Post-apocalyptic fare has always been popular, whether a serious exploration of the possibility or over-the-top silly fun. Recently, a copy of Cormac McCarthy's
The Road came my way. More than one customer of the floating book shop had praised it, so I really looked forward to it. I'm disappointed. I don't mind bleak, downbeat or depressing material, as my own often trends that way. It's what I expected. I was reminded of
The Walking Dead TV series - without zombies, humans preying on each violently, some even resorting to cannibalism. My main gripe is with the writing. I don't understand why the author, in a third person account, chose such unpolished prose. I don't mind an occasional run on sentence. It is way overdone in the narrative. There are no quotation marks, which I've encountered before and always seems affectation. The main characters are not given names, which I suppose is some sort of symbolism of a world that has gone blank. I found it annoying, especially in those cases when it was difficult initially to determine who "he" referred to, man or boy. The dialogue is spare and as colorless as the devastated landscape. That said, the novel has several redeeming qualities, the chief being the relationship between the unnamed father and son. The dad will go to any length to protect the kid, whose age is never mentioned but which seems to be at least eight. The concept of the son being the keeper of the fire, that is, the hope of humanity, is first-rate. I was reminded of John Steinbeck's
The Winter of Our Discontent, in which the protagonist first believes his son is a keeper of that light that keeps humanity from descending into utter chaos, then realizes it is his daughter who is endowed with that decency. Also, the author demonstrates a knowledge of the workings of devices that dwarfs mine and makes me wonder how long I would survive in such an environment. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. I've read other winners and responded even more negatively than I did to
The Road. This makes me believe my own writing is way off the literary mark, and explains why my sales are so weak. 4500+ users at Amazon have rated
The Road, forging to a consensus of 4.1 on a scale of five. I rate it 2.5. Born in 1933, McCarthy has written ten novels, and short stories and plays. Several of his works have been adapted to the big or small screen, most notably Oscar-winning Best Picture
No Country for Old Men (2007), which I really like. He has not published a book since
The Road, which came out in 2007. It's still selling, ranked 2251 overall at Amazon, where 13+ million books are listed. I've just added the 2009 movie version to my Netflix list. This time my expectations will be low.
According to an article in today's
NY Post, a UK room rental service is using DNA analysis in the matching of roommates. It's not surprising, is it? It's a road that continues to lead to innovation, a better world. If only it could be used to make government better.
With the wind still strong at my usual nook, I took the show on the road and had modest success. My thanks to the woman who overpaid for an illustrated book on the song's of
The Lion King, which she plans to read/sing to her handicapped teenage son; to the elderly woman who bought paperbacks by John Grisham, Janet Evanovich and Fern Michaels; to the woman who insisted on paying for a book in Russian even though she donated one; and to Monsey, who purchased a country classics CD by Leann Rimes, and compilations of Broadway and Disco... I had some entertainment while I waited for customers to come along. A crew of four was working on the three-story building, replacing the roofing, on the other side of 85th Street. None of the men was wearing a harness, despite the precarious perches they took. At one point one carried a plywood board, cut to about four by four, up a ladder as high as he could. It was too low for one of his mates to grab, so the guy called to another, who, I assume, held onto his legs as he dangled to reach it. I wonder if their kids appreciate what their dads do to bring home the bacon.
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