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Summary: Great adventure, escape book with curious appendages.
Review: Sister Mary ***** read this book aloud to our 8th grade class 20 years ago and I had forgotten it until I saw a review last month. As you have read in these reviews, the story is great, but it is made more so by the layers of onion skin surrounding it: the ghost writer discovers the story whilst he is searching for Yeti stories (which appear near the end of the book), an American spy on the team? no other mention of Rawicz has appeared in the press. Is he still alive? In the (gold) vein of Endurance, My Journey to Lhasa, 7 Years in Tibet. Don't start this book when you have something else important to do.
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Summary: Impossible to put down!
Review: What an excellent book! Read it...it will give you an apprectiation for life and freedom. It will also let you realize how strong the human spirit can be if tested.
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Summary: The Sweetness of Life
Review: I first found this book in 1976. I was bemoning the fact that my girlfriend had left me. After reading this book I felt like a complete jerk for feeling so sorry for myself compared to what these people had gone through. I read the book again in 1983 when I was fighting cancer and dealing with radiation treatments. As I read the book this time, it gave me the courage to face my adversity and realize that no matter how tough you think life is, you can make it. It showed me the importance of never quiting and always believing in oneself, and in that, the sweetness of life. I highly recomend this book to anyone that needs a lift.
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Summary: Great true story of courage and perserverance.
Review: This is the true story of an ex-Polish army Officer, sent to a Siberian Labor Camp and escaped! He and 3 comrades escaped in the dead of winter during a blizzard (to cover their tracks and prevent being followed by dogs.) The story is of their escape and trek to India via the Gobi Desert, the Mongolian Steppe and the Himalaya Mountains. Great, epic story of human courage, endurance and perserverance. Book was first published in the mid fifties and has been in and out of print since.
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Summary: Think you've got a hard life - then read this.
Review: Like many of the previous reviewers I have read this book several times. A sense of perspective on your current life's problems will be received having read this book. In the UK, I got hold of an original hardback copy which I recieved from my father in law after he had sold the estate of a deceased Aunt. The book has a quite unassuming bland pale yellow cover with a brief title and author's name on the spine and I tossed it onto a my bookshelf without so much as a second glance. I can't recall how long it took me before I picked it up again but I can assure any potential reader that the contents offer the most astounding contrasts to the modest cover. A story of human endurance and the will to survive set against what would seem overwhelming circumstances is told. I read it with a large scale map of Asia handy and plotted his course as he headed south, which I recommend as the scale of his trip is shocking. I also found the writing style particularly easy yet engaging, allowing the reader a real grasp of the emotions endured, which is remarkable as I assume this book has been translated and in some cases translations can be difficult. Therefore if the bills are piling up, you're not feeling so good or you think your an Iron Man, check this book out and think again.
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Summary: Too Fantastic--to be True ? I'm Skeptical.
Review: Yes this book is hard to put down, but by the end I found it hard to believe. First the man is tortured for a year before his trial, he is starved and brainwashed. Then he endures a long trip in a railroad car across Russia--so far so good. Then he does an 800 mile forced march in sub-zero weather and on starvation rations of bread and water. Later when he has recovered he and a group escape during a blizzard. The overland ordeals are plausible until they get to the Gobi desert and go nine (9) days without water is this possible--I thought people couldn't survive desert temperatures more than a few days at most. Then they cross the Himalayas with no equipment and endure more sub-zero temperatures. Finally they see strange Yeti-like creatures. Somehow I just can't believe this tall tale. And it is interesting to note that the other survivors of this Long Walk could not be found and the narrator's memory was reported to be fuzzy. This story came out at the height of the Cold War--and I think the line between fantasy and reality was crossed somewhere along the way. I've searched for stories to corroborate this yarn but all I found were book reviews. Does anyone have any hard evidence that this is a true story?
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Summary: Absolutely unforgettable.
Review: I first read this book many many years ago, I forget how far back, maybe 20? I read it several times. And then again. I am a constant reader and a journalist. I lost the hardbound book, but I had mentioned it to my wife several times and she found it when it came out in paperback five or six years ago. I have read it three times since. I had/have NEVER read a book twice besides this one
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Summary: An astonishing true story that prefigures a craze
Review: In light of the recent popularity of THE PERFECT STORM, INTO THE WILD and INTO THIN AIR, readers must turn to the classic THE LONG WALK. In one of the ugliest paperback editions ever published hides the most magnificent of true adventure stories. Told with a crispness and directness borrowed from his British cowriter, Rawicz weaves a brisk but satisfying narrative which will make the food you eat for breakfast taste different and the clothes you don in the winter feel more important. And when you have finished THE LONG WALK, pick up Alfred Lansing's ENDURANCE, the story of Schackelton's disastrous but inspiring antarctic journey
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Summary: The Long Walk
Review: I think The Long Walk is the best book I've ever read. As Americans, who have to do nothing more than wake up in the morning to enjoy our liberty, it is sometimes difficult to comprehend exaclty what they went through. I find their trek through the Gobi Desert, where they were sucking mud and eating snakes, particulalry inspiring, and think about it when there is some perceived inconvenience in my life. I have corresponded with Mr. Rawicz. He is living in England and never did see his wife again, nor did he ever see the men he made the long walk with after their rescue by the British, both much to his great sorrow. This book is a must for any serious reader in general, and anyone who loves freedom. I like discussing the book and snailmail at PO Box 1671, El Centro, CA, 92244 will be answered
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Summary: Much More Than "A Trek to Freedom"
Review: This work's secondary title, "The True Story of a Trek to Freedom," is but a small clue to what lies between the covers. The chronicle of Slavomir Rawicz, a Polish cavalry officer who escaped a Soviet Siberian forced labor camp in 1941 and completed an incredible yearlong journey on foot through China, the Gobi Desert and into India is also a testament to human survival and a comforting reminder that human decency still remains in our too-often cruel world.
The book's greatest strength lies in Rawicz's ability to mentally detach himself from his experience and recount in great detail and with notable insight events ranging from the horror of his last cavalry charge against the Germans and subsequent Soviet captivity to picturesque descriptions of Mongol social customs and snowy Himalayan peaks. It is a unique blend of high drama and intrigue, anthropological commentary and how-to wilderness survival paced by a steady, no-nonsense narrative.
The overwhelming irony of this cavalryman's odyssey was that despite the presence of a raging global war fast becoming notorious for mass ethnic extermination, he received nothing but kindness and generosity from all of the native peoples he encountered on his trek. It is this alone that makes "The Long Walk" a "must read."
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