I'm not entirely sure what this book is about. I mean, yeah, obviously it's about a bunch of young men / old boys walking in a deadly game show for a mysterious, alluded-to Prize. But what was it REALLY about, you know? Like, life or something? Coming out of the closet? Trying to survive being so horny you nut in your pants just because you saw a guy dry hump a woman on the hood of a car?
I couldn't help feeling that this was Stephen King's version of John Barth's "Night-Sea Journey" and the boys represented slightly less philosophical spermatozoa on their journey to the Prize of fertilizing the egg. But the final, surviving sperm sees the end of the journey, similar to the spermatozoa in Barth's book, as not the magic and miraculous gift of life but as the continuation of pain, agony, and death.
Being a King/Bachman book, I might not have paid as close attention to it as I should have, mostly reading it at a surface level, enjoying the plots and themes and grisly deaths. But I read it at the same time that I was reading Infinite Jest so I couldn't help thinking about each boy's secret life, their obsessions, their reasons for living/joining the Long Walk. It felt like the main kid Ray's reason for joining the race is never fully articulated and either the reader is supposed to ferret it out from the clues he drops to the other contestants or it's left a bit ambiguous so the reader can project their own reason onto Ray.
If I were to guess, based on the many, many, many clues dropped like a spilled tool box full of really heavy tools and hardly any light, Nerf tools, I'd say Ray was gay (Oh! His name was probably a clue! Ray Garrity = Gay Rarity?) and entered the Walk to escape the shame he felt, and his fear of coming out to his mother and girlfriend. I still have large bumps and drying blood all over my head from a few of the heavier clues King dropped.
I can't wait for the movie! I hope in the movie, McVries actually does jerk off Ray while they're walking down the road!
I couldn't help feeling that this was Stephen King's version of John Barth's "Night-Sea Journey" and the boys represented slightly less philosophical spermatozoa on their journey to the Prize of fertilizing the egg. But the final, surviving sperm sees the end of the journey, similar to the spermatozoa in Barth's book, as not the magic and miraculous gift of life but as the continuation of pain, agony, and death.
Being a King/Bachman book, I might not have paid as close attention to it as I should have, mostly reading it at a surface level, enjoying the plots and themes and grisly deaths. But I read it at the same time that I was reading Infinite Jest so I couldn't help thinking about each boy's secret life, their obsessions, their reasons for living/joining the Long Walk. It felt like the main kid Ray's reason for joining the race is never fully articulated and either the reader is supposed to ferret it out from the clues he drops to the other contestants or it's left a bit ambiguous so the reader can project their own reason onto Ray.
If I were to guess, based on the many, many, many clues dropped like a spilled tool box full of really heavy tools and hardly any light, Nerf tools, I'd say Ray was gay (Oh! His name was probably a clue! Ray Garrity = Gay Rarity?) and entered the Walk to escape the shame he felt, and his fear of coming out to his mother and girlfriend. I still have large bumps and drying blood all over my head from a few of the heavier clues King dropped.
I can't wait for the movie! I hope in the movie, McVries actually does jerk off Ray while they're walking down the road!
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