The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels (1985)

Particulary loved the Long Walk ( )

Four early novels by King written under the name of Richard Bachman. Not much compassion in these works, but they are all monstrously entertaining. ( )

Four early novels by King written under the name of Richard Bachman. Not much compassion in these works, but they are all monstrously entertaining. ( )

Reason for Reading: I'm in the process of of re/reading all of Stephen King's works in chronological order. I'm reading these books individually in the order they were published between his other works.

Rage - This is the first book Stephen King published under the nome de plume of Richard Bachman. This is very different from the other books he had published at this time. I'm not sure if it really fits in under any specific genre other than just fiction. This is an angry story of an angry youth who, in his last year of high school, thinks he is going insane and one day takes his algebra classroom hostage at gun point after killing two teachers in the process. The story turns into a "Breakfast Club" type of scenario as the hostages and the hostage taker tell stories and learn about each other. Interesting story, well-written and thought-provoking. Recommend.

The Long Walk - I originally read "The Long Walk" when King released his omnibus of "The Bachman Books" in 1985. Of the four novels "The Long Walk" and "The Running Man" were my favourites and I was looking forward to this re-read. Initially, the book struck a chord with me because even back in the eighties I could imagine a world where game shows had turned to life or death. Of course, now, in the 21st century, with reality shows that embarrass, degrade, hurt and sometimes seriously injure participants physically and/or emotionally; the life and death scenario is not so hard to imagine in today's death culture and in fact has already been done with the mock abortion reality show "Bump".

In "The Long Walk" we are in a future America, which has a dictator and a military presence, we know only that some event happened in the past for things to turn out this way. Boys from the age of 14 to 17 are allowed to enter the annual Long Walk, from which 100 contestants are chosen. The event is a national spectacle and parts of it are aired on TV and millions of dollars are exchanged in bets on who will be the winner. The book focuses on the race from one participant's point of view and we experience the physical, emotional and mental hardships and breakdowns that these boys suffer. Penalty for slipping below 4 miles per hour during the walk results in a warning every thirty seconds, after the 3rd warning, their is a 30 second countdown and the loser is shot dead and carried away. The game ends when one contestant remains alive. I really appreciated the psychological insight into the Walkers as a whole group and as individuals; the dynamics as they broke down into small groups, pairs and loners; and the examination of the varying effects that the psychological and physical torture had on different individuals. Probably my favourite of all the Bachman books, but I'll have to reread them all before I make a definite decision. A reread that lived up to my expectations. (5/5)

Roadwork - This is my first re-read that I went into it with absolutely no memory of the story whatsoever. And my copy only has some vague sentence about an angry man fighting back as a summary so I was none the wiser from that. As I read it really didn't come back to me either, which is strange as I completely remember the other three in this book.

This is a hard book for me to review as it got better as I read it. Honestly, I was quite bored for the first half and didn't really get hooked until close to the end when the excitement built. This is a story that tries too hard to show the reader the mental breakdown of a man. One who looses it and goes out "guns blazing". When we meet Bart he's already well down the road to no return, hearing a voice and talking with it. The book takes a long time to slowly let the reader know who this voice is and what the whole story behind it is and this is part of the book's slowness and what made it such a bland read for the most part. Now, even though I seem negative here; the book wasn't bad; in fact it was good. This story is a thinker. Bart is 'crazy' when we meet him and in my mind the deeper he goes into his insanity the saner he becomes, until at the end of the book when he can be viewed as a madman, he is at his ultimate sanest moment in the entire book. He has taken himself where he wanted to end up even though he didn't know it as far back as a few years ago when "the incident" happened and he's enjoyed these last weeks getting there. I was satisfied with the read at the end, even though I had a hard time really getting into it.

This is the first Bachman that I truly felt was King. The writing style, the stream of consciousness, the dialogue are all classic King and thinking back I can see true fans of the time putting the clues together at this point and outing King as Bachman (or at least suspecting) with this book.

When I read a King, I always look out for connections to other books and the only one I noticed here was one of the laundry machines was called The Mangler. This is the name of a machine (perhaps even the title?) in a short story in "Night Shift". 3.5/5

Ongoing review as I read each book:
The Long Walk: one of the most depressing things I have ever read. It's just unremittingly bleak. I guess it's a metaphor for life and the boys that start the walk certainly end it as men. King even describes them as old men by the end. They form bonds, they fall out, they experience all the extremes of emotion, and King expertly describes their passage in often philosophical terms. What I found most depressing I suppose was the gleeful audience reaction to the callous murders of the boys which I suppose parodies the public fascination with disaster and misfortune of public figures.
It's hard to believe that anyone would choose to take part in a contest like this, but these events take place in a parallel universe rather than a future one. King makes this clear when he mentions an attack on a German nuclear base in South America in 1953, the implication being the Nazis won the war in this particular dimension. The dark figure of The Major is also rather Hitlerian.
The writing is very impressive. To take a simple, if disturbing scenario like this, and write over 200 pages on the relationships and breakdowns of a bunch of characters within it, and to make you care about them, is quite an achievement I think.
Addition: In his excellent 'Re-reading Stephen King' series in the UK's Guardian newspaper (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/30/rereading-stephen-king-the-long-walk), James Smythe points out that the Long Walk is actually a metaphor for war, Vietnam in particular. This really puts the events of the novel in context and makes it that much more impressive to me. As if that wasn't enough, King was only 18 when he wrote it ! ( )