u/IlMonco1900

Bart Dawes is not doing well. The small house he bought with his wife Mary, the one that still holds the last memories of their son Charlie, who died from a brain tumor, is set to be demolished because the state is building new roads, and that beloved home happens to be in the way.
The monetary compensation for relocation means as little to him as his own life. Bart is determined to preserve the house and the memories attached to it, and he spirals into a self-destructive downward descent that costs him his job, his marriage, his savings, and ultimately his already fragile mental state. Without really knowing what he plans to do with them, he begins buying weapons, ammunition, and explosives.

What we have here is New Hollywood and Neo-Noir in literary form. Absolutely,outstanding. I practically inhaled this book.

The story is very much a one-man show, and in this character study that is a real strength, because we remain constantly close to Bart, following his every breath and witnessing how, perhaps for the right reasons, he repeatedly makes the wrong decisions and as readers, it simply hurts to watch.

It is utterly fascinating to accompany a grieving man who sinks deeper and deeper into depression, turns to alcohol, cannot and will not let go, and finds himself powerless against the state and bureaucracy in a Kafkaesque manner. Every small (sometimes questionable) success he achieves feels like cutting off the head of a Hydra. A story for anyone who does not seek a pleasant reading experience and instead appreciates bleak hopelessness and uncompromising self-destruction.

This is now the third of the Bachman books I’ve read, and despite its, in my opinion, undeserved unpopularity, it is the best one so far for me. So much love for this piece of american literature. It also reinforces my impression that King is at his best when he is not writing supernatural horror, but rather human horror, the small-scale tragedy that may nevertheless mean the end of the world for the person experiencing it.

Now like most, my main reason to purchase this edition of the Bachman Books was to be able to read a physical copy of Rage. The elusive and mythical, fascinating aura of "the forbidden" surrounds it, which didn't necessarily raise my expectations so high they couldn't be met, but I at least expected something very dark and "special" so to say.

I didn't get that. All in all I'd rate the book 3/5, it was fine and that's it. But what I got wasn't a completely deranged kid, slaughtering his way through school, living out some inhumane fantasies like forcing other hostages to kill or torture eachother while captive to play some kind of survivor games, rape some chick in front of class he's always wanted to have or whatever, there's many things I could think of that would actually justify the reputation of the book, but at the end of the day Charlie "just" killed two teachers, tell the class cliche stories about his abusive father, being beaten up and bullied, failing to get a hard on when a girl wanted to fuck (which I'm aware are probably realistic motives for traumatized school shooters, but reality often isn't all that interesting) and then made the other students tell some embarrassing secrets and at the end have them humiliate the popular kid.

I can understand to a degree why King ain't happy with the book, first and foremost I wouldn't be happy with it because it's so banal) and how it bothers him that it was in the possession of some school shooters, but it just kinda rubs me the wrong way he let it go out of print. Heavy Metal bands didn't pull their records from shelves, movies haven't been taken from stores and video games didn't stop being published - all sources accused or quoted to be inspiration to some shooters. Maybe I'm just annoyed that this mid book is just hard to get in physical form. But I just don't like art being published and then pulled, no matter how mediocre it may be, it was created, it was released and in my ethos that means it belongs to the world and has to stay.

Anyway just my two cents, on to The Long Walk.