Kavi Reads

I had never read a Stephen King novel before. Many people I’ve talked to consider him their favourite author. They say he’s called the “King of Horror”. I didn’t even know he was still alive and writing. He was just someone whom I never approached. Even his speciality genre of horror fiction isn’t one I usually turn to look for my next book. I don’t remember why I chose this book. Like many others on my list, I added it a long time ago and forgot about it until the library informed me it is ready for check-out. Thus, my first King novel ended up being The Long Walk. Which is quite ironic given he published it under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman.

No Spoilers

Published in 1979, King’s novel is set in a future version of America (might as well be today) where society has gone backwards and murder has become entertainment once again. Though not explicitly stated, it is clear that the country is run by a militaristic government. Even year, people come together to watch an event called “The Long Walk”. The rules are simple: a hundred people start walking and the last man standing is the winner. The reward: anything your heart desires. The minimum speed you have to maintain is four miles an hour. If you slow down below it for thirty seconds, you get a warning. Three warnings and you get your head blown off… literally.

And that’s it. No huge twists, no heroes and villains, no deus ex machina. As many of the contestants realise as they keep going, all there is is the road, and they have to keep walking on it. How King made a compelling story without using any of the usual elements of compelling stories was incredible. On the road, we follow the journey of Ray Garrary and 99 other late-teens that were chosen (somehow. The application process was mostly left as a mystery) for the Walk. As they walk from ten to fifty to hundreds of miles, we get to hear a lot of their stories, about where they came from, what they might want if they win, and most of all, how they are feeling right then. I will say, this is not a book that should be read while training for a marathon (half-marathon in my case). Some of the descriptions of the state of the contestants’ feet and legs are as horrifying as they are hard to get out of your head. The entirety of the book is a raw form of survival, where you have to keep going even if the mind and body refuse. King manages to encapsulate some of what it must be like to survive when everyone around you, friend, foe or stranger, is falling amongst blood and gunshots in the light, darkness, rain, sun and what feels like utter insanity.

But it wasn’t just the details King gave that makes this story chilling. The fact that no real details were given about the world outside the Long Walk makes it even more so. Simply the existence of an event as brutal as this spoke at great length about the state of civilisation. Only men participated in the Long Walk, which on one hand indicated that some form of a sexism is part of the culture. On the other hand, I was thankful to not see women shot by soldiers for not walking fast enough. There’s no reason given for why the Walk happens either. It’s referred to as “the national sport”, and that’s a large chunk of it: entertainment, watched by millions on television.

Spoilers ahead

Through the entire book, there was one thing that remained constant: Stebbins. He walked by himself, almost never talking to anyone in the back of the pack on a constant speed. He never picked a warning since the very beginning of the race, when he was deliberately walking slow, to try and estimate what four miles an hour is. Where other contestants were showing a wide range of emotions, some even going insane, Stebbins never had a reaction to anything. Until the very end, he was as stoic as anything. In the final battle for victory between Stebbins and Garraty, just when Garatty was about to give in, stop, and congratulate Stebbins on winning, for the first time, he saw a horror in Stebbins’s eyes. And then Stebbins fell over… dead. That was by far the most fascinating/frightening part of the book. No matter how infallible Stebbins seemed, no matter how much he seemed to keep on going indefintely, the walk eventually got him. And Garraty won. Maybe Stephen King truly is the King of Horror.