The Long Walk: Book Review

I just finished reading The Long Walk by the obscure writer Richard Bachman. This is my first novel by the writer. It is also apparently his first novel, though it is not his first published one. He wrote it when he was a freshman in college, and I found the project to be especially impressive given this background.

The basic premise of this book is very simple: there is a totalitarian society that has replaced the American government, and it now hosts what is called "The Long Walk," which is a yearly event where one hundred young men compete to win a prize. However, the execution is far more straightforward, but also more brutal, than other dystopian fiction like the Hunger Games. In this game, they have to keep up a pace of 4 miles per hour. If they fall below this pace, they receive a warning; after three warnings, they are then shot and killed. The last one walking is then declared the winner.

It is from this decidedly simple premise that a terrifying and brutal story follows.

Let's get right into it.

No Spoilers

Plot

I think the plot is the first thing that is worth talking about because it is very unconventional. There is no obvious structure to the plot, there are no obvious peaks or troughs, no rising or falling action. At the same time, I found that I did not care at all. The way that the story was structured was almost like a rising wave, where the reader could just feel the building tension over the course of the story until the climax finally happened. And somehow, it worked for me.

I say "somehow," but I know why. The Long Walk was almost exactly like a long distance race. Having participated in cross country in school, and also in a marathon only last year, the uncanny similarities in the experience was just stunning. The way King captured the psychology of the runner during a run was perfect. One of the main things you learn while running is that running is primarily a psychological thing, as opposed to a physical thing. A lot of it has to do with how you perceive things as you run.

For example, I realized that when I was running I would often adopt a mindset that was constantly negative. When I was running up a hill, I would focus on the moment, especially how awful it was; however, when I was going down a hill, I would focus on what would come next, and how awful it would be when I had to run up the next hill. No matter where I was, I would conceptualize my experiences negatively. In order to run more effectively, I had to think about my own thinking, during the act of running—and try to alter it accordingly. While The Long Walk was obviously not this involved in depicting the game, it did show the peaks and the troughs of the characters' psychology, how they would fall in and out of despair during their runs, showing that the experience was not purely a physical one. I thought this was an important touch.

I think this is one example in which King's eschewal of plot in writing actually works out in his favor. I think a more structured plot for a story like this would have made the story feel more artificial and like a caricature. Apparently, it did not work for some people, but speaking as someone who has experience running long distances, I was having flashbacks to those times that I could not escape.

Characters

Because this is a King novel, the characters are worth talking about. When I went into the novel, I expected to find a fair amount of flashbacks, which is rather par for the course with King. This seemed an obvious conclusion given the premise of the story, as well. The whole story is just the characters walking; naturally, we are going to have a fair amount of character-based flashbacks to fill in the back story.

This is where the next surprise happens. And I think it is another happy surprise. Much of the character building is done through dialogue, rather than through flashback. There are some sequences where the main character reminisces about his girlfriend and father, but the bulk of what we learn about the characters is through dialogue that is between the characters. As I suggested, I think the story is all the better for it.

One of the side-effects of this is that there is no head-hopping. We stick to one character throughout the entire narrative, and then have to learn about the other characters through their conversation. While I do think it is possible that some of the characters could have been fleshed out more, I think King did a good job laying the groundwork for the kind of writing that we would come to see later in his career.

Themes

This book was released in 1979, but it was written in the 1960s, and it is obviously partly inspired by the Vietnam War that was going on at the time. While the boys signed up to go on the eponymous Long Walk, they don't entirely understand why they did it. This has obvious parallels to the young men who signed up to fight in Vietnam without truly understanding the implications of what they were doing. And by the end of the experience, it leaves many dead or damaged.

At the same time, I also see some reviewers claiming that The Long Walk is also a metaphor for life itself. Life itself is a relentless and demanding slog that crushes all those who cannot keep up. This resonates with an existentialist view of life, that says that it is a constant struggle and that you just have to push through in order to make it.

Also consistent with the themes is that I think this book works as well as it does because it actually follows through on its brutality. It is King, so it's not like you had to worry about that, lol, but I still think this is a point that is worth emphasizing. The story does not bitch out. It is nasty, brutal, and it is willing to cut right to the heart of the matter.

Additionally, the book is very psychological. It focuses on the psychological torment of the characters, as well as the physical. This is not just in the manner that I talked about above, but also in a way that intersects with the brutality that I am talking about in this section, here. Characters are driven to the point of insanity, during the course of this game, and we do not see characters at their best. King, as usual, is at his best when he does this.

Capitalism

Building off of the themes section, this book is also arguably a critique of capitalism—or, at least, I watched one book commentary that talked about it. It never really occurred to me while reading it, but I guess it makes sense, and I wouldn't be surprised if King concurred with the analysis. The reason it didn't come to mind is because the story is so stripped back. We don't see the marketing aspect of it. We do see the cheering crowds, but it is through the shaded glass of the main character's tortured psychology. As a result, we don't really see much of how The Long Walk manifests within wider society.

I actually prefer the stripped back approach, because it clouds this capitalist critique. I've become so fatigued by this cartoonish pattern of critique in fiction. It's so simplistic, it doesn't really engage with capitalism as it really stands, and it's been done so many times before. The ultimate irony is just how wrong it is. A mere glance at history tells us that the most violent forms of competition precede capitalism; Roman gladiators and violent fights with animals came well before the rise of the market. A mere glance at the current day tells us that the actual competitions that we have are non-lethal, and generally don't have blood. At worst, we have MMA fights, and if you look into the history of that, regulations were implemented because of how out of hand things got at its inception. An honest account would acknowledge that capitalism is broadly correlated with the rise of American football, soccer, MMA, and other sports that are actually non-violent. Instead, many of these dumb battle royal-style critiques just make up some ridiculous reality where capitalism is extreme like it never has been in any society ever in the history of mankind, and that is somehow supposed to compel my interest. It's lowbrow and uninspired.

Either way, I think King avoided the obnoxious messaging by stripping out the surrounding worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding

This leads to the next point. The worldbuilding is basically nonexistent in this book. We know basically nothing. The story takes off right at the beginning and it ends right where it needs to, no fluff at all. And as my description implies, I think this was the right choice. Because of the nature of the plot, everything that could be cut, needed to be cut—and the story did not need that much backdressing to make it work. It was rather similar to The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. The focus is not on the totalitarian regime, it is not on rebellion (or capitalism), it is on the characters in the game, so King rightly maintains that focus.

Criticisms

I do not have many criticisms, nor are the few criticisms very sharp, for this novel.

I mentioned that some of the characters could have been fleshed out more. Art, Collie Parker, and Pearson could have been developed more. But at the same time, upon reflection, many of the characters did have development or served their purpose well. How much can I really complain? After all, it is King.

Other than that, I thought the ending might have been a bit rushed. This is also not a sharp criticism, because a story like this seriously risked dragging for too long. It needed to wrap up when it did. There was a delicate balance, and I think he tipped it in the right direction, at least, even if it was a little too far.

I also thought he could have gone into more detail with the foot gore in the latter part of the story. I was expecting as much. Again, it's King. But alas, my bloodlust was not sated.

I won't mention the capitalism critique (except in this context), because King's commentary is non-specific enough that it didn't really annoy me.

Conclusion

Overall, this was an incredibly engaging read. I think I will give it an 8.5/10.

Video: https://youtu.be/TsyEzOK9A48