My new friend. His name? Cormac McCarthy. I am addicted.
I've only read The Road and No Country For Old Men, but they we're both really very good. Gonna be searching for cheap editions of his novels in the next few weeks. Maybe I'll pick up a new one tomorrow - perhaps Blood Meridian or All The Pretty Horses. His novels are so readable and page-turnery but also good, not shit, no no, good. Really gripping, with punchy speech, and highly plot driven, but also very American. I ended up making pages of quotes and notes on The Road. It is so deliciously dark. Maybe I will bombard you with some of the quotes here, you unsuspecting little things. Hehehe. Okay, here are my favourites. I'll only put two in. Just want to share the love. (I would try and persuade everyone around to how great NCFOM was as well by doing this if it wasn't completely and utterly unquotable- n.b. the title of this post is actually a quote from the book. Maybe I exaggerated the truth a little there. There is one quote of worth. Enjoy it.)
This first quote is the first three sentences of the novel
"When we woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world."
Numero Duo!
He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it."
Maybe I’ll write a review of it soon, and then put a shiny hyperlink right here (____here it is____) when it’s done so people can click away. I think I will. Yeah, I’ll do that.
Feel like I haven't posted on here in a long time. Can't say there's any reason for that. Apathy perhaps? Or maybe I've realised I simply have. nothing. to. say. I don't think it's that though. I think in reality I've been too absorbed in reading things to give a second thought to this blog, or its function of keeping me sane over the holidays. I think all the reading has done me good though. It's made me feel relaxed. Maybe too relaxed. In fact I don't think I've read this many books in such a short period of time since my imprisoning holiday in France two years ago, where the only alternative to complete and utter boredom was complete and utter escapism.
In the last week I've read The Road, and No Country For Old Men. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers - a non-fiction book about one man's experience of Hurricane Katrina told in the style of a novel. It was kinda strange reading non-fiction events in that style. But it worked well. I also read All My Friends are Superheroes, by Andrew Kaufman. I think I spoke about it in my last post. It was complete and utter rubbish. Enjoyable enough to get to the end of, but still undeniably rubbish. Too cutesy. I'm currently three chapters away from finishing Watchmen by Alan Moore. Though I have to admit that my interest is waning. Surely it should be peaking about now? Oh well. As one of Time's best 100 novels I thought I'd better check it out. But it's been disappointing so far. I guess I've not finished it yet though, perhaps I shouldn’t judge. Trying to make myself believe that slowness of plot = deeper character development which will then make the climax even more valuable. Ready to read next I have Bret Easton Ellis' new novel Imperial Bedrooms, let's hope it isn't as awful as his last novel Lunar Park. I threw my copy away it was that bad. Blegh. Part of me is beginning to believe that he is past it now. The novel is supposedly a sequel to his first novel Less Than Zero, I just think that by writing this sequel he might end up shitting all over the success that was Less Than Zero, or inviting a negative comparison between the now aging Bret and the early, creative, teenage Bret.
No other news to report. Until I have to resurface, complete escapism will be the order of the day...
Along with pushing John Milton and that fucking shitting ridiculously painful neverending poem, Paradise Lost to the back of my mind for as long as is humanly and hopefully sensibly possible.
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