Snowday Book Reviews
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy:
A Pulitzer was awarded very badly in this case. McCarthy is trying so incredibly hard to be prize-worthy that he creates a monotonous gray-scale world with no depth or even the possibility of immersion or suspension of disbelief, tortures his nameless characters for a little while in endlessly repetitive vignettes of suffering, and then has the crassness to end on an inexcusable high note.
In the realm of post-apocalyptic fiction, this has to be one of the least inspiring or pleasing stabs at the subject I have ever encountered, and I am convinced it only won the prize because the committee mistakenly assumes that if they cannot fathom any rhyme or reason to a work, then it must be somehow their own inadequacy and not that of the story. Or the writing. Or everything about the characters, setting, and plot. All of which was completely, dreadfully blase.
The world has been destroyed, probably by nuclear bombs. This appears to have led to a nuclear winter, as well as the widespread burning up of essentially everything. All of humanity has sunk to the depths of horror and cannibalism, with the rare exceptions completely isolated, paranoid, and starving.
A man and his son, born in the wake of the initial disaster, attempt to journey southward to the coast, in search of some indefinable relief which they have absolutely no reason to expect finding. The story appears to be about the power of love between father and son. I think. Each is the others only reason for living.
It cannot be a social commentary because there is no society to comment on. It cannot be a warning fable about the horrors of nuclear war because that would be completely unoriginal, and the account of the aftermath is a complete waste of paper, being without any semblance of scientific follow-through (despite McCarthy's assertions in interview that he is a great lover of science.)
It's a journey. A journey where a father loves his son so deeply that... yep: he does not eat him. Also, he attempts to prevent others from eating him. Best of all, he is trying to find a way to save their lives, even though it doesn't seem likely to succeed. THAT is how much he loves his child.
At no point in the entire story does it seem as though the father figure displays anything but the most basic qualifications for parental adequacy, but the FOUR PAGES of accolades that preface the book rave on and on about how powerful a portrait of love he has painted, the deepest and most meaningful relationship he has ever written, apparently. I weep for his other works.
Last of all, the writing style is extremely obnoxious to any lover of language. McCarthy disdains sentences, and prefers to have only one or two in a paragraph if he can manage it. Instead, he puts periods at the ends of disconnected phrases. You might excuse it as writing in the voice of desperation of the weak, dying, harried, and exhausted main characters. I call it needlessly artsy-fartsy drivel created to mask the fact that if he wrote it in sentences it would have been hopelessly dull instead of just painful to read.
No stars. Very disappointing.
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"Escape" by Carlyn Jessop
Neat story about a woman's flight from the FLDS with her eight children. Straightforwardly written, literate account of the horrors of the fundamentalist polygamy sect in Colorado City, AZ. Once you start it, you can't put it down. While not what I would call a heartwarming or hugely inspiring story, it's a true one. The author does not attempt to aggrandize herself at any point, just tells it how it was, how much she hated it, and how she just barely managed to escape it.
Good read. Nice lady. Interesting for those of us who enjoy the study of modern cults, and a very nice psychological examination of the faith of true believers: how the come to believe, how they go about believing, and how they can keep believing even in the face of misery.
Three stars.
A Pulitzer was awarded very badly in this case. McCarthy is trying so incredibly hard to be prize-worthy that he creates a monotonous gray-scale world with no depth or even the possibility of immersion or suspension of disbelief, tortures his nameless characters for a little while in endlessly repetitive vignettes of suffering, and then has the crassness to end on an inexcusable high note.
In the realm of post-apocalyptic fiction, this has to be one of the least inspiring or pleasing stabs at the subject I have ever encountered, and I am convinced it only won the prize because the committee mistakenly assumes that if they cannot fathom any rhyme or reason to a work, then it must be somehow their own inadequacy and not that of the story. Or the writing. Or everything about the characters, setting, and plot. All of which was completely, dreadfully blase.
The world has been destroyed, probably by nuclear bombs. This appears to have led to a nuclear winter, as well as the widespread burning up of essentially everything. All of humanity has sunk to the depths of horror and cannibalism, with the rare exceptions completely isolated, paranoid, and starving.
A man and his son, born in the wake of the initial disaster, attempt to journey southward to the coast, in search of some indefinable relief which they have absolutely no reason to expect finding. The story appears to be about the power of love between father and son. I think. Each is the others only reason for living.
It cannot be a social commentary because there is no society to comment on. It cannot be a warning fable about the horrors of nuclear war because that would be completely unoriginal, and the account of the aftermath is a complete waste of paper, being without any semblance of scientific follow-through (despite McCarthy's assertions in interview that he is a great lover of science.)
It's a journey. A journey where a father loves his son so deeply that... yep: he does not eat him. Also, he attempts to prevent others from eating him. Best of all, he is trying to find a way to save their lives, even though it doesn't seem likely to succeed. THAT is how much he loves his child.
At no point in the entire story does it seem as though the father figure displays anything but the most basic qualifications for parental adequacy, but the FOUR PAGES of accolades that preface the book rave on and on about how powerful a portrait of love he has painted, the deepest and most meaningful relationship he has ever written, apparently. I weep for his other works.
Last of all, the writing style is extremely obnoxious to any lover of language. McCarthy disdains sentences, and prefers to have only one or two in a paragraph if he can manage it. Instead, he puts periods at the ends of disconnected phrases. You might excuse it as writing in the voice of desperation of the weak, dying, harried, and exhausted main characters. I call it needlessly artsy-fartsy drivel created to mask the fact that if he wrote it in sentences it would have been hopelessly dull instead of just painful to read.
No stars. Very disappointing.
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"Escape" by Carlyn Jessop
Neat story about a woman's flight from the FLDS with her eight children. Straightforwardly written, literate account of the horrors of the fundamentalist polygamy sect in Colorado City, AZ. Once you start it, you can't put it down. While not what I would call a heartwarming or hugely inspiring story, it's a true one. The author does not attempt to aggrandize herself at any point, just tells it how it was, how much she hated it, and how she just barely managed to escape it.
Good read. Nice lady. Interesting for those of us who enjoy the study of modern cults, and a very nice psychological examination of the faith of true believers: how the come to believe, how they go about believing, and how they can keep believing even in the face of misery.
Three stars.