lol I read The Road and absolutely fell in love with it. To be honest, it's one of my top five favorites of all-time. (I actually came to the Book Discussion forums to post about it.) Immediately after putting this book down, I started reading Swan Song, so EyezForYou is dead on. That's also an excellent read, though instead of 290 pages of large print you got with The Road, you'll get 1,000 pages of microscopic print, lol. Cool Fact: I would have read The Road in one sitting, but fell asleep. I read it in 4 instead. I couldn't put the thing down!
The Road is an amazing book. The imagery is amazing, yet it is simple. A father and son going down the road with a shopping cart and doing what is needed to survive. I read Alas,Babylon shortly after and it was fun to compare the way the characters from each book dealt with problems. I would suggest reading both of them.
I've read eight of his books, and I would rate them like this. 1. Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West 2. All the Pretty Horses 3. No Country For Old Men 4. The Road 5. Suttree 6. Child of God 7. The Crossing 8. Cities of the Plain Cormac McCarthy is one of my favorite writers. I think he's one of the best writers currently writing in the United States. His imagery is flawless, his style is amazing and all of his books are nearly impossible to put down once you've picked them up. Blood Meridian is one of the best books I've ever read. It's the kind of book that makes other good books look bad. If you like McCarthy, do yourself a favor and read it.
The only knock I have on McCarthy is his style of using dialogue between characters. When I first started reading his work, it was confusing. I'm used to it now, and albeit that not being a concern now, it was to me then.
I don't see anything special about McCarthy at all. His writing is abysmal. This review sums up The Road for me: "If you're reading this, you know the premise of the book and that many reviewers have given it high marks. I fell for the hype but I hope you won't. 'The Road' is like one of those abstract paintings that some people see as incredibly brilliant while the rest of us think it looks like a five-year-old got loose with mom's oil paints. Who doesn't get it - me or them? Who knows, but I'm pretty openminded in trying to appreciate good writing and my advice is not to waste your time or money on this book. If an unknown writer submitted work like this, publishing house editors would be laughing about it over lunch."
To Bluemouth, I guess the Road just isn't for you, but me personally, I absolutely loved it. It was probably one of my favorite books. I've also read Swan Song, which is very good too. If you like post apocalyptic/dystopian future fiction, read: Brave New World The Last Man (very old, but pretty good actually) or watch the Mad Max series lol
Having read over half of it now I can see why people love it. The addictiveness is intense. However, the writing still fails. I'm surprised so many people can just accept the poor grammar and punctuation ...
I understand what you're saying, Bluemouth. Like here in India, authors like Chetan Bhagat are selling millions of books even though they make amateurish mistakes that makes me cringe just to read the first ten pages of the book. The fact is that readers rarely spot any mistakes in a book, most of them not being writers themselves - they just go for the plot and addictiveness.
I've read "All The Pretty Horses" and didnt like it. The writing style was too messy for me and i had a hard time keeping up. I realise that its my own fault rather than McCarthys.
It's not your fault. If a writer's writing is taking you out of the story then they're failing you. McCarthy can't write properly, so you have perfect validation to say it's his fault.
The Road is brilliant. It took me a chapter or so to get into his style but once you're in, you're in. I liked the way he would deal with something so natural with the father and son relationship against how unnatural their world had become. Gripping and at times a bit scary, or maybe that was just me. Anyway I am definitely going to have to investigate his other works
When it comes to McCarthy, I've only had the opportunity to read one of his books so far - "The Orchard Keeper". I did not enjoy it ... at all. From what I understand, that was his first novel. Is it fair to assume the stories get better? Because I have "All the Pretty Horses" sitting on my bookshelf, and I just don't want to be disappointed again.
Whoever mentioned Alas, Babylon is absolutely right. That is an absolutely marvelous book. Pat Frank is one of my favorite writers because of that particular book. As for Cormac Mccarthy, I loved The Road. It was easily the most depressing book I have ever read, but it is eerily beautiful. I felt like I could really feel the love between father and son, even faced with the grim reality forced upon them. I haven't read anything else by Mccarthy, but I heard Blood Meridian was amazing.
The writer has no obligation to anyone to write in a specific kind of style. Look, I'm not particularly fond of Ernest Hemingway's weird, distant kind of prose, but that doesn't mean that he's "failed" me. It means I don't like it. It's nobody's fault, not the reader's or the writer's. That's just the way it is. It's totally fine that you don't like Cormac McCarthy's work, but I think you have a misconception of what writing is about. Anyway, I recently finished All the Pretty Horses, the first of his stuff that I've read, and it's instantly become one of my favorite books. I thought it was stunning. Yes, a bit difficult to follow in some parts, but I found myself holding my breath as I read some passages, I was so enthralled by whatever was taking place. That to me is powerful stuff.
I found No Country For Old Men to be one of the most singularly depressing books I have ever read. While it made for a just as depression movie, I just didn't find it that special. Other then the face that Chigar walks at the end, everything you want to happen doesn't...
