THE BORE

General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: Eel O'Brian on July 20, 2008, 08:05:13 PM

Title: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eel O'Brian on July 20, 2008, 08:05:13 PM
50% of this novel is composed of these two lines:

"It'll be all right."

He held the boy.
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Van Cruncheon on July 20, 2008, 08:11:34 PM
what book is this

Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Howard Alan Treesong on July 20, 2008, 08:14:03 PM
Cormac McCarthy

it was kind of mediocre

I guess if you've never thought about the apocalypse before, you'll be blown away. But if you've grown up on a nerd diet of the world ending twice a week and three times on Sunday, you'll be snoozy.
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eel O'Brian on July 20, 2008, 08:14:28 PM
I listened to the unabridged audiobook of The Road during my trip.  There is some excellent writing throughout the book, but it tends to get repetitious - that's made all the more apparent when you listen to it being read out loud.

I am in the minority on this board regarding WWZ, I thought it sucked - and I am a fan of The Zombie Survival Guide
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Van Cruncheon on July 20, 2008, 08:15:15 PM
yeah, i think there's a good 10% pri 2 timeslice of my 16 INT brain spent in eschatological ruminations, as it were
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eel O'Brian on July 20, 2008, 08:18:10 PM
plus i like how they're able to still eat canned food which is more than a decade old without dying from food poisoning or at least constantly having the flaming shits during their every waking hour
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Van Cruncheon on July 20, 2008, 08:21:45 PM
yes, but that 16 INT lets me rationalize my 9 WIS, so nyah nyah
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eel O'Brian on July 20, 2008, 08:23:27 PM
all in all, i enjoyed the two old fred allen shows i listened to more

fuck you, oprah's book club
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Solo on July 20, 2008, 08:24:56 PM
Maybe this will be a movie adaptation > source material case, perhaps? Never read the book myself.
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eel O'Brian on July 20, 2008, 08:28:24 PM
yeah, i think it would work better on film, now that you've mentioned it

also, i'd like to see a post-apoc novel told from the perspective of the "bad guy" - what depths we sink to just to stay alive, etc.
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Phoenix Dark on July 20, 2008, 08:29:19 PM
never read it either, although my mom owns it thanks to Oprah. I'll try to find it and check it out before the film comes out. Viggooooo <3

What's a good good of his to start with, outside of The Road?
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eel O'Brian on July 20, 2008, 08:30:30 PM
this is the first cormac mccarthy book i have experienced

not sure i want to jump into another
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Van Cruncheon on July 20, 2008, 08:35:19 PM
:bow :bow blood meridian :bow2 :bow2

i personally guarantee you will love it, eel

i swear on the grave of ayn rand's sociopathic paranoia that you will pee the white pee with delight

the road sounds awful, though
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Madrun Badrun on July 20, 2008, 08:36:13 PM
Quote from: Amber Lambchops on July 20, 2008, 08:29:19 PM
never read it either, although my mom owns it thanks to Oprah. I'll try to find it and check it out before the film comes out. Viggooooo <3

What's a good good of his to start with, outside of The Road?
Quote from: Professor Prole on July 20, 2008, 08:35:19 PM
:bow :bow blood meridian :bow2 :bow2

.
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eel O'Brian on July 20, 2008, 08:38:51 PM
Quote from: Professor Prole on July 20, 2008, 08:35:19 PM
:bow :bow blood meridian :bow2 :bow2

i personally guarantee you will love it, eel

i swear on the grave of ayn rand's sociopathic paranoia that you will pee the white pee with delight

the road sounds awful, though

cool, i'll try it out

the road isn't really that bad, and it's certainly better than a lot of del ray shit i have quit reading after ten pages

there are some heartbreaking moments...too many of them, actually
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: GilloD on July 20, 2008, 09:11:28 PM
It was okay. It didn't go anywhere the genre hadn't been previously. I suppose it's ZOMG A HUMAN NOVEL BY A GREAT AMERICAN TALENT but it felt like a 2nd rate novella by a middling sci-fi author.

On the sliding scale of shitty Sci-Fi bullshit you could read, it scores pretty highly. But it's still boring and uninspired.
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Draft on July 20, 2008, 10:41:34 PM
I thought The Road was great. I really feel like McCarthy's weird ass writing style comes into its own in The Road. It's like a poem... but it's not?

Blood Meridian is much better, though.

:bow Judge Holden :bow2

Et in arcadia ego. He wrote it on his shotgun as a mark of its deadliness.
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eric P on July 20, 2008, 11:17:30 PM
couldn't get into blood meridian

didn't like the writing style at all
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Van Cruncheon on July 21, 2008, 12:18:01 AM
that's the bit i liked best :'(
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eric P on July 21, 2008, 07:32:58 AM
i still have it.  i'll probably get the urge to read it again at some point
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eel O'Brian on July 21, 2008, 09:11:31 AM
Quote from: Draft on July 20, 2008, 10:41:34 PM
I thought The Road was great. I really feel like McCarthy's weird ass writing style comes into its own in The Road. It's like a poem... but it's not?

you know, reading up on mccarthy, i found out he loves to break traditional rules, dismissing with quotation marks and punctuation

that sounds interesting to me

the road might actually work much better on paper, so perhaps i ought to give it another chance that way

library, here i come to pay off that $3 i have owed you since 2002
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Draft on July 21, 2008, 09:13:45 AM
Quote from: Eel O'Brian on July 21, 2008, 09:11:31 AM
Quote from: Draft on July 20, 2008, 10:41:34 PM
I thought The Road was great. I really feel like McCarthy's weird ass writing style comes into its own in The Road. It's like a poem... but it's not?

you know, reading up on mccarthy, i found out he loves to break traditional rules, dismissing with quotation marks and punctuation
Oh man does he.

But I found the book very interesting and satisfying to read. I am not a poetry guy. But The Road kind of showed me how someone could be a poetry guy. A lot of the enjoyment I got was from the way he danced around grammar rather than what was actually going on (though I did find the narrative enjoyable too.)
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eric P on July 21, 2008, 09:18:55 AM
Quote from: Draft on July 21, 2008, 09:13:45 AM

But I found the book very interesting and satisfying to read. I am not a poetry guy. But The Road kind of showed me how someone could be a poetry guy. A lot of the enjoyment I got was from the way he danced around grammar rather than what was actually going on (though I did find the narrative enjoyable too.)


http://www.amazon.com/Sharp-Teeth-Toby-Barlow/dp/0061430226
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Kestastrophe on July 21, 2008, 09:42:07 AM
I just finished The Road last week and I thought that it was overrated as well. Not only that, but there are people who claim that the book is the best case for environmental reform, but I wholeheartedly agree. The book is extremely ambiguous about explaining what happened to the world, and if I had to guess I would say that it was
spoiler (click to show/hide)
nuclear war, just because McCarthy describes the world as ashy and there is the one scene where they come across an area with burnt corpses.
[close]
So yeah, the politicizing of this book for Global Warming is complete bullshit.
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Draft on July 21, 2008, 09:52:30 AM
Quote from: Eric P on July 21, 2008, 09:18:55 AM
Quote from: Draft on July 21, 2008, 09:13:45 AM

But I found the book very interesting and satisfying to read. I am not a poetry guy. But The Road kind of showed me how someone could be a poetry guy. A lot of the enjoyment I got was from the way he danced around grammar rather than what was actually going on (though I did find the narrative enjoyable too.)


http://www.amazon.com/Sharp-Teeth-Toby-Barlow/dp/0061430226
Sounds interesting. I'll check it out.
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: TakingBackSunday on July 21, 2008, 09:57:36 AM
I thought this was about On the Road, to which I would've been sad.  :(
Title: Re: The Road: Not That Great
Post by: Eric P on July 21, 2008, 09:58:44 AM
Quote from: Kestastrophe on July 21, 2008, 09:42:07 AM
I just finished The Road last week and I thought that it was overrated as well. Not only that, but there are people who claim that the book is the best case for environmental reform, but I wholeheartedly agree. The book is extremely ambiguous about explaining what happened to the world, and if I had to guess I would say that it was
spoiler (click to show/hide)
nuclear war, just because McCarthy describes the world as ashy and there is the one scene where they come across an area with burnt corpses.
[close]
So yeah, the politicizing of this book for Global Warming is complete bullshit.

if people need environmental horror, why not look to the classics?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sheep_Look_Up