The Long Walk or The True Story That Maybe Happened

So I mentioned some changes here at the Pink Park Bench.  One of the things I would like to do is get on more of a schedule.  I've always posted pretty regularly on Mondays. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, but I'd also like to dedicate certain types of posts to certain days.  Yesterday you read about My Mommy Moments which I'll be writing about on Mondays.  I'd like to start writing about my reads on Tuesdays.

I'm a reader. I love to read.  Actually, love might be a bit of an understatement.  I'm obsessed with reading. (I even collect copies of my most favorite book...)  Granted, I don't get to read as much as I used to, what with a kid, job, and general life responsibilities, but 9 times out of 10, if I have a free hour I'll spend it reading.  If I'm waiting for something/someone, I'll read while waiting.  If I'm doing my business (you know what business I'm talking about), I read.  I read books, magazines, blogs, news sites... Really anything that strikes my fancy.

Anyway, I thought Tuesdays might be a good day to share some of what I like to read with you all here.  Of course, I'll highlight what I'm reading now and some of my favorite books.  I'll also post about magazine articles I read that I've just got to share with someone.  I'd also like to feature some of my favorite blogs here. 

So there you have it.  Let's get started...

I just finished reading The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz.

During WWII, Slav was a Polish Army Lieutenant who was imprisoned by the Russians for reasons that include spying.  After being imprisoned in several Russian prisons for about a year, Slav was found guilty, sentenced to 25 years hard labor and transported to a Russian labor camp.  Slav and six other prisoners escaped the labor camp and trekked over 4000 miles from the labor camp in Siberia through Mongolia, the Gobi desert, over the Himalayas, and into India.

As the title says this book is a true story...

Supposedly...

If this is a true story, it's an amazing true story.  These seven men took the greatest risk a human can take to escape a camp (in which they probably were wrongly imprisoned in anyway) so they could be free.  They traveled over 4000 miles, most of the time with no food or water, in handmade moccasins and with one axe and knife for protection.  They walked over 30 miles a days while starving and dehydrated, sometime with little to no sleep.  It's beyond amazing what the human body can do to get what it wants. In this case, freedom.

When I started reading this book, I couldn't put it down.  First, I was fascinated by what these prisoners had to go through.  Slav recounts episodes of torture and being kept in a cell that was just big enough for a man to stand.  He couldn't bend his knees to sit or lay down, so for months on end he was kept in a standing position.  After he was found guilty, he was put on a train with hundreds of other prisoners, standing room only, and transported across Russia.  Once they were taken off the trains, the prisoners were chained to the back of trucks and had to walk for three months through Siberian blizzards to reach the labor camp. 

Throughout this entire time Slav talks about escaping.  The thought was rarely far from his mind.  Once he had been in the labor camp for some time the opportunity for escape arose and he took it, along with six other men, including one American who had been arrested while working in Russia.

Like I said, a page turner. 

About half way through though, I started to doubt the truth of the book.

I was an English minor in college, so I took a fiction writing class.  I can remember the teacher telling us, "Don't ever write, 'We were sitting in a cafe in Italy with the full moon light streaming through the window and Frank Sinatra singing, 'That's Amore' when my boyfriend proposed.' because, in fiction, if it seems to good to be true, it is."  Her point being that fiction is based on real life, so people want to believe it can be true.  However, in real life you can't plan something that perfect.  If you can't plan perfection in real life then don't plan it for fiction.

This book was too perfect.  In fact, it was so perfect, it's completely unbelievable to me.  First of all, the opportunity for escape came when the labor camp's commander's wife started talking to Slav about escape in a totally, "I know you would never do it, but theoretically..."  I mean, really?!  At one point she even says, "You shouldn't escape in a month when my husband is away because that would be bad." *wink wink*

When they travel through the Gobi desert, Slav recounts how they went 12 days without food or water.  12 days.  Can the human body really go 12 days without water and still function?  The fact that he also remembers that it is 12 days baffles me as well.  There are several other parts throughout the book when he can't remember this detail or that detail, but while starving, completely dehydrated, and wandering through a desert in extreme heat, barely able to stand at some parts, he can remember exactly which day they are on.

The crossing of the Himalayas also posed a problem for me.  People spend their whole lives training to scale mountains and climb to the very tippy top, with the proper equipment none-the-less.  However, these starving, broken, tired men manage to do it without food, water, shoes or sleep. (Slav specifically recounts how they didn't sleep for fear of dying in the cold.)

Another aspect of the book that I find just a bit too perfect is that they are always, miraculous saved just when they can't go on a step farther.  After near death in the desert they just happen upon an oasis that was apparently occupied mere hours earlier so there is leftover food and water.  After so many days of traveling with no food or water, they just happen upon a random shepherd in a cave who willing kills one of his own flock.  Or, my favorite part, after days of climbing the Himalayas they find a recently abandoned cave with sheep skins in the back and food hanging from the ceiling.     

I also noticed that whenever they happened upon a small village or another person who was willing to help them, one of two things occurred.  Either the village or cave was described as being hidden from view, so it was a mere accident it was found at all and the odds of it being found again are pretty slim. Or the person didn't speak the same language so they were unable to get names.  Nothing in the book is concrete with regards to names, places, and exact dates.  Also, without a map or a handy GPS system they managed to completely avoid civilization. 

I won't give away the ending, but I'll give you a guess as to how many of the seven survived that could be tracked down to verify the story?  There are more areas of the book that bother me or are just too perfect to be real in my opinion, but I think you get the gist.

Overall, the book was entertaining.  I did want to finish the book and regardless of it's authenticity, I enjoyed reading it.  However, because it is "a true story" I found myself scoffing at several parts and even predicting what would happen next. (Since it was too perfect it was pretty easy to guess what happens at certain parts.)

The reason I started reading the book is because the movie is coming out in the USA later this month.  The movie is called The Way Back and it stars Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, and Jum Sturgess.  It looks like its not 100% the same as the book, but I'm curious to see it.

Has anyone else read this book?  What did you think of it?