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Thursday, August 28
The Road by Cormac McCarthy might be the best book I've read in three or four years - maybe even longer. I was fortunate to read it all in one sitting on a flight back from Halifax, and at the end I felt so emotionally drained thinking of what the book meant.
The book follows the father and his son as they journey through the American southwest following a cataclysm that has utterly destroyed civilization and almost all life on Earth. In those circumstances, what would be considered right and wrong? Without the state or even communities and surrounded by sheer barbarism, what would you ethics be? Can the pursuit of survival justify anything in such conditions - and if not, what ideals would you hold. Over and over again I read scenarios that at first I thought to myself that I would choose death - then feeling guilty that I had taken the easy way out.
I may post a more substantive review after Allie reads the book - as I know she will inevitably read my blog and don't want to spoil a single little bit of it for her. However, for all others, please don't let this book pass you by, and I would certainly advise reading it before the movie based on the book is released in November.
Labels: books
posted by Duncan @ 8:28 AM© 2003-2010 Duncan Wojtaszek
No reproduction whatsoever, in any form, without permission.
All views expressed here are those of Duncan Wojtaszek and no other person or organization.
2 Comments:
At 10:43 AM,
Nick
said…
I had the pleasure of reading (and reviewing) it about a month ago, and I couldn't agree more. There's just this incredible illusion of simplicity in it that amplifies the desolation and makes every moral choice so stark.
Have you read anything else by McCarthy? I haven't, and I'm not sure where to start (though, like everyone else recently, I was introduced to him via the film of No Country for Old Men).
At 8:37 AM,
Allie
said…
I'd start with whichever book you can find - when I was shopping for The Road in Halifax I went to many stores that said his books were hard to keep in! ;)
I'm reading - it's good! I also have some program development to work on this weekend, but I want to be finishing so thats what I will do right now!
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