Tuesday, March 27, 2018

possibly the most ...

...depressing book I have ever read. While being so intriguing I could not put it down, and finished in one day. I started it Sunday night, but only got about twenty pages into it before my eyes would not stay open, and I had to turn out the light. Got started again while waiting at the airport for my flight to VA, having arrived much too early with lots of time on my hands. In the land of $2.50 sodas where I refused to put my cash into vending (even though they would happily take my plastic for payment.)

I'd been to the library on Saturday afternoon, looking for something to amuse myself with while traveling. And stopped at the bookshelf near the entrance where the 'Friends' always has a selection of paperbacks ready to be picked up for $1. Sadly, I accidentally stole them, when I went on into the stacks to find a talking book and forgot to stop and pay on the way out. I feel really badly about this and hope the library does not read my blog, to discover the theft and come bang on my door, demanding restitution.

The title of the book is "The Road".  By highly acclaimed, well known author Cormac McCarthy. You might have seen the movie, based on the book, if you want to be realllllyyy depressed. About a man and his young son, trying to survive in a post-nuclear world. Everything is gray, burned to a crisp, constantly covered in ash. They struggle to find food, cover from cold and rain, protect themselves from predators who are also looking for food and ways to survive. The two are walking, trudging along abandoned roadways or running scared through charred forests being hounded by men who are chasing them.

It was sad, and left me feeling blue. Finished before I went to bed last night.  Well written, so beautifully phrased and worded that I could not stop, turning page after page. Though I knew it would end badly, I read all the way to the last page. Where I found short paragraphs about some of McCarthy's other books that made me want to read them all. A trilogy written about cowboys from early in the twentieth century that I think I would really enjoy. Plus another that was a movie, filled with violence and gore: "No Country For Old Men", which I am pretty sure I do not want to read, from what I vaguely recall about the trailer that was way too gritty and graphic for my sensibilities.

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