end. That things are so incredibly bad that they'd do anything, even risk their life, to attain it. Yet protagonist Garratty's reasoning is still left somewhat up in the air in comparison to the other boys who walk for more clear-cut reasons. I think this is also horrific, to have a person participating without fully understanding their own motives. Yet here they are.
You could almost say the novel itself is a metaphor for young men being sent off to war, not knowing if they'll survive yet doing it of their own volition for their own reasons. To protect their country, to do a duty, to take care of their family, etc. I say this comparison merely because of the pivotal role the Major plays throughout, and how the population reveres him. There's also a little play on "The Running Man", where this is a televised event. A game of death with the grand prize being, what exactly? Again, left in the air. A prize beyond your wildest dreams.
This is a novel that lets you feel like you're a participant not just an outside viewer. You feel as if you're one of these boys as you join in on their conversations. This allows you to feel the horror that much more when the boys watch people they've become close to, boys they think stand a good chance of winning, be gunned down in an instant. You feel their reactions, their realization with perfect clarity that anyone could well be next. Death spares no one.
Having to face mortality at that age, an age when you're not focused on thinking so deeply about death—where young men frequently feel they will "live forever", is such a heartbreaking story. Nothing is handed to you as you read this, you as the reader are left to draw your own conclusions about everything you've just read. And I think the ambiguity makes this one of King's best novels. Because it's free, it flows, and it buries you deep within a story that haunts your mind as you go about your life asking yourself, what if our world was like that? What if I were in that position? Death spares no one, not even the young. What of my own mortality?
It's horrifying that you have this alternate reality/dystopian setting that's kept purposefully vague. It refuses to give you a set time period. You know it takes place in Maine, in the US. However, there are little differences thrown into the mix that become more apparent as you read on and make you question the setting even more. My favorite part, and something I enjoyed in Dolores Claiborne as well, is the dialogue. Instead of King describing things to you as narrator, each tidbit is given from either Garratty's perspective, or through conversations he holds/overhears with other Long Walk participants.
Which is an interesting concept in itself, WHY. Why would these young men sign themselves up if they truly knew the outcome? That only one will survive. As they all talk and discussion with each other their individual reasoning it starts to become more and more apparent that they have their eyes set on the prize at the end. That things are so incredibly bad that they'd do anything, even risk their life, to attain it. Yet protagonist Garratty's reasoning is still left somewhat up in the air in comparison to the other boys who walk for more clear-cut reasons. I think this is also horrific, to have a person participating without fully understanding their own motives. Yet here they are.
You could almost say the novel itself is a metaphor for young men being sent off to war, not knowing if they'll survive yet doing it of their own volition for their own reasons. To protect their country, to do a duty, to take care of their family, etc. I say this comparison merely because of the pivotal role the Major plays throughout, and how the population reveres him. There's also a little play on "The Running Man", where this is a televised event. A game of death with the grand prize being, what exactly? Again, left in the air. A prize beyond your wildest dreams.
This is a novel that lets you feel like you're a participant not just an outside viewer. You feel as if you're one of these boys as you join in on their conversations. This allows you to feel the horror that much more when the boys watch people they've become close to, boys they think stand a good chance of winning, be gunned down in an instant. You feel their reactions, their realization with perfect clarity that anyone could well be next. Death spares no one.
Having to face mortality at that age, an age when you're not focused on thinking so deeply about death—where young men frequently feel they will "live forever", is such a heartbreaking story. Nothing is handed to you as you read this, you as the reader are left to draw your own conclusions about everything you've just read. And I think the ambiguity makes this one of King's best novels. Because it's free, it flows, and it buries you deep within a story that haunts your mind as you go about your life asking yourself, what if our world was like that? What if I were in that position? Death spares no one, not even the young. What of my own mortality?