Monday, January 11, 2010

Catching up and "The Road" book review.

So it's been a while since the apocalypse blog has had some action so I feel it should get some loving. I've been working on my real blog over at www.thefilmslave.blogspot.com and in general have been pretty busy. At least, busy enough to not have to think about our ultimate demise. So, for 2009, there's not really an official end post but I'd thought I'd do a little review of the book, "The Road," by Cormac McCarthy.

Having been turned into a major motion picture that I have yet to see but would like to, "The Road" is an amazing book on all levels, it's emotionally involving, gut wrenching, heart warming, but sincere and meaningful when it seems at times all things have lost their meanings. McCarthy puts the reader in a world that has been completely obliterated and while there are echoes of what the past was like all around they seem like nothing more than shadows of things that once were. One of my favorite parts of the book was when the son tried a coke for the first time and describes the feeling. As McCarthy puts the reader completely in the heads of the characters he then suddenly starts tweaking with them and sending them on an emotional ride that at the end of the book leaves a very cutting gap somewhere in your soul-if you have one that is.

It's a very chilling story and there is a lot to talk about. Mainly, is just the idea that when all this "civilization" is stripped away, we're just animals, and the only thing making us any different is love. It is love that keep the father and son together and on their long journey south, through all the hardship and it is love that keeps them from descending into wild beasts. It is a chilling analysis of human nature that when stripped away from something to live for other than yourself you'll more than likely turn off your higher levels of reasoning in order to survive.


Changing gears...

In other cinema news, the movie 2012 has made oodles of money on exploiting that ole' mayan thing about the world ending and such. It just goes to show that we all like a wild ride and especially when the world ending is part of the package. I just hate the fact that it's created a league of dip shits who now actually believe all that stuff.

Wow. It's been so long I've really forgotten how to write for this blog?! Oh well, until tomorrow or some other time in the future if we're not blown away by then, i'm out.