The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom: Movie Tie-In Author: Slavomir Rawicz | Language: English | ISBN:
B004GNFSO0 | Format: EPUB
The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom: Movie Tie-In Description
MORE THAN HALF A MILLION COPIES SOLD!
The classic adventure story that inspired the new major motion picture The Way Back, directed by Peter Weir
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“I hope The Long Walk will remain as a memorial to all those who live and die for freedom, and for all those who for many reasons could not speak for themselves.”
—Slavomir Rawicz
"The Long Walk is a book that I absolutely could not put down and one that I will never forget..."--Stephen Ambrose
"A poet with steel in his soul."--New York Times
"One of the most amazing, heroic stories of this or any other time."--Chicago Tribune
“A book filled with the spirit of human dignity and the courage of men seeking freedom.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Heroism is not the domain of the powerful; it is the domain of people whose only other alternative is to give up and die…. [The Long Walk] must be read—and reread, and passed along to friends.”—National Geographic Adventure
“The ultimate human endurance story…told with clarity, vivid description, and a good dash of romance and humor.”—The Vancouver Sun
"Essentially it comes down to some sort of inner tenacity and that is what is so gripping about the book because you know that this is actually about all of us. It's not just some Polish bloke who wanted to get home. It's about how we all struggle on every day. Somehow or other we find a reason to keep on going and it's the same here but on an epic scale".--Benedict Allen, explorer and bestselling author of Into the Abyss and Edge of Blue Heaven
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In 1941, the author and six fellow prisoners of war escaped a Soviet labor camp in Yakutsk—a camp where enduring hunger, cold, untended wounds, and untreated illnesses, and avoiding daily executions were everyday feats. Their march—over thousands of miles by foot—out of Siberia, through China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and over the Himalayas to British India is a remarkable statement about man’s desire to be free.
Written in a hauntingly detailed, no-holds-barred way, the book inspired the Peter Wier film The Way Back, due for release in late 2010. Previous editions have sold hundreds of thousands of copies; this edition includes an afterword written by the author shortly before his death, as well as the author's introduction to the book's Polish edition.
Guaranteed to forever stay in the reader's mind, The Long Walk will remain a testament to the strength of the human spirit, and the universal desire for freedom and dignity.
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Six-time Academy Award–nominee Peter Weir (Master and Commander, The Truman Show, and The Dead Poets Society) recently directed The Way Back, a much-anticipated film based on The Long Walk. Starring Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess, and Ed Harris, it is due for release in late 2010.
- File Size: 2137 KB
- Print Length: 288 pages
- Publisher: Lyons Press; Mti Rep edition (November 16, 2010)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B004GNFSO0
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,762 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
The story in a nutshell: A Polish Army officer is captured by the Soviets after they have joined Hitler in dismembering his country. Rawicz (the officer) is tortured in the Soviet prison system and sent to the Gulags. Faced with misery in Siberia and probable death, he and a band of others escape and undertake a two thousand-mile long journey from the snows of Siberia through Mongolia, the Gobi Desert, and across the Himalayas toward British India and freedom.
This is a great story. The author describes the mindless torture under the Soviet system in a manner that should persuade any reader of the evil of totalitarianism. The description of his train journey, hundred-mile winter hike through a Siberian winter to his gulag and life in the camp is fascinating. His will to survive amidst degradation, the elements and overwhelming odds are a testament to the human thirst for freedom and liberty.
As other reviewers have stated, there are some parts of the book that invite skepticism. His befriending by the camp commandant's wife seems as improbable as it is crucial to his ability to escape. The escapees journey across the Gobi Desert where his group went for many days without water beyond what I understood a person could tolerate. Without any climbing tools, his party went across the Himalayas to India -- a feat that seems fantastic. Also his brief description of spotting what could only be described as the elusive Yetti in the Himalayas stretches credibility (unless it does actually exist).
That being said, this story is exhilarating and I found it believable and enthralling. It is a wonderful adventure story and describes the limits of what the human spirit and mind can endure to survive in freedom.
I am an avid reader of non-fiction adventure stories. Based on the positive reviews of The Long Walk, I was anxious to get my hands on a copy and dig in. Now that I have read it, I must say that it was a real disappointment. This book is not for any objective reader expecting an authentic non-fiction adventure story. If you're just interested in distracting yourself with a bizarre adventure fantasy, and are willing to forget reason and ignore the outright lies, then you might like it. But it is definitely not a true account of the author's experiences as trumpeted in the subtitle and text.
Rawicz (through his tabloid journalist ghost writer, Ronald Downing) makes countless outlandish claims that are not supported by any witnesses, documentation, or even detailed descriptions on his part. Moreover, his assertions often defy the laws of science and common sense. Here are but a few examples:
- reaching his destination after wandering a year through 4,000 miles of wilderness with no maps, supplies?
- trekking 12 days across a torrid stretch of the Gobi desert in mid summer with no water or food?
- crossing the Himalayas, summiting mtn after mtn in only worn moccasins and a few ragged articles of clothing?
- encountering a yeti and taunting it like those guys in the beef jerky commercial (no joke-it's in the book!)?
- Rawicz's inability to provide the most basic details about his ordeal such as the first name of one of his closest companions on the trek (the American, "Mr. Smith"!) or where he was finally picked up by the British Army or the hospital he claimed to recover in?
the list goes on and on...
The BBC did an investigation into Rawicz's story and also concluded it was a fraud.
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