All men who are young and strong and do not want to die must think of escape. Step to the right, step to the left… the Russians knew it too. But only a madman could entertain any serious hopes of a break on this wintry trek to the North. (Slavomir Rawicz, The Long Walk, 64)

My family selected this recommended book as our first read (by an overwhelming majority) for our 2019 Siblings’ Book Club, and while most of us closed its pages with a look of skepticism, we all thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m recording it as “non-fiction” in my files, but so many details of the likely-overall-true tale make me doubt its veracity. Nevertheless, we’re all extremely happy with our first selection, and through our international e-mail correspondence, I got some great insights that I’d like to share here. I’d like to discuss our general impressions, the most questionable aspects of the tale, and some theories that might help soften its sharpest edges.

General Impressions: Believability

Early on, I considered it “great adventure,” even comparing it perhaps my all-time favorite book, Alive by Piers Paul Read. I think I jumped the gun on that, because while Read’s epic makes me lose sleep each time read it, just praying the two guys will make their way down the mountain in time for rescue, I wanted to skip Rawicz’s chapters in the Himalayas. His flippancy seemed too unbelievable by comparison! Two starving rugbee lads and their few Andes peaks written with journalistic profession by an outsider versus five skeletons and their hundreds of Himalayan peaks written by one of those skeletons—serious, only one can be true (though a writer’s style does play a part, as I’ll discuss below). Whereas the rescue of the first book brings tears to the eyes, the rescue of the men in The Long Walk brings a “Geez! It’s about time!” In terms of believability, this book seems to lose it little by little with each step of the long walk.

My family was mostly in agreement. One found herself cheering for particular escapees the longer she read, at least once she knew that not all would survive. The one who disappeared in the crevice left her feeling anxious.

My brother didn’t feel like he could fairly judge the story’s believability: fat Americans who complain about shoveling snow shouldn’t comment on the ease or difficulty of Polish and Russian “über mensch” hoofing it out of Siberia. He believed that the “kangaroo court” in the beginning was real, that most of the characters were real, and that the escape itself was real, “but I don’t think they went where he said they went after Siberia, I don’t think it took as long as he said it did, and I think he read a whole lot of travelogues before penning this book.”

Another family member found this book reminiscent of searches for Noah’s Ark, stories which have always intrigued him. “There are many believable, tantalizing stories with good details, but good grief, most of them end in a frustratingly similar way: ‘the weather got bad, so I didn’t get to see the ark up close’ or ‘I gave my pictures to so-and-so and they are lost now.’”

General Impressions: Russian Communism

One thing I didn’t expect from our discussions of this book was our interest in Russian cruelty. My brother was “fascinated by the Russian methods in the first couple of chapters. What in the world were they trying to accomplish with all that nonsense? The could have had a kangaroo court and killed or sentenced him immediately. Who would have known or cared?” He believed the court scenes were valid depictions: “It still happens, and for no other reason than to display their power—and it’s still evil.”

His wife discovered a growing interest in 19th and 20th century Russia (U.S.S.R.). “Since the Cold War has ended, I don’t think younger Americans realize the true threat of this nation, or of Communism in general, and how millions of people have been persecuted for virtually no reason other than a nation’s desire for control and power.” She may even take a class in Russian history as a result—and probably books like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich will be illuminating of her.

Questionable Aspects

We created quite a list of “Wait, what?” moments as we read and enjoyed this book, and the following are a small sampling:

• The Trials of the Trek – 1) Personally, I don’t think the characters could just swim through frozen rivers in freezing temperatures without a fire and expect to walk themselves dry. Just because he doesn’t know the Russian word for “hypothermia” doesn’t mean he and his compatriots are immune to it! 2) Virtually everyone knows that the human body can’t function or survive without water for three days or more, and that’s in relatively normal conditions or under moderate exertion. These people supposedly walked through the Gobi Desert for TWELVE DAYS without water? Seriously!? To this point, my brother dryly noted: “I understand that a few of them succumbed to the extremes, but other than that, his main complaint was foot cracks and blisters? That’s it?!”
  
• The Author’s Memory – Rawicz’s impeccable memory in the most minute details of Mongolian clothing, decor, and knife engravings, the waves a bright red flag—these for me when placed against his virtual non-recollection of his first month in India. My brother, too, “was struck by how detailed everything was to the textures, colors, flavors, etc., but oh, by the way, a month passed and we’re all of a sudden heading downhill from the Himalayas.” Another family member noted how strange it was “that there is so little postscript to the adventure. You get through an epic journey, and you expect an epilogue…[But] they get to India and there is so little info given, and they appear to just part ways like they were roommates at summer camp.”
  
• The Route – I was already pretty skeptical about the tale as they made their way through the Gobi, so when I saw that salvific Silk Road caravan heading to the exact place they wanted to go, I knew they’d end up refusing to join them and instead choose “to climb the friggin’ Himalayas with no supplies,” as my brother put it. Was there really such a threat of recapture by the Russians that they had to skip Tibet altogether? “I find that story difficult to swallow.” My marathon-minded brother further noted: “The amount of miles they covered in that timeframe is also hard to believe. It’s not even just the extremes, but the actual miles covered under such extremes that gives me cause for doubt. When you read accounts of travelers on the ‘relatively easy-by-comparison’ Appalachian Trail, they struggle to make 30 miles a day with supplies.” It’s just not plausible.
  
• The Characters – Personally, I never doubted the existence of any particular character. Like my brother, I believe the escape happened and the people were real, but the details were hyped beyond belief. My family, however, had some interesting doubts about these people and whether they truly existed or not. My one brother doubted that Katrina ever joined their party: “Randomly stumbling across another Polish escapee in the vastness of eastern Russia strains credulity. As soon as they found her I knew she was gonna die—cuz she was never there…I think she represents an angel of hope that drove them on. But she ain’t real.” Another thought that Smith was added perhaps only to garner a wider, English-speaking audience. Interesting indeed!
  
• The Yeti – Finally we come to what most readers would consider the final nail in the coffin that makes this book obvious fiction. But for this—as for most of the questionable aspects above—my family also offers some thought-provoking theories that make me respect Rawicz’s story, if not his methods in telling it.

Theories:

• The Story Overall – Regarding “The Trials of the Trek” and the story overall, my sis-in-law was skeptical about why Rawicz would ever risk making up such a wild story and basically lie to the public. My brother suggests that readers in the Fifties were far less skeptical than we are today, so with no witnesses to corroborate of disprove his tale, he can say whatever he wants. As I’ve witnessed in reality and found through research, many victims of regimes such as the one we see in the beginning of this book don’t mind embellishing their experiences, merely because people are bound to believe—and in fact expect!—whatever nonsense they hear. For some reason, Rawicz likely thought it wouldn’t be enough to just admit he had escaped from a Siberian prison camp, as if his true story of escaping 400 miles through Siberia (or whatever distance it really was) weren’t extravagant enough. One family member suggested that Rawicz’ ending—quick and without detail—was fitting and mirrors that of WWII soldier Ed Davis, which ends like this: “…It takes five days to get off the mountain and back to my base. I smell so bad when I get back, they burn my clothes. And no one seems interested in what I saw, so I quit talking about it. But I dream about it every night for twenty years.”
  
• The Author’s Memory – My sister-in-law thinks that Rawicz spent several decades recalling the details of his trek and writing them down before penning this book. Just like we can recall a particular scent from childhood or a dress that our mom used to wear, while at the same time forgetting entire years of our lives, Rawicz is merely writing his literal memory, not trying to pander to the requirements of a true adventure-memoir. My brother also noted how impossible it would be for a traveler to track the number of days that passed, not to mention the miles, so he would only be able to recall how long the trip actually felt. Thus, twenty years after the fact, the Gobi endurance-walk only felt as if they went without water for 12 days, though it may have been just three.
  
• The Yeti – I was surprised to find that both of my brothers are closet Yeti-enthusiasts. When they came to this part, they weren’t thrown into too much a tizzy, but actually felt a bit justified, as if “here’s yet another piece of evidence!” My sis-in-law took a more scientific approach, suggesting that perhaps the men witnessed the standing posture of Asian Black Bears (see pics) or (less likely) giant Himalayan Mountain People (sorry, no pic available). My brother summed up all our feelings by paraphrasing how quickly the author introduces this shocking twist: “So we did all this difficult stuff, and by the way, Yetis are real.”

This book ignited a great deal of amusing conversation, and I doubt we’ll enjoy another book or discussion as much as we did this. It’s sparked an interest in me to look up and read another similar tale, As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me and reminds me of other great tales like Louis L’Amour’s novel, The Last of the Breed and any on-the-move novel by Geoffrey Household. I love this genre of writing, whether fiction or non- and I highly recommend this book to one and all.

©2019 E.T.