Last night I finished reading “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy.
I started it three weeks ago, with pretty high hopes–”No Country for Old Men” was coming out in theaters (still haven’t seen it), and I remembered enjoying the only other book of his I’ve read (”Child of God”). After about sixty pages, I put it down carefully in a safe place, because I borrowed it from someone I work with, and vowed never to read anything of his again. 1
It’s one of those works that forces you to reevaluate everything you’ve ever thought about the artist who made it. Sometimes this works out well, but not this time. I won’t be able to read any other McCarthy book without thinking of the shame and embarrassment I felt for him as I was reading.
I mean, think about it: THE APOCALYPSE, right? Holy shit! That’s one hell of a starting point for a road trip novel! I think they might have made a movie like that set in Australia! Oh, unless you’ve always wanted to write Tuesdays With Morrie… and you wanted to write it using painfully obtuse syntax and dusty-ass remainder-bin imagery2 because when you’re writing Tuesdays With Morrie After the Apocalypse you can pretty much ignore everything interesting associated with the apocalypse and focus on your main goal, which is to write something as insipid and gutless as possible to see if you can tug the heartstrings with a story that features roving bands of cannibals.
Anyway, I didn’t really read the book, and I didn’t want to review it here. It got me thinking about some other things, namely a collection of songs that’s more organic than the stuff I’ve been writing lately, and maybe I’ll write about that later.
- So by “finished reading” I mean “picked it up knowing I had to give it back to its owner and skimming the next forty pages and then flipping through the next 100+ pages just to make sure absolutely nothing happened and there wasn’t some awesome writing buried in the second half of the book somewhere.” [↩]
- for real, about two-thirds of the way through the book I scanned a line that said something like “they were thin and tired like street addicts” which is one of the worst and most inappropriately placed descriptions I’ve ever seen. I mean, seriously, the APOCALYPSE has happened and everything has gone to hell and the narrator is comparing something to a street addict? [↩]
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JW really liked the book. Now I HAVE to read it because she’s going to want to know who I agree with.
PooP.
You’re wrong.
On the contrary, I’m right.
I said I wasn’t going to review, but let me expand a bit on why I’m so right: the stuff he’s writing about (potentially interesting in what it could say about society and humanity) is throttled by the way he writes about it (overly-stylized and second-rate Southern Gothic).
Of course, some people would agree with you.
Oh, I forgot to mention that we saw “No Country…” last week. It was pretty kick-ass. The PERFECT “feel good” holiday movie. I recommend you take small children.
Dude, Ok.
I don’t know shit about literature, and won’t pretend to.
I do, however, know how to make knee-jerk judgments based on who is saying things about a given piece of entertainment.
According to the reviews in that link, Colin Meloy loves “the Road.”
I take this as a sure sign that I was not incorrect in thinking, “Man, if I’ve heard about this novel, it’s probably a steaming heap of crap.”
I had the feeling about The Road that McCarthy wanted to write about a father and son, and I felt as though the scene of apocalypse was arbitrary. I enjoyed it because of the way the language came across – I didn’t realize that it was “overly-stylized and second-rate Southern Gothic.” So, I think “you are so wrong.” Maybe you’ll hit up Blood Meridian some time and let us know what you think then.
Yeah, last night a couple of people who are paid to teach this sort of thing told me that McCarthy’s language is “Faulknerian.” I don’t mind stylistic tics, and taking potshots at such things is totally beneath me. Fortunately, it’s not beneath Nora Ephron:
True, that’s in response to Old Men Country, but no, I won’t be reading Blood Meridian anytime soon, because you’re right–dude wanted to write about a sappy little story exploring the love a father has for his son, but since he’s built a career writing creepy and obtuse meditations on the way the darkness seeps up through the civilization’s cracks, he decided to dress it up in some apocalypse, which made the story about the father and son ridiculous and the story about the apocalypse gutless. It’s too painful. It’s been what, six years since The Corrections? And I still have trouble reading essays by Jonathan Franzen.
All I have to say is this: the kid doesn’t eat a single part of his dad. Unless he did, and I missed that part, in which case I will reevaluate my position.
I hear what you’re saying about McCarthy. I certainly prefer Faulkner to him anyway. And no, there wasn’t any dad-eating that I saw.
In any case, maybe I’ll see your band at the Tonic with my good friends Jenny Sizzler. You’re supposed to be writing me a song that my partner scored for me at the Gertrude Press auction. Get to it! (I’m looking forward to it)
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