For those who don't know, a few years after Stephen King became a hugely popular author he tried to pull a fast one on the American public by publishing a few novels under a pseudonym and seeing what happened. He called himself 'Richard Bachman', and after he published a four or five novels the word got out that Stephen King had actually wrote those books so everyone went back and tried to catch up with his suddenly expanded body or work. Now Stephen King isn't really known as the most positive guy, but when writing as Bachman he would go to an even darker place than usual, and as such the 'Bachman books' as they were called all ended up skewing more depressing than the rest of his work. I definitely noticed this in The Long Walk, which is actually the first book he ever started writing, long before Carrie was published. At first glance The Long Walk has tinges of the recent Hunger Games craze- in a sort of present dystopia there exists a game show where 100 boys at the northern peak of Maine simply start walking South. Slowing down or stopping earns you a warning, and after three warnings if you don't start walking, you're shot in the head. There can be only one victor of the Long Walk! Horrifying, right? The boys walk at a slow pace day and night wondering what the hell they're doing there, at times getting philosophical on the nature of the walk; other times just shooting the shit as teen boys are wont to do. King was great at the whole 'show, don't tell' thing we had drilled into our brain in middle school English class by giving us just enough to see that this society is very close to our own (someone references Ron Howard!) but slightly off, with throwaway lines about events in World War II that never happened and there being an April 31st. Of course, eventually the boys start dying off in droves, leading to an ending that's predictable but still grim enough to stick with you for a while. Overall I liked it, and now I've got like 13 King books down so obviously I'll be back again.
Yeah, I've heard about his stint as Richard Bachman, and although I guess he was still relatively young and less famous than he is today when he pulled it off, I'm kind of amazed he was able to do so. I've still never read any Stephen King (though I certainly plan to) but one of his books I'm most interested in is the first one he published as Bachman: "Rage." It's about a teenager who goes nanners and does a school shooting, and over the years its been found in a number of school shooters' lockers and backpacks and stuff. King is typically opposed to censorship and limitation of content in media, but he willingly let Rage go out of print a while back and seems very embarrassed and ashamed to have ever written it. Makes sense - the thing at least partially inspired several different school shootings - but it also really piques my curiosity, what with being such a tantalizing forbidden fruit and all. I'm sure I can find the text itself online somewhere, but physical copies of the book go for hundreds of dollars on eBay. I hope it doesn't reflect too poorly on my character, but damn, I'm kind of intrigued.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this book sounds like a decent read too. God, what's wrong with me?