thigbee wrote:Dow Williams wrote:MoapaPk wrote:Dow Williams wrote:My all time favorite, still little known I believe, The Long Walk....true account by Slavomir Rawicz as told to Ronald Downing...regarding an escape from Siberian prison to the Indian Ocean through the Himalayas, original print
Do you really think it is true? The episode when they survive 2 weeks without water, while walking across a parched Gobi desert, had me thinking that at least part of the book is "enhanced."
Oh hell, don't you remember how Downing found Rawicz to begin with?.....the abominal snow monster account...come on man.....every great story of adventure told from memory is enhanced...the bottom line is the man had the balls to escape.....and walk one hell of a distance in doing so...thus the title...and the book was constructed by talking to the man himself...first hand account....precious reading in my book, no pun intended....same with We Die Alone. You would be pretty f&*^# delusional too if you survived and escaped a WW II Russia Siberian camp.
Yes! This book is one of the most epic reads I've ever done. Highly, highly recommended.
I found the book very entertaining, but I think the consensus is that Rawicz never was in a Gulag, nor walked to India. However Rawicz may have borrowed the story from someone who was imprisoned in a Gulag and went on a similar Trek:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavomir_Rawicz