On, The Road

So here’s the thing about Literature. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. And sometimes the really good is bad, but only because it’s so goddamn good, you can barely tell it’s good. I mean, you know it’s good, but you don’t like it. That’s kinda how I felt about Cormac McCarthy’s, Blood Meridian (1985) (runs and hides, as the McCarthyites shoot at me.) But really, the book is written like one long ass poem, which I would normally dig, except it’s like a poem written by the smartest mofo in the world! It’s like trying to decode a six year old boys handwriting, after he had written a 300 page dissertation about what he wants to be when he grows up. It’s beautiful, but awfully torturous. It’s like the King James version of…anything!

So yeah, Blood Meridian…good and bad. To me.

But McCarthy’s, latest The Road (2006)….is just good. I don’t want to say too much about the book in risk of spoiling it for those who may be interested in reading it, but just know that the majority of the story is dialogue between father and son who are caught in a terminal predicament. There are no chapters. And very few characters. Brilliant.

Oh, and it’s being made into a movie as we speak (apparently this dude has the juice! No Country For Old Men, now this…please Coen Bros, do this!!)

And as far as Blood Meridian…I’m just not smart enough. There, I said it.