“Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”
Posted on May 10, 2010 - Filed Under Adult swim
I just finished the first book I have read cover to cover in a long time, and it was an excellent choice. It is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I personally do not have the words to describe how amazing this book was for me. In order to try, though, I must provide a bit of background.
The book is about the world in the aftermath of a nuclear-like disaster. It is set in the U.S. and everything is dead, except a very few people. Buildings and cities are decimated, there are no living trees, marauders roam looking for other survivors to rob and eat, and the silence is ever-present. In fact, one of the aspects of the book I found myself contemplating was the silence. What it would be like to live in a world with no sound, other than that which you make yourself? Anyway, two of the survivors are a man and his son. The man has it in his head that salvation will be found if they can only reach the coast. They find food where they can and often sleep in the open. I won’t say anything else about the plot for fear of giving it away.
You’re probably thinking to yourself, “Why would you do this to yourself—read a book that is so obviously depressing?” Well, the first thing I would say is that it has been read (or at least purchased) by millions of people, made the New York Times Bestseller List, and was featured by Oprah. Oh, and it won the 2007 Pultizer Prize for fiction. But all of that is not important. I read and finished it because it is about life, albeit a life we find unimaginable. Sadness is not something to be avoided; it is something we all experience and must be willing to engage. Also, as I got started on the book, I found myself feeling these incredibly intense emotions, mainly around the idea of me and one of my kids being the characters in the book. And from everything I have ever learned about art, that is its purpose—to make you feel something. If you don’t feel something, it’s not art. Using that definition, this is one of the top three (if not the top) pieces of art in my life to this point because of the utterly profound emotional (and intellectual) effect it had on me.
There’s so much more I could say about it, but I think I will leave it at that for now. I would highly recommend reading it; don’t just settle for the movie.
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