I have recently read The Road by Cormack McCarthy and was expecting a lot given that it has won the Pulitzer prize. After all, wasn't Clarke Kent always trying to win one of those? or was it Peter Parker? I forget.
Anyway, this was a thoroughly miserable book from start to finish. A post apocolyptic tale of misery and more misery intersperced with slight less miserable moments. I don't know who would enjoy the book really because it would simply make anyone dipair.
It is beautifully written and imaginative, but really the best thing about it as far as I am concerned is that I got it for free!
I'll try something more cheerful next, I hope...
One to avoid!
ReplyDeleteDo you want "Lovely Bones" back - I have room if I remove one of my two T-shirts!
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The more obscure and morose the book, the better the chance of a literary prize on the grounds that only the literati will persevere to read it, and so relieved are they when they finish it, they give a prize to the author as a mark of that relief, when it's they who deserve the prize for reading it.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly the review I gave it when I gave you the book. I thought his descriptive writing was so good that I read "No ciuntry for old men" MUCH more depressing!
ReplyDeleteand then his border trilogy All the pretty horses The Crossing and City of the plains.
I just love good description - even if it is about cleaning toilets. If I can "see" it I like it.
wrm btw
ReplyDeleteThey talk about it so that everyone knows that they have read it & they feel superior to mere mortals who read for pleasure/self improvement/ because they belong yo a book club.....
ReplyDeleteI don't belong to a book club!
ReplyDeletewrm
I don't think you were being accused of that, it was a sweeping generalisation about those who read literary fiction and bore others with it. I read history and bore people with that when I am being most boring
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