After six months of Infinite Jest, it was nice to speed through Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” in three days. It is the polar opposite of IJ in so many ways; staccato sentences with stark descriptions in contrast to epic details of minutiae, a barren world versus an oversaturated one, a simple story of survival against a complex web of culture. Despite their fundamental differences, both books are amazing, capturing the essence of humanity from different angles. The Road is a journey though a post-apocalyptic world, where life has been all but completely destroyed, and a father and son’s struggle to survive the desolation. It is terrifying to imagine this world beyond hope, where survival becomes a question of both how and, more devastatingly, why? As I take stock now of all my worldly possesions, I realize that in this pray-we-may-never-see-it world, everything beyond cans of food would be rendered instantly useless in the game of survival, which I would play only to carry on the spirit of Love.
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“A world beyond hope” Exactly. I’ve heard people say The Road ends hopeful but I think the whole point is that hope is a sham. Nature is not to be challenged and any effort to the contrary is futile. If there’s any positive message it’s ‘love each other before the world swallows you up, most likely in some horrifying fashion’. And this makes me think – Herzog should adapt a McCarthy novel. Their worldviews and themes are so in tune with each other; misfits on the fringes of society thinking they can overcome nature and finding out the hard way they can’t. If you’re interested, here’s an old interview/article about McCarthy from the NYT in 1992. http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-venom.html?_r=1&oref=slogin – The dude is nuts. Read Blood Meridian next! It’s probably the most violent book ever written. It’s also his best, at least that I’ve read.
I like the positive message in there and I think you’re right. When reduced to pure survival, life is boiled down to its essence. When we lose our humanity and live like animals, we understand what really matters. All else is just diversion. We live a life of luxury when we can listen to music and enjoy films and interact socially with our friends, but all that becomes meaningless in times of desperation… which makes me even more sure that I want to enjoy it thoroughly now while I can. Stories of loss and desolation actually serve to focus us on what really makes life so beautiful.