I began reading this novel yesterday and finished it today. McCarthy did a great job of creating this other-worldly atmosphere in which the main characters operated while still being emotionally and physically numb. The total absence of names helped me empathize with both the boy and his father. They were generic without being ordinary.Best of all, the novel flew by quickly. Far too often authors like to impress reader with thick tomes, as though length somehow compensates for tedium. Well, it's not the size that counts; it what you do with it. And McCarthy did very well in this brief, sad, but very readable book.
I've already started on my next book, which is in the same genre: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller. So far, it appears to be set in a Catholic-esque monastery in Utah centuries after a cataclysmic nuclear war.
4 comments:
You read a book in between postingsand have started another? I can't even get through my RSS feeds!
Yup. It's a really quick read.
I hope you enjoy Canticle. I re-read it a year or so ago and enjoyed it even more.
I look forward to hearing how you like Canticle. I still remember the first time I read it, and it was one of the ones I recommended to the kids as they got old enough.
I remember when The Road first made such a big splash... there was grumbling in the sf world about the reviews, which seemed to think this book somehow broke new ground.
I enjoy seeing your "reads"
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