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What is East Dulwich reading?

gallinello

By gallinello
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  • 2 weeks later...
mockney piers

mockney piers

Posted
Posted

Finally got round to The Road as I've given up on ever going to the cinema again.

It's all a bit grey isn't it.


Beautifully and poetically written though. A Wasteland for a new generation. Which thinking about it isn't a bad comparison. Whereas TS Eliot's masterpiece came in the wake of the great war and the death of optimism, McCarthy's comes on the back of climate change and that ever seductive idea to writers that the future is worse than past. Not sure what causes the apocapalypse though. Some suggestion of a nuclear war, is it ever really clarified?

mockney piers

mockney piers

Posted
Posted

Scratch that.


having finished it it really is just an overlong and rather starkly beautiful way of saying i's you pint half full or half empty'. And some stuff about questioning the validity of imbuing meaning into existence.


Is life a gray (sic) road full of ennui and horror with the occasional peach juice or crafted sextant moment? Is there a greater meaning; should there be an embracing optism; brings us back to TS Eliot who I think leaned toward the negative when asking the same questions.


I sense McCarthy will be buying the subsequent round and it's truly a redemtive book, whether for him or no I couldn't say. Lovely though, lovely, it'll be getting a second read tomorrow.

vinceayre

vinceayre

Posted
Posted

I read The Road a few months ago and as a father with a son of similar age as the boy in the book it certainly pulled quite a few heart strings for me. A dark book no doubt but at the end of it I felt strangely happy and uplifted as the father had achieved his goal of making his son safe.


I felt he was trying to show what humans are capable of if pushed to the extreme, totally compelling reading which i could not put down until finished.

????

????

Posted
Posted

Spoiler Vince!!!


The son is the innocent 'good' the father is just a world-weary, stoical, refusing to give up bugger, ultimately driven by good but he needs his son to remind him of this was my take. I think it's ultimately uplifting for both of their qualities. Not sure if I could read it again straight away though Mockney!

SeanMacGabhann

SeanMacGabhann

Posted
Posted

Some people find it harrowing but I too find it ultimately uplifting


For me the biggest emotional impact came from the book challenging the reader on seemingly every page to question how they choose good over bad - and how, rather than wait until the kind of environment we read about in the book, we should be making those choices more conciously in our current situation


But yeah, like quids, I didn't rush to read it the day after!


the film makes as good a film as can be possibly made from the material btw - but it can't match the book

mockney piers

mockney piers

Posted
Posted

*SPOILERS !!!!!!!*


The book is ultimately a world view crafted and narrated in third person by 'the man' (the clue is he slips into first person in his flashbacks). Dark as that post apocalyptic world certainly is, it isn't necessarily as bad as the man makes out. The boy often challenges that view and is ultimately vindicated through most of the encounters.


I also thought there was a HUGE nod to Philip K Dick's 'Man in the High Castle'. There is much reference to dream realities and the telling of stories. There is an acknowledgement that the characters are slightly aware that they aren't real, that they are products of the author's own fears and inner struggle with life's meaning and the moral decisions we have to make everyday.

It works on so many myriad levels of cautionary tale, passion play and metaphor.

Marvellous stuff and most deserving of it's pullitzer.

vinceayre

vinceayre

Posted
Posted

oops sorry about the lack of spoiler warning.


Im not sure if i would like to re read The Road though.


One author I have re read many times is Kinky Friedman, but every time I mention him to anybody no ones heard of him, any one here heard of him? Very off beat funny crime writer based in New York and Texas.

  • 1 month later...
Nero

Nero

Posted
Posted
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick, the LA Times bureau chief in Beijing, and former Seoul correspondent is a good read. She befriended several N Korea refugees in S Korea and tells their story. I recommend it, mostly because it is well written and has good narratives and also because it gives a human face to a place that has become a byword for faceless conformity.
chez

chez

Posted
Posted

Lord Sornoff Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson.

>

> An absolute corker that I can't seem to put down.

> Tragically the author, Stig Larsson, died before

> seeing his 'Millenium Trilogy' becoming a

> worldwide best seller.

>

> I thoroughly recommend it.


I just got on to the second one...totally gripped! Recommendation seconded.

  • 10 months later...
mockney piers

mockney piers

Posted
Posted

well, call me a masochist.


I've moved on to Blood Meridian.


Cripes, and I thought The Road was a harrowing read. But whereas I found that a rather redemptive book, I can see no goodness in this novel. It's pretty Swiftian in is savage indictment of humanity.


Mind you it's a more beautiful read, and the Judge must stand out as one of the great literary characters, some of his sermons actually stopped me in my tracks (and sadly I can't help but agree with many of his conclusions).


I finished last night and had to read the last couple of pages several times over, so amazing was it.


I should read something about puppies and flowers now, but like a fool I started Child of God today.


Like i say, masochist.

Peckhamgatecrasher

Peckhamgatecrasher

Posted
Posted

No sympathy - I did scoff at the time.


Having finally paid my library fine last weekend, I've gone a bit mad.


In the last 10 days I've read:


"Toast" - bit of a bitch our Nigel

"The Winter Ghosts" - absolute drivel

"Cider with Rosie" - charming and perceptive

all three Larssons - hype justifiable;

"Trust Me I'm a Junior Doctor" - funny and poignant

"An Empty Death" - makes Kate Mosse look erudite

"Don't tell Alfred" - delightful puff, makes one hanker after hats and gloves

the last two "Joshua Files" - pretty good (teen stuff so don't bother unless you are weird like me)

"The Woodcutter" - bloody brilliant

and am currently enjoying "The Complaints" - juicy non-Rebus cop stuff.

mockney piers

mockney piers

Posted
Posted

"all three Larssons - hype justifiable"


Really? I thought the first one was an excellent thriller, but it started getting in equal measures silly and boring in the latter two, and Salander just that little bit to cartoonish superhero for my taste.


And I can't help feeling Larsson was a bit of a perv.

Peckhamgatecrasher

Peckhamgatecrasher

Posted
Posted

Know what you mean about the perv thing.


What I mean is that I'm very easily put off by recommendations. Anything that's Booker Prize or, God forbid, Richard & Judy approved is the kiss of death for me. Larsson was so lauded that I avoided him for ages and was pleasantly surprised.


Can't tell you how disappointing "The King's Speech" was when I saw it - for the same reasons.

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