Ease on down, ease on down the road.

Well then. Been a few days since I typed one of these. What to do, what to do?

So I just watched the trailer for the upcoming film "The Road." The film is based on the Pulitzer prize winning novel, not to mention Oprah book club favorite, by Cormac McCarthy. There is quite a bit of buzz surrounding the film as you might expect given the nature of the source material. Now I like a good post-apocalyptic exercise in bleakness and despair as much as the next guy. In fact I probably like it more than the next guy. The concept of a hopeless future complete with a dystopian wasteland is a theme I have always been fascinated with. So, like millions of others I "read" this book. Of course I mean "read" in the sense of listening to the unabridged audio book at work. So technically I can count myself amongst the people qualified to render an opinion. As far as book reviews I have seen so far go, this book is a five alarm, grand slam, smorgasboard of literary genius. Critics have fallen over themselves heaping praise upon it. The words "haunting" and "heartbreaking" frequently come up. In other words, the book is almost universally celebrated as a masterpiece. Entertainment weekly even went so far as to name "The Road" the best work of the last 25 years. Crikey, that's a lot of praise! I guess I will throw my hat into the ring. So here I go.

I found "The Road" to be quite possibly the most tedious, disapointing, dull, lifeless experiment in boredom I have ever had the pleasure of occupying my brain with.

Whew! Got that off my chest. I feel better. How about you?

Now I'm sure many of you are saying, "Jay, gosh darnit! I liked The Road! What gives?" First of all, I acknowledge that many people genuinely liked "The Road." Notice I said "liked" instead of "enjoyed." Secondly, I enjoy the phrase "what gives" please continue to use it in the future.

My problems with "The Road" are pretty straight forward. Let's begin with the plot.


*Warning, spoiler alerts! If you haven't read the book I am giving away each and interesting element in the book!*

Actually I don't care if I am giving anything away. Frankly there isn't much to give. For simplicity's sake I will sum up the novel in a few short bullet points.

1. Something bad happened to Earth
2. A man and his son go walking around.
3. One exciting thing happens
4. The man ultimately does not fare well.

There you go. Hope that got your blood pumping. If you prefer you can read the novel and spread that excitement over 250 pages. Look, I know the movie trailer might have convinced you that other things happened, but rest assured they did not. I'm serious. An old man and his son walked around. They walked around for 250 pages. If you want a comparison, imagine the Lord of The Rings trilogy. Remove all of the warriors, orcs, wizards, dialog, sense of purpose, etc. Now take Frodo and Gandalf and have them walk from the shire to Mordor with basically nothing happening en route. Throw in a little, no sort of resolution ending, add a few critics and voila! That's the best thing written in the last 25 years!

Gee, sure hope nothing happens on this journey.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm a fan of subtlety. I don't feel like there needs to be sensational events every few pages to keep me entertained. I like to think that I can navigate through a work without excessive hand holding. But is it too much to ask for a point in the right direction?

"Apocalyptic future eh? Wonder how that happened. Eh, who knows? And who cares? We have walking to get to!"

Many people have theorized that nuclear holocaust or some massive environmental event led to the bleak future presented in the book. Could be I guess. Certainly sounds plausible. I guess when you read 250 or so pages dealing with a dark and forbidding future, you kind of expect some kind of resolution. Maybe some release of the tension that seemed to be the entire focus of the book. Yeah, you might expect that. But in the words of Waring Hudsucker, "tough titty toenails." You ain't getting it my friend.

What could have cause such destruction? Oh well, never mind.

Not a word in the book in any way references what has happened. Imagine you are with one of the few remaining people in the world. There is nothing to eat, the sky is abnormally dark and all the plants have died. Wouldn't you at some point look for an answer or two? Maybe just some good old intellectual curiosity. Apparently not. Looks like in the future people just get on with things without asking questions. It's really like we get to make our own story here. What fun! And so much easier on the author! Almost like those choose your own adventure books that were so much fun in grade school!



Putting the plot aside, there are some things to like. Like having two main characters who don't do any of that tiresome character development that authors like so much. Old man Is grumpy and sick, young boy is scared and whiny. If it's good enough one page one why change it? Of course some people like to care about characters for reasons other then just that they are the first ones presented in the book. Some sort of depth or interesting facet of personality. Well screw them! If 250 pages of non events aren't enough for you, then I'm not sure what to say.

You know how people tell you that the book is always better than the movie? After seeing the trailer for "The Road," I can't imagine that being the case. In 30 seconds more happened than in the 7 hours the book lasts. I'm not kidding here. There were more scenes with things happening then there were in the whole book. One more time.. More things happened in the movie trailer then there were in the book! Watch it for yourself. Armed bandits? Guns? Fighting? Charlize Theron? Looks good right? None of that in the book. Seriously. This book is so dull and devoid of action that they created more for the movie. Most movies leave things out to avoid having 6 hour behemoths that no one would go see. This movie actually had to add content. Don't believe me? Take a gander at the imdb page for the film Here. Now go read the book, I'll wait....Ok you're back. Notice how there are about 50 character in the movie? Count how many there were in the book. Hmmm? On a positive note you don't see the mother at all in the book on account her being dead and all. But the movie has the mother and here she is.

Movie1- Book 0.

Maybe I am belaboring the point a bit. But what the hell, I haven't blogged in 8 months so I might as well get it out of the way now. This is the last point I will make here. One of the strengths people always point out about the novel is the descriptive nature of Cormac's prose. For this I can't fault the man. He can turn a phrase. I guess describing nothingness poetically is still poetic on some level. Let's give it a try!

The Appointment book
Absent were the telltale spots and crinkles. The page, lonely, unturned. It's stark whiteness broken only by the lividity of it's pre printed numbers. No inky smudge nor dusky thumbprint left by any eager perusal. Squares of forsaken white enveloped by obsidian boundaries. No appointments. No obligations. Only the empty void. Empty, cold, barren, isolated. Bereft of contact. Hidden from the very touch, the life, the spark that exists between the living. No, there were no appointments today. Nor would there be...evermore.


Wow, that's fun! I think I'm on to something here! I got excited just looking at my empty calender. Just think what I could come up with about empty spiral notebooks!

Anywho. Glad to be back people. It's good to get that pent up snarkiness out of the way. I feel better already. And Cormac if you are reading, no offense. I really did like "No Country for Old Men." See you next time. I'm off to write the best novel of the next 25 years.