Thursday, December 30, 2010

The Road, Take Another Chance Challege #4

I had no idea what I was about to read when I opened the flaps of this book. I had not read the back cover, or any reviews.  It was a gift from my son, who collects all Pulitzer prize winning novels. And so I started.  I had recently "read/listened to" The Crossing, also by Cormac McCarthy, read by Brad Pitt. So throughout this book I could hear Brad reading it.  It was a little bit of alright.  

 The book opens on a post- apocalyptic world everything is covered in ash no animals or vegetation survives.An unnamed man and his young son journey down a road to get to the sea. (The man's wife, who gave birth to the boy after calamity struck, has killed herself.) They carry blankets and scavenged food in a shopping cart, and the man is armed with a revolver loaded with his last two bullets. Beyond the ever-present possibility of starvation lies the threat of roving bands of cannibalistic thugs. The man assures the boy that the two of them are "good guys,"

MY THOUGHTS: For me I can only imagine the fear these two live with constantly, and yet there is the underlying message of hope, or is that just me?
I found this book easy to read, inspite of the horrific subject matter.  I love that McCarthy really limits his characters and they remain very strong characters.  Few words develop their characteristics and that is definitely skilful writing.  I've not seen the movie, and I really don't think I want to. as McCarthy says: (or I paraphrase) once you've got that picture in your mind... I really don't need to rerun it. 
When I read the Crossing.also written my Cormac ( can you imagine the teasing he got as a child with that name) I didn't realize it was part of a trilogy, so I do think I'd like to read the other two books, since I found Brad's voice actually easy to listen to, I'm not terrible fond of him, but in this scenario I could take it.  Wouldn't if be funny if I had to credit Brad for teaching me to listen to a book?

This books completes my # 4 of the Take Another Chance Challenge, Prize Winner Book.

2 comments:

Jenny said...

I think I saw that movie! Will Smith? Except the kid was a dog? No? LOLOL Happy New Year, dear Irene!

Annie said...

I think I read one of his books. But I couldn't seem to start or get very far into the next one I had of his.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to my wonderful son,  it's bee 33wonderful years. Hope this year proves to be the best yet.