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Two extraordinary works about soldiers in a time of dubious peace by a writer of vast eloquence and moral authority. With stylistic panache and vitriolic wit, William Styron depicts conflicts between men of somewhat more than average intelligence and the military machine. In The Long March, a novella, two Marine reservists fight to retain their dignity while on a grueling exercise staged by a posturing colonel. The uproariously funny play In the Clap Shack charts the terrified passage of a young recruit through the prurient inferno of a Navy hospital VD ward. In both works, Styron wages a gallant defense of the free individual—and serves up a withering indictment of a system that has no room for individuality or freedom.
240 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1952
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About the author
William Styron
124 books900 followersWilliam Styron (1925–2006), born in Newport News, Virginia, was one of the greatest American writers of his generation. Styron published his first book, Lie Down in Darkness, at age twenty-six and went on to write such influential works as the controversial and Pulitzer Prize–winning The Confessions of Nat Turner and the international bestseller Sophie’s Choice.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
August 21, 2017
Long march, short book. I wonder if it’s unfashionable to read Styron these days, noting just one of my GR friends have read this. Or maybe it has other issues: because it’s a war book and who hasn’t read enough of them?
But this one’s different. It has two clear themes running through it. One is war and the army and we hear all the things we expect to. War’s bad. Even if you aren’t actually there, just training. But entwined in this story is the one about a type of person and a type of relationship. It’s told as the colonel vs the honest, cynical captain, who is determined to win his personal battle with the colonel by forcing his not competent for the exercise men to get through the long march imposed on them. But it could be any boss with any employee, it’s a story you see every day, the one where the boss is a sort of bully who catches the employee in that attitude of okay, I’m going to do every fucking unreasonable thing you tell me to and that’s going to make me the winner. But the incredibly sad truth is, it doesn’t make the employee the winner. It makes the employer the winner and to make matters worse, he doesn’t even care. He doesn’t even really notice that he’s won. And yet it is so hard not to engage, even though the bully triumphs whatever you do.
This is a marvellous book about such a heroic character who can’t win. It is beautifully told, takes a couple of hours to read. Throughout I had a picture in my head of who would be in the movie. George Rossi. Perfect.
rest here:
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
But this one’s different. It has two clear themes running through it. One is war and the army and we hear all the things we expect to. War’s bad. Even if you aren’t actually there, just training. But entwined in this story is the one about a type of person and a type of relationship. It’s told as the colonel vs the honest, cynical captain, who is determined to win his personal battle with the colonel by forcing his not competent for the exercise men to get through the long march imposed on them. But it could be any boss with any employee, it’s a story you see every day, the one where the boss is a sort of bully who catches the employee in that attitude of okay, I’m going to do every fucking unreasonable thing you tell me to and that’s going to make me the winner. But the incredibly sad truth is, it doesn’t make the employee the winner. It makes the employer the winner and to make matters worse, he doesn’t even care. He doesn’t even really notice that he’s won. And yet it is so hard not to engage, even though the bully triumphs whatever you do.
This is a marvellous book about such a heroic character who can’t win. It is beautifully told, takes a couple of hours to read. Throughout I had a picture in my head of who would be in the movie. George Rossi. Perfect.
rest here:
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
June 5, 2015
Brilliant writing as always. Not only for the Styron completist; it's a great starting point for any lover of flawless descriptive prose that has the fluidity and ease of water moving downwards with the force of gravity.
January 1, 2022
Brutal account of life as a reservist US Marine in the 1950s tearing through some of the romanticism of the time, and painting a vivid picture of characters despite being set over a single day and a half.
November 3, 2024
The standard military route march is 24 km (I’ve done one), the one in this novel is more like sixty. It is brutal, punishing, and one way or another it will break the toughest of men. Styron gets inside the process to demonstrate that old maxim – pride goes before the fall.
June 16, 2009
The more I read of Styron, the more I enjoy. His language is simply sublime. The rhythm, the description, even in novels like this that are not necessarily "Southern" in subject, are nevertheless Southern in nature. And his ability to create character, whether it's Nat Turner or Milton Loftis in Lie Down in Darkness or the raging Captain Al Mannix in this novel, is beyond compare (except in Faulkner of course). While this novel was not as compelling as Nat Turner, I still found it an enjoyable afternoon read.
September 7, 2020
Much more than a short novel about a long march. Like much modern great war literature it dissects free will vs submission when intelligent soldiers encounter incomprehensible authority.
July 27, 2015
I went both ways on this book, so that's why I chose a 3. It was real, intense and I felt like I was there. But at the same time, it was confusing with the conversations and characters. I didn't know where it was headed and to tell the truth, I was glad when it ended.
March 24, 2015
Perhaps should be retitled "The Longest Novella Ever." I generally like Styron's work, but this one reeked of overworked testosterone.
December 26, 2017
Смешно было, когда герои прошли 5,5 километров и умерли от усталости)
April 24, 2012
So far, my enjoyability statistics with Styron are 50/50. Absolutely LOVED Sophie's Choice, Nat Turner, and Lie Down in Darkness. But Darkness Visible, Tidewater Morning and now The Long March were sadly wastes of time in my humble opinion. If you were ever in the military during peacetime, you might recognize a few character traits here and there, but so what? That means he only did some recollection or some research. For a better story about men being pushed beyond the breaking point, I'd recommend Bridge Over the River Kwai.
Note: I read a stand-alone Long March in a paperback format from the 1970s which is not available for review on goodreads, so I have no opinion about The Clap Shack.
Note: I read a stand-alone Long March in a paperback format from the 1970s which is not available for review on goodreads, so I have no opinion about The Clap Shack.
May 3, 2008
This is one of the first books I ever fell in love with. Granted I picked it because it was approved for my college lit class and was very short. If I would have picked another author I probably would not have rekindled my love for reading. What can I say Awsome little book that touches to boundries of insanity lol.
June 24, 2013
Amazing,beautifully crafted sentences. True to military life.
December 9, 2019
In these few pages, Styron evokes a fully rounded world, that of aging soldiers called back into service for the Korean War. The lead character, Culver, had been settling into comfortable civilian life after WWII when he was called back from the Marine reserves. The story is nominally about how soft he has become in the past six years. He is worried that he won't be able to finish a thirty-mile training march.
But it's not just that his body has gotten older and a little flabbier. The real issue is about a person's evolving self-identity. "[Culver] was no longer an eager kid just out of Quantico with a knife between his teeth. He was almost thirty, he was old, and he was afraid" (p.3).
Culver's fellow officer, Mannix, does not admit his doubts. He swears he is still a hard-as-nails Marine, dammit, and he completes the long march with bleeding feet just to prove he can. He needs to continue drinking the military Kool-aid because he is even more afraid than Culver is. Mannix is afraid that if he is not an archetypal Marine, he is nobody.
The commander, Templeton, is the third main character in this tale. Why does he insist on the long march? And does he walk the walk, or does he take a jeep for some of it? That is left deliberately ambiguous because from the soldiers' point of view, a commander is an ambiguous mix of ordinary man and superhuman figure.
I'm not a huge fan of the novella form because it must rely on narrative exposition rather than dramatic action (telling rather than showing). That's a style of writing that was much more common up to the mid-twentieth-century. It is out of favor today, and not surprisingly, so is the novella. Nevertheless, within the constraints of that style, The Long March stands out as one of the great ones.
Styron, William (1952). The Long March. New York: Bantam, 84pp.
But it's not just that his body has gotten older and a little flabbier. The real issue is about a person's evolving self-identity. "[Culver] was no longer an eager kid just out of Quantico with a knife between his teeth. He was almost thirty, he was old, and he was afraid" (p.3).
Culver's fellow officer, Mannix, does not admit his doubts. He swears he is still a hard-as-nails Marine, dammit, and he completes the long march with bleeding feet just to prove he can. He needs to continue drinking the military Kool-aid because he is even more afraid than Culver is. Mannix is afraid that if he is not an archetypal Marine, he is nobody.
The commander, Templeton, is the third main character in this tale. Why does he insist on the long march? And does he walk the walk, or does he take a jeep for some of it? That is left deliberately ambiguous because from the soldiers' point of view, a commander is an ambiguous mix of ordinary man and superhuman figure.
I'm not a huge fan of the novella form because it must rely on narrative exposition rather than dramatic action (telling rather than showing). That's a style of writing that was much more common up to the mid-twentieth-century. It is out of favor today, and not surprisingly, so is the novella. Nevertheless, within the constraints of that style, The Long March stands out as one of the great ones.
Styron, William (1952). The Long March. New York: Bantam, 84pp.
May 12, 2018
A novella that manages to capture in 80 pages the eternal conflict in the Marine Corps between reservists and regulars...has not changed in the 60 years between the Korean era in which this tale was set and OIF.
dropped
August 8, 2023Well, that’s my kind of book for sure! Rtc though, a little bit conflicted on certain themes.
September 6, 2017
Long before William Styron became famous for The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) and Sophie's Choice (1979) he wrote a slim fiction about Marine Corps reserves re-training to be deployed to Korea. The Long March (1952) is slender, barely a novella, and a bit of a puzzle even after all the pieces are put in order.
Opening with a gruesome description of eight dead marines, caught at camp-breakfast by live-fire short-rounds, stopping briefly at one of those dreaded training lectures with lights out and seat-mates snoring, the main part of the story is, indeed, a long march. It’s in mid-summer in 1950s (North) Carolina. Despite the death of men in the neighboring battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Templeton — “a man to whom the greatest embarrassment would be a show of emotion”– is determined to take his men on a brutal 36 mile, all-night, hike. (At the regulation 2 1/2 miles an hour that is almost 15 hours; forced). “The Battalion’s been doping off,” he says. The men need some esprit.
...
Most readers take from the story a view of anti-militarism and American complaint about conformity. “”None of this Hemingway crap for me, Jack,” says Mannix. What I read, however, is in a certain sense, a recruiting story: men pushed to the limit, and beyond, become men. Despite “despising” the Corps, Mannix responds as it intends him to do.
The courts-martial tempting outburst in the lecture does not stir rebellion. No argument is brought forward against injury to so many men. The anger is directed not obviously to the colonel, or any higher-ups, but a) against themselves, and b) against those subordinate to them. In a perfect example of the latest discoveries of male testosterone, its increase in middle status apes does not turn them against their superior tormentors, but much more brutally against their own subordinates. As has long been said in the military, “all shit runs down hill.”
For a full review see http://www.allinoneboat.org/the-long-...
Opening with a gruesome description of eight dead marines, caught at camp-breakfast by live-fire short-rounds, stopping briefly at one of those dreaded training lectures with lights out and seat-mates snoring, the main part of the story is, indeed, a long march. It’s in mid-summer in 1950s (North) Carolina. Despite the death of men in the neighboring battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Templeton — “a man to whom the greatest embarrassment would be a show of emotion”– is determined to take his men on a brutal 36 mile, all-night, hike. (At the regulation 2 1/2 miles an hour that is almost 15 hours; forced). “The Battalion’s been doping off,” he says. The men need some esprit.
...
Most readers take from the story a view of anti-militarism and American complaint about conformity. “”None of this Hemingway crap for me, Jack,” says Mannix. What I read, however, is in a certain sense, a recruiting story: men pushed to the limit, and beyond, become men. Despite “despising” the Corps, Mannix responds as it intends him to do.
The courts-martial tempting outburst in the lecture does not stir rebellion. No argument is brought forward against injury to so many men. The anger is directed not obviously to the colonel, or any higher-ups, but a) against themselves, and b) against those subordinate to them. In a perfect example of the latest discoveries of male testosterone, its increase in middle status apes does not turn them against their superior tormentors, but much more brutally against their own subordinates. As has long been said in the military, “all shit runs down hill.”
For a full review see http://www.allinoneboat.org/the-long-...
May 19, 2011
Pitch perfect prose. An easy read because the singular event of the title is the only action. Your mind cannot wander because the events are elaborated and explored until the lemon has given up all its juice. It's as if Styron's written a paragraph for each step of the journey. You go through it with the soldiers. The ultimate irony is that at a certain point the journey I was taking as a reader started to seem pointless. Where was I going and why? At the end, I wondered why I'd begun. This pointlessness mimics the experience of the soldiers, but I guess I wanted more -- some resolution, some sense of climax, some sort of orgasm. I guess I wanted more of the following: Mannix was "a mass of scars" from war wounds. "But underneath his rebellion Culver knew Mannix -- like all of them -- was really resigned. Born into a generation of conformists, even Mannix was aware that his gestures were not symbolic, but individual, therefore hopeless, maybe even absurd, and that he was trapped like all of them in a predicament which one personal insurrection could, if anything, only make worse. 'You know,' he said once, 'I think I was really afraid just one time last war.' The phrase 'last war' had had, itself, a numb, resigned quality, in its lack of any particular inflection, like 'last weekend', or 'last movie I went to see'"(39). "He was not man enough to crap out, not man enough to disavow all his determination and endurance and suffering. He was not man enough, far less simply a free man; he was just a marine and would go on being a marine forever. The corruption begun years ago in his drill feet had climbed up, overtaken him, and begun to rot his brain" (74-5). This is a tragic book (not in any obvious ways) and a good one.
October 13, 2014
The Long March is one of William Styron’s masterpieces. It is a perfect indictment of the psychological impact of the military on people. Mannix, a Marine captain, sets himself in a training exercise against his superior officer, Colonel Templeton. Mannix believes that Templeton’s motives are punitive and idiotic. He also believes that Templeton is a hypocrite who will not subject himself to the hardships of his men in the training exercise – a long, hot, ridiculously long march.
Mannix cannot let himself admit that he has been beaten. “The old atavism that clutched them, the voice that commanded, once again, you will. How stupid to think they had ever made their own philosophy; it was as puny as a house of straw, and at this moment—by the noise in their brains of those words, you will—it was being blasted to the winds like dust. They were as helpless as children. Another war, and years beyond reckoning, had violated their minds irrevocably. For six years they had slept a cataleptic sleep, dreaming blissfully of peace, awakened in horror to find that, after all, they were only marines, responding anew to the old commands. They were marines.” The question is why? This novel is a darkly comic tragedy. One can see easily that this scenario has repeated itself many times over. That Templeton turns out to be an honorable representation of a Colonel and Mannix is incorrect only makes it that much more tragic. Mannix no longer needed the military in his life, but he still was not capable of leaving it behind. This is a great book.
Mannix cannot let himself admit that he has been beaten. “The old atavism that clutched them, the voice that commanded, once again, you will. How stupid to think they had ever made their own philosophy; it was as puny as a house of straw, and at this moment—by the noise in their brains of those words, you will—it was being blasted to the winds like dust. They were as helpless as children. Another war, and years beyond reckoning, had violated their minds irrevocably. For six years they had slept a cataleptic sleep, dreaming blissfully of peace, awakened in horror to find that, after all, they were only marines, responding anew to the old commands. They were marines.” The question is why? This novel is a darkly comic tragedy. One can see easily that this scenario has repeated itself many times over. That Templeton turns out to be an honorable representation of a Colonel and Mannix is incorrect only makes it that much more tragic. Mannix no longer needed the military in his life, but he still was not capable of leaving it behind. This is a great book.
January 20, 2018
Mr. Styron wrote an excellent novella describing the scenes in so much detail you feel the dust, heat and oppression of the day. In the end you know the people. You feel what Mannix feels. If you have been in a similar situation you are able to see the dust, hear the insects and feel the sting of their bite. Few authors today portray the depth and detail this novella includes.
March 17, 2016
This is the first book I've read by Styron. He is an outstanding writer. "The Long March" is somewhat biographical mirroring his tenure in the USMC. while his writing was excellent, the story was only so so. The long foot march as an exercise depicted in the book was very typical of some of the totally ill considered activities the military can dream up to make the troops miserable in the name of "conditioning". As you will read in the book, rebelling against such exercises will get you no where but maybe a court martial.
May 5, 2016
Une nouvelle extraite de A tombeau ouvert, parfaite pour les lectures de trajets.
Une nouvelle touchante et drôle qui raconte la rencontre de l'auteur avec le lieutenant-colonel Mariott du corps des Marines.
Quelque chose de léger qui se lit facilement mais qui nous transporte rapidement dans l'univers de Marines se préparant à la guerre de Corée.
Cette nouvelle m'a permis de découvrir William Styron. Dans son écriture j'ai vu du cynisme à la Capot et de la chaleur poisse à la Faulkner. J'ai envie d'aller plus loin afin de me faire une idée plus précise.
Une nouvelle touchante et drôle qui raconte la rencontre de l'auteur avec le lieutenant-colonel Mariott du corps des Marines.
Quelque chose de léger qui se lit facilement mais qui nous transporte rapidement dans l'univers de Marines se préparant à la guerre de Corée.
Cette nouvelle m'a permis de découvrir William Styron. Dans son écriture j'ai vu du cynisme à la Capot et de la chaleur poisse à la Faulkner. J'ai envie d'aller plus loin afin de me faire une idée plus précise.
October 6, 2011
Read this very quickly-- line by line an excellent meditation on the inanity of war. The narrator, who survived WWII and remained in the Marines as a reserve, is called for duty when Korean War breaks out, making his peacetime prosperity seem like a dream. That it takes place under "the Carolina sun" rather than in Korea makes it all the more effective as a study in the pathological absurdity of military exercises.
August 7, 2012
It made me recall marches like this at USMC infantry training, also in the Carolina sun where, after an hour or so the wrinkle in the bottom of your sock seemed like a razor blade, and the rattle of a loose buckle in your helmet liner like hammer blows. I lack the art to remember them so poetically.
September 21, 2012
Styron's a fantastic crafter of sentences and situations. I probably would have rated this higher if I'd read it before I read Karl Marlantes' Matterhorn. This is very similar in tone and attitude, but but a very narrow focus. Not bad, but not Matterhorn either. That's an unfair comparison, honestly, but that's what my brain kept going back to as I read this.
October 20, 2012
If you've never been in the military, and want to better understand the life of a soldier, read this book. For those of us who have been in the military, the theme of the commander's motives make a lot of sense. It's not the full story, though. Joseph Heller can get you caught up on all the catches.
October 29, 2017
I had some nagging minor complaints about the book but I do enjoy Styron and his style. The opening with dead marines certainly hits the reader with a powerful beginning. And yet, it seems inconceivable that any unit would allow this grueling march in the aftermath of such a tragic accident. I fluctuate between giving the book 3 or 4 stars.
December 1, 2011
I think there was so much more to say at the end. My problem not being that it is a novella, rather that the end was abrupt and left you looking for the next chapter. I guess I'm always looking to have the end neatly tied up and you will not get this in this book.
December 13, 2011
I’ll say one thing for war: it has produced some fantastic books. The Long March is perhaps not among the very best I’ve read on the madness of military life. But it’s a powerful, provocative story that stirred up the dying embers of rebellion in my contented middle-aged belly.
December 27, 2008
Pretty good, but parts of it didn't quite ring true to me. I could always be wrong.
February 28, 2010
A very well written novella of a 36 mile march by a group of Marines. A test of endurance and of wills.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews