Friday, December 29, 2006

Harrowing

I'm a little shell-shocked. I've just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. My parents warned me it was a harrowing read, but by gum, HARROWING.

Like my mother, I had to read it in one sitting. It is a very bleak view of a post-some-terrible-disaster-hopefully-unrelated-to-carbon-credits-world. Anything with suffering children is deeply uncool, but a barbequed baby?

It was extremely beautifully written, and has made me pretty confident that if everything goes to custard, I'd rather have some cyanide pills than a pistol and food.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yikes! Sounds like a crazy book. I usually like Cormac McCarthy, too - not sure I want to read this one, though. Do you recommend it, despite its...harrowingness?

Martha Craig said...

I don't know Guinness. On one hand it really was beautiful language, and that is something I rate very highly. On the other, it took me a helluva long time to clear the images from my mind last night so that I could sleep.

But ultimately I'd have to recommend it, because the guy is a genius.