The Long March (novel)

Last updated
The Long March
TheLongMarch.jpg
First edition
Author William Styron
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
PublisherDiscovery (serial)
Random House (book)
Publication date
1952 (serial)
October 1956 (book)
Media typePrint
Pages88

The Long March is a novella by William Styron, first published serially in 1952 in Discovery. [1] and by Random House as a Modern Library Paperback in 1956. [2]

William Styron American novelist and essayist

William Clark Styron Jr. was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.

Random House general-interest trade book publisher

Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. As of 2013, it is part of Penguin Random House, which is jointly owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann and British global education and publishing company Pearson PLC.

The Modern Library is an American publishing company. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, it was purchased in 1925 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. Random House began in 1927 as a subsidiary of the Modern Library but eventually overtook its parent to become the parent company of what then only became an imprint of Random House.

Contents

Subject

It tells of an overnight thirty-six mile forced march back to base at a US Marine training camp in the Carolinas, the chief protagonists being ageing reservists Lieutenant Culver and his friend Captain Mannix, who have been called up due to the threat of the Korean War. Eight of their colleagues had, earlier that day, been killed by misfired mortar shells, adding to the absurdity of their ordeal.

Korean War 1950–1953 war between North Korea and South Korea

The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashes along the border.

Inspiration

Styron himself was called up in response to the Korean War and a forced march he undertook at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina provided the inspiration for the story. [3]

Jacksonville, North Carolina City in North Carolina, United States

Jacksonville is a city in Onslow County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the population stood at 70,145, which makes Jacksonville the 14th largest city in North Carolina. Jacksonville is the principal city of Onslow County and is included in the Jacksonville, North Carolina metropolitan area. In 2014, Forbes magazine ranked Jacksonville as the fifth fastest-growing small city in the United States. Demographically, Jacksonville is the youngest city in the United States with an average age of 22.8 years old, which can be attributed to the large military presence. The low age may also be in part due to the population drastically going up over the past 80 years, from a mere 783 in the 1930 census to 70,145 in the 2010 census.

Theme

Writing in The Guardian , James Campbell explains, "The book expresses Styron's dislike of the military experience and must originally have appeared as a reproof to more bullish colleagues such as Norman Mailer and James Jones who, while exposing the brutality of battle, did so in such a way as to aggrandise it. "None of that Hemingway crap for me," says the hero of The Long March, Captain Mannix, with whom Styron has identified himself." [4]

<i>The Guardian</i> British national daily newspaper

The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian, and took its current name in 1959. Along with its sister papers The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, the Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The Scott Trust was created in 1936 "to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of the Guardian free from commercial or political interference". The Scott Trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to project the same protections for The Guardian as were originally built into the very structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than to benefit an owner or shareholders.

James Campbell, is a Scottish writer.

Norman Mailer American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film-maker, actor, and liberal political activist. His novel The Naked and the Dead was published in 1948 and brought him renown. His 1968 nonfiction novel Armies of the Night won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction as well as the National Book Award. His best-known work is widely considered to be The Executioner's Song, the 1979 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In over six decades of work, Mailer had eleven best selling books in each of the seven decades after World War II—more than any other post-war American writer.

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References

  1. The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, page 858.
  2. The long march in SearchWorks Retrieved 2015-07-13.
  3. The Companion to Southern Literature: Themes, Genres, Places, People, Movements and Motifs (Southern Literary Studies), page 409.
  4. Profile:William Styron, controversial successor to Faulkner by James Campbell, The Guardian, 22 March 2003.