# The Long Walk, by Stephen King **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 21, 2005, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997 "2005-01-21T23:19:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/41 "2005-01-22T17:28:46Z")
The movie was really bad. The CGI movie shitweasels lost all semblance to the ones in the stroy, that was just a minor complaint on my long list of complaints about that steaming pile. I really enjoyed the book. Thought it was fairly good. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/42 "2005-01-22T18:43:15Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > Hmm…didn’t know he ever made that comment about Lovecraft. Seems like the hairy vagina alien must have imprinted-- I mean, what the hell are the _shitweasels_ in _Dreamcatcher_, if not hairy vaginas with teeth? Think it’s a either a conscious or subconscious tribute to Lovecraft? [http://www.cnn.com/books/news/9809/24/king.interview.salon/index2.html](http://www.cnn.com/books/news/9809/24/king.interview.salon/index2.html) > [@](#): > > Does your evocation of the Maine landscape owe anything to the fiction you read as a kid – H.P. Lovecraft in his books set in the woods of Massachusetts? > > No, not really. I mean, it did at the time, when I was 13, 14, 15 – which I maintain is the perfect age to read Lovecraft. Lovecraft is the perfect fiction for people who are living in a state of sort of total sexual doubt, because the stories almost seem to me sort of Jungian in their imagery. They’re all about gigantic disembodied vaginas and things that have teeth. And that sense of the ancient New England landscape … very kindly, Lovecraft was a lot less interested in using the landscape as a place where reality was thin and sort of deserted in the New England community as he was in trying to express that kind of feeling of ancient life. So I had a tendency to copy that when I was a kid, and I think later on I just tried to go back and find a more realistic way to talk about the quality of that landscape. For instance, you know, when Lovecraft writes “The Dunwich Horror,” about Dunwich, Mass. I mean, in a way it’s a lot of idealized crap – he was a city boy. He didn’t live in the country. And what he knew about it he saw from the windows of buses going between Providence and New York City. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/43 "2005-01-22T18:50:58Z")
> [@pokey](#): > > It was pretty bad, but I always try to blot out From a Buick 8. “What about a car… that just stays in the garage!! WOAH THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES FOR MENACE!” I always wondered why it never occurred to any of the characters to, you know, take the car apart and find out what makes it different from other cars. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/44 "2005-01-22T19:27:17Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > Maybe someone can explain the ending of _The Long Walk_ to me? IIRC, the winner of the Walk gets whatever he wants for the rest of his life. > > The ending was ambiguous, and I don’t know what it was supposed to signify. Did the winner go mad at the end? Was there a catch to winning? Well, the walkers breifly discussed a past winner who died of a stroke or something several days after winning, and one of the walkers suggested (albeit in a moment of anger) that there was no prize and the government just took the winner out back and shot him. For Garraty, though, it looks like he starts hallucinating some kind of spectre of death in the final stages of the walk and then goes completely nuts and/or dies (runs to Valhallah, as it were) in the last paragraph. I get the impression King didn’t really _have_ a solid notion on how to end the story, which is understandable since the story is about the Walk itself, not the outcome. ---
**Author:** ![restlessnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/97f17d/32.png) [@restlessnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/restlessnight)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/45 "2013-08-11T06:23:56Z")
If it is true,can’t wait to see it ,I will be the first in my country ,ready to watch this movie ,I know for sure that movie will be sad and heartbreaking ,maybe in the movie ,we will know what became of Raymond garraty,🙂 but can’t wait!!!. hope it comes out soon king,love your books ,thought u need to know . ---
**Author:** ![nion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c5a1d2/32.png) [@nion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nion)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/46 "2013-08-11T07:14:23Z")
As I recall at the end of the story, Garraty had essentially devolved into madness by the time he crossed the finish line. Even as people cheered and congratulated him, he was alone in his head, knowing he’d die if he stopped. The point being that the trial made the prize pointless in the end, I think. I also agree that King’s best works are psychologically driven. Characters’ personalities, interactions and motivations weave together the narrative. He is also, excuse the pun, the king of creating immersive worlds. I think the fact that someone wrote an entire book mapping out the connections between people, places and events spanning decades of his work speaks for itself. Undeniably some of his works are less than stellar, but that’s true of any artist I think. I’ll also say the man is far too fond of sexual content. I think that it’s rarely needed in books, movies, etc. It seems a common trope for him, though and it’s frankly off-putting. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/47 "2013-08-11T08:33:24Z")
Don’t get your hopes up. I heard the movie is going to have zombies in it. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/48 "2013-08-12T16:46:52Z")
> [@nion](#): > > As I recall at the end of the story, Garraty had essentially devolved into madness by the time he crossed the finish line. Even as people cheered and congratulated him, he was alone in his head, knowing he’d die if he stopped. The point being that the trial made the prize pointless in the end, I think. This is exactly how I interpreted it. He won, but it didn’t matter. I think \*The Long Walk \*is my all-time favorite by King. Interestingly enough, I’d rank _Thinner_ up there too, and they were both Bachman books. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/49 "2013-08-12T17:34:57Z")
> [@flamingbananas](#): > > They are making a film version of _The Long Walk_!? That’ll be a chilling movie. 99 kids have to die. It’s interesting to go back and read comments like this now that we have _The Hunger Games_. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/50 "2013-08-12T18:43:59Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Don’t get your hopes up. I heard the movie is going to have zombies in it. I think you could make that work. There’s a ton of dystopian backstory that was well hinted-at in the book, but could be too cumbersome in a movie to explain. With zombies, you could just line the sides of the road with fence, and put slow zombies behind the pack, who kill and eat anyone who can’t keep up. Plus, you then get away with not having to have soldiers kill children. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/51 "2013-08-12T18:45:18Z")
…if you fall below 4 mph, you get a ticket…to the zombie show! ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997/52 "2013-08-12T19:11:50Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It’s interesting to go back and read comments like this now that we have _The Hunger Games_. Which could be a problem for any movie adaptation, because it will seem derivative, even though the novel came first. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-walk-by-stephen-king/285997.md?page=2)