On McCarthy's "The Road"
November 26, 2009
Sometimes a book will get in you and stay for a while. Its characters will resonate long after the reading is done. Such is the case with Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which I loved. Not a perfect book. (Listen to me dishing out the criticism of a book that won the goddamned Pulitzer!!!) There was a very odd first-person glitch in the middle (not sure why it was there) and sometimes I could see the mechanics of what McCarthy was doing with his writing, but it’s the unaffectedness of it that blew my mind. The writing is spare and unaffected and just beautiful. The story, while bleak and very dark, was really a love story – a story about fathers and sons – and by way of love, it had hope in it. Five days later, the book is still rumbling around in the back rooms of my brain, and it is stuck in my heart. I highly recommend. I don’t know if I want to see the movie. I like the book so much that I don’t want to replace my own imagined images, and faces, and landscapes with someone else’s imagined movie set, casting decisions and so on.
3 Comments
1. Adam Snider had this to say: Nov 26, 2009 ~ 12:21 ~ #
Bah! The Pulitzer means nothing (says the mostly unpublished writer who has never won a Pulitzer).
That said, I’m not at all surprised by what you’re saying about this book.
I bought it for my dad as a birthday present and read a few pages before I wrapped it. There was something very pleasant about the spareness of the writing. I’m definitely going to have to steal my father’s copy once he’s finished reading it. (It’s always a good idea to give people books that you want to read, so that you can borrow them afterward.)
2. Dolly Dennis had this to say: Nov 26, 2009 ~ 18:59 ~ #
I feel the same way as you Thomas and I read the book months ago. The images still haunt me. Beautifully written. Yeah, I remember that glitch but you had one in Columbus too when you reverted to you at one point. I never saw a writer use the 2nd person singular as effectively as you. Ha!
BTW I loved Columbus.
3. thomas had this to say: Nov 27, 2009 ~ 09:40 ~ #
Dolly,
You’re right. I did switch into 2nd person in the middle of Columbus!!! I thought long and hard about that shift — and in the end, did it with purpose — it shifted the POV to inside my character’s head, which was perfct for a man floating naked in the Strait of Gibraltor. SO, given that my shift was a careful decision, why would I not give McCarthy the benefit of the doubt. I’m going to revisit that passage and see if I can figure out why it’s there. Thanks. And thanks for letting me knoe that you liked the book.
Cheers