How did I make it to 36 without learning the word "catamite"?

[travspence]

I just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. In fact, that's about all I did today apart from farting around on the computer

Comments

[travspence]

Thanks for the tip. I'll see if the library has it.

[travspence]

By the way, I checked out "No Country for Old Men" from the library the other day. Could the opening scene be more violent? :-) It also had me hooked from the first line, just like "The Road." The first part of "The Road" is just heartbreaking.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[aardvark_gumbo]

Okay, I'll give you the straight-man's line (heh): How DID you get to 36 without knowing the word "catamite"?

I've been hearing a lot about The Road, but I have been resisting it because a) it sounds depressing and b) I tried reading one Cormac McCarthy book and was so infuriated by the weird and lacking punctuation that I couldn't get through it. Maybe I should try again. I just don't get the value of ditching punctuation, though.

[travspence]

Yeah, the lack of punctuation is kind of a pain, especially in the dialog. I had to reread a few conversations to keep track of who was saying what. On the other hand, the scenes are really short so it's easy to parse them even with the lack of punctuation.

And, yeah, it's pretty depressing. But is the post-apocalypse supposed to be uplifting?

[aardvark_gumbo]

Actually, a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction is wish-fullfillment/revenge fantasy. S.M.Stirling's stuff, which I enjoy a lot, appeals largely to romantic notions of getting back to the land and so on. But yeah, if you're going to write seriously about post-apocalypse, I suppose it has to be fairly depressing. Just not sure that I'm up for reading it.

[travspence]

I understand that, especially around the holidays. I finished The Corrections just before Christmas one year and I spent the holiday looking askew at my family. :-)