Stephen King undercover (The Bachman Books - Four Early Novels by Stephen King)

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Product:	The Bachman Books - Four Early Novels by Stephen King
Date:	13.02.07 (278 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some great ideas

Disadvantages: A little bit uneven at times

The Bachman books are perhaps some of the lesser know Stephen King books. Clearly this has to do with the fact that they were published under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman but possibly also with their subject matter. They are somewhat different from many of his other books and do not concentrate as much on horror and the supernatural as King's book usually do. Instead they deal with the horror that is humanity and the cruelty that lives within people.


Between 1977 and 1984 Stephen Kind published 5 books under the Bachman pseudonym. These were Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man and Thinner. The first four of these are collected in what has simply been called the Bachman Books. Quite why Thinner has not been included I do not know, although my guess, after having read it, is that the theme is different to the other stories. This is more of a 'proper' horror story and as such does not blend so well with the others. I guess it's also possible it was simply too long to be included but as I haven't been able to find any information regarding this I can't say for sure.


So why would a famous author like Stephen King use a pseudonym? According to King himself he himself is not quite sure but mainly puts it down to a hunch. He also suggests that his publishers thought he might be overpublishing the market so the Bachman character was some sort of compromise and also a chance for King to do something as somebody other than himself.


According to King's foreword, people wrote to him to ask if he was Bachman from the very beginning. He strongly denied this until a paper published the story that Bachman was really King on the basis of the dedications in the first four books were to people associated with his life (d'uh is all I've got to say about that…) and the fact that his name had appeared on the copyright forms of one of the books. If he hadn't been rumbled Bachman's 6th book would have been Misery, something which Stephen King thinks, and I tend to agree, may have taken him straight onto the bestseller lists in his own capacity.


Personally I can see how it would be an interesting experiment to see how the books would do when they are not published by a very famous author but by somebody more or less unknown. Is it really the actual book that sells or the name written on it? In Stephen King's case especially I believe his huge following ensures all his books are bestsellers, also the not so good ones.


So, enough of the background and onto the actual books!


In Rage, Charlie Decker is a high school student who after several incidents is expelled from school. This affects him strongly and after setting fire to his locker he uses a hidden pistol to kill a despised teacher and hold his classmates hostage. In view of the several school shootings by pupils that have taken place more or less recently this certainly strikes a cord and gives you an uncomfortable feeling of reality and sometimes even sympathy for Charlie, the attacker. He does not intend to want to shoot any of his hostages; he simply wants to 'get it on'. This is a term he uses widely but it seems to mean losing social inhibition, rules ad restraints. In essence he proceeds to hold a kind of mad and thoroughly unconventional therapy session with his class mates all of whom, with the exception of one person, seem strangely supportive of Charlie.


King does an amazing job of showing the reality of teenage angst and the effects of childhood trauma. He was only 18 at the time he wrote Rage and this may have helped a great deal to provide authenticity. The story is deeply upsetting and unsettling as it shows the restraints society put on people being lifted and, ultimately, completely cast aside. To me, some of the explanations seem a bit rough around the edges, the psychology is not completely convincing at all times but the feeling behind it I think make up for these shortcomings.


Stephen King was questioned by the FBI, according to himself, with regards to this book apparently being a factor in several school shootings where teenage boys have tried to copy the events to the degree that they have even committed murder. This clearly is a very worrying notion and also the reason why the book went out of print for a long period of time before resurfacing in the Bachman Books. King himself admits to a great concern as to his part in these school shootings although finds some comfort in the fact that the book certainly wasn't written with any bad intent. He quotes a psychologist as saying "this book never went into a classroom and shot anybody". Even so it is clear to see that he is pained by the potential role his book might have had in some of these serious incidents.


The next book in the collection is my personal favourite. The Long Walk is essentially a psychological tale concerning how far and hard you can push people before they finally snap, not dissimilar to Rage in that sense.


Set in a not too distant future we get to follow Gareth who is one of the competitors in the Long Walk. The person who wins the Walk can request anything they would like off the General, the man who organises the Walk and also, presumably some type of leader in a future, totalitarian USA.


The problem is that in order to win this prize you must out-walk 99 other young men, picked more or less at random to take part in the competition. There are certain rules that must be followed at all times - the participants must keep a constant speed of at least 4 miles per hour, they cannot leave the set course or interfere with another walker. If they walk too slowly, no matter what the reason, they will get 3 warnings. If they then pick up the pace they will lose 1 point per hour they have walked with no further problems. If they cannot manage to keep the pace however, they will be shot. Leaving the set course or attacking another walker or the guards will not earn you any warnings but you will be shot immediately. With no breaks at all the boys walk, day and night no matter what the weather hoping to be the last man standing.


During the walk, the boys build relationships which they realise are futile as only one of them will survive the Walk. Progressively they start to question their own motives for taking part in such a contest and eventually also the existence of the Walk itself. Clearly the physical challenge is great but the psychological strain is what gets many of the walkers, who have complete mental breakdowns. King does an amazing job in showing how the different characters are affected in different ways and how they, eventually, handle the thought of their own death.


Like all the Bachman books the ending is certainly depressing but the road there has its lighter moments and explores some noble acts amongst the boys in spite of everything that they are up against. If you do not read any other Bachman Book I would certainly recommend that you at least give this one a try, whether you are a King fan or not.


Roadwork, again, looks at the breakdown of the human psyche. Barton Dawes stands to lose his house to the road works. The city is building a new road and, unfortunately, his and his wife's house is right in its path, together with his workplace. Dawes, who has already suffered a serious trauma through the death of his young son, seems unable to cope with the idea of this and slowly his mind starts to disintegrate to the point that he himself is no longer sure of what he is doing and why. He manages to forget that he has been to a gunshop to buy the largest rifle and gun they have. He lies to his wife about the situation and he lies to his boss about having put in an offer for a new site for the business. This eventually leads to him having to leave his job and his wife leaving him, something which, coupled with nightly drinking binges, speeds up the degradation of his mind.


This is my least favourite of the Bachman Books as I find it drags on quite a bit. It is not at all as fast paced as the other books and I don't find it as convincing a picture of a person's mental breakdown as those found in the other books. However, it does have its good points, I find particularly the breakdown of his marriage very convincing and interesting to follow, although his relationships with some of his former neighbours and friends seem very stilted and square.


The last book is the Running Man. Like the Long Walk, this centres around a competition in a future, extremely socially divided America. Ben Richards is on the poor side of this divide and, having a reputation as a rebel he struggles to feed his family, being forced to watch his wife work as a prostitute at times and his young daughter dying from pneumonia, which could easily be medicated if only he had the money. The only way out he can find is to join the Network Games. These blood thirsty games are shown constantly and vary between shows that may simply cripple people and the biggest ones - the ones where people die.


The show that Richards is chosen for is the ultimate one; he is to escape a team of professional Running Man hunters for 30 days. If he manages to do that he will get more money than he could ever dream of and also his freedom. Unfortunately none of the competitors have ever managed to escape the hunters for that long, but for each hour he's free he makes money for his wife and child. Richards proves to be an unusual contestant as, in spite of the public joining in the hunt he manages to avoid the hunters for a long period of time (if you are claustrophobic there is one particular escape that will have you shaking - be warned!). However, things happen along the way that make him question the whole society, even more so than he did before. He meets people along the way that change his perception of the world that they live in and, largely thanks to them, he decides on a course of action that may seem desperate but also possibly the only way out.


Supposedly this was written in just 3 days although that seems hard to believe as it certainly doesn't have a rushed feeling about it. I enjoyed it, although, as somebody once pointed out, in some ways it seems to be a film adaptation of a Stephen King book rather than the actual book itself. If Roadwork was a bit slow, this is very fast paced and aggressive. There seems to be an immense hidden anger with certain parts of modern society although this clearly is that society taken to the extreme.


I think the Bachman Books contain something for nearly everyone. Also people that are not great Stephen King fans may appreciate the way he deals with human psychology and the problems with modern society taken to the extreme. I for one thoroughly enjoyed reading these books and will definitely re-read them again in the future.


I found my copy at a used book store but you can get a sparkling new copy from Amazon for a mere £7.19 - a total bargain if you ask me!

Summary: A collection well worth reading also for non King fans