ON 'THE ROAD' TO HELL

I am still trying to slog through "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

Parts of it are well written, but I don't believe any of it, and I think it's self-indulgent and without any clear moral purpose.

I believe that fiction should have a higher moral calling, a reason to exist, a theme, an insight into human nature and an insight into the world.

This doesn't work like that. The theme seems to be, "We're all stupid and we'll die," like that line from "Blade Runner," the great sci-fi movie that's part L.A. noir and part future vision.

I am having a hell of time trying to read this stuff.

So far, I don't see the point.

BTW, I do recommend several other of his books: "Blood Meridian," "Suttree," and "Cities of the Plain" (up to the Epilogue).

"Blood Meridian" is way and away the finest novel by any living American writer, I do believe.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

'THE ROAD' - CORMAC McCARTHY

I started reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy again this morning. Oh, God, what a bleak vision, but finely rendered. The language is magical. This writer knows his craft, and his art.

After all, he is America's greatest living novelist. (By America, I mean the English-speaking USA.) His greatest books are "Blood Meridian" and "Suttree." His worst book is of course his most commercially succesful, "No Country For Old Men," a bad book made into a good movie, typical of Hollywood.

I started re-reading "The Road," an horrific nightmare of a story, because my friend Joy said she wanted to discuss it, and I hadn't read the whole thing. I had put it down after 25 pages the first time; it was too depressing.

This is adapted from an e-mail I sent to Joy:

Before, I thought the book was self indulgent. By that, I mean he sits in his plush armchair in Santa Fe, NM, where he hangs out at The Santa Fe Institute, a place where famous scientists, et al, gather, and he creates an unbearably bleak world for us to live in, as we read.

You know, we use our imaginations when we read. We re-create the world of the story in our minds. Reading is a powerful experience. The most powerful of the arts, it seems to me.

Creating such a horrific world is self-indulgent, like a kind of torture porn. He may have enjoyed writing it, and it may have been fulfilling for him, but it is a hellish world to live in. He can get away with it, because he is our greatest living American writer.

But he is not being kind to his readers. I think as a writer you have an obligation to your readers not to put them through hell unless there is a good reason.

I don't know yet what that reason is. I haven't read the whole thing.

We'll see how far I get this time.  

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle