Review: The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My sister, April, recommended this book to me. She gave it four stars. I have to disagree with her however. I read most of this book while I was traveling. I read it while in airports, on flights and in a hotel room. I was also usually sleepy while reading. Perhaps I just missed the coherent plot.

The book is set in a post-apocalyptic world. The narrator and his son are traveling the main road of the title. They are usually cold and are traveling south in search of warmer weather. They are also usually hungry, so along the way, they search for food and supplies while doing their best to avoid disagreeable characters who would like to do them harm such as eating them to satisfy their own hunger.

What caused the state of the world does not seem to be unknown to the characters in the book, but nobody bothers to share that information with the reader. Ash covers everything, and people wear masks or breathing apparatuses to keep from breathing it. However, the source of the ash is left unknown. Did a supervolcano erupt or did a giant asteroid crash into the Earth like the KT event that wiped out the dinosaurs? One of the categories listed in the Library of Congress information in the front of the book is "Voyages and travels - United States". I do not think it was established for certain that the location was the United States. The characters speak English, but I think somebody reading a translation of the book would think the location was some other country. There are a couple of references to Spanish including the son finding a coin with Spanish writing. Perhaps our travelers made it all the way to Mexico or perhaps some Latin American country or countries attacked the US which then retaliated with atomic weapons and thus brought about nuclear winter. That would also help explain why the cities seem to be in ruins.

I will grant that establishing the reason for the dystopian environment is frequently not a top priority in many works of the post-apocalyptic genre. For instance, I do not remember if it was established why society broke down in the Mad Max movie franchise. In more recent movies and televisions series, the situation is caused by an alien invasion or a rampant disease that created zombies or vampires. In the Kevin Coster epic Waterworld, the polar icecaps melt and cover the world with undrinkable seawater. I assume global warming caused the icecaps to melt, but that is a political argument which is not relevant here. Anyway, I think all of those reasons can safely be eliminated as culprits for the world of The Road. The reader is left either wondering or simply not caring.

Another problem that I have with the book is the author's writing style. I have not read any of Cormac McCarthy's other works, but this book has a distinctly spare style. I suppose when the world goes to hell in a handbasket, the first thing that will be lost is punctuation. The lack of quotation marks is particularly annoying and makes the dialogue difficult to follow. Another casualty of the breakdown is names, both for people and locations. The lack of place names leads to the ambiguity in regards to the settings for the book. Neither the man, his son, nor the dead wife and mother are named in the book. The only character to be named in the book is a stranger that the two main character encounter near the end of the book. The man gives his name as Ely, but it is quickly established that he is lying. I suppose that names are irrelevant in this new world.

The book is very emotional and runs the gamut of emotions with some scenes that are touching, some that are exciting, and some that are very disturbing. While the relationship between the father and the son is the primary focus, the book also does a good job of expressing the stress associated with fighting for survival in that trying environment. I found the ending of the book to be anticlimactic except that would imply there was a climax. Like a starving man in a post-apocalyptic world, the book does not end as much as it just slowly curls up and dies.

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Number Nine

Today, I cracked open the bottle of home brew which I had labeled with the number 9 ("Number Nine, Number Nine") to indicate that I had added nine carbonation tablets. Nine was the least number of tablets that I used in a bottle. As expected, the result is a very flat beer. The taste is also a bit sour, but I believe that would be relieved with more carbonation. The white specks which are remnants of the Munton's CarbTabs were not an issue with this bottle.

Looking back over some previous posts, I noticed that two recent posts had an interesting and not immediately apparent connection. In a post from March 6, I mentioned that I saw the new Tron movie at the local $1.50 theater. Then on March 12, I posted about the bottle of home brew that contained thirteen carbonation tablets. So what, or more precisely who, is the common connection? That would be the lovely Olivia Wilde, of course. Yeah, yeah, it is a bit of a stretch, but it seemed much more interesting before I started typing this. Anyway, she plays the character Quorra in Tron: Legacy. She is probably most well known from the television show House M.D. where she plays Dr. Remy 'Thirteen' Hadley. OK, enough of that silliness, although I did I get through all that without mentioning that her character is bisexual or linking to her photos in GQ, Maxim and others (oh well).

In other news, I have finally gotten around to ordering myself a new cellphone. I have been with Sprint since I bought my first cellphone quite a few years ago. My current phone is a Sanyo RL-4920 which was originally introduced back in 2004 or so. My current contract with Sprint expired way back in 2007, but I have just never bothered to get a new phone by signing up for a new contract. I recently changed my mind, and today, I ordered the LG Rumor Touch and agreed to a two-year contract. By the way, I got the blue one and not the purple one.

The Last Crusade

When I am in the gym, Glenn Beck's television show is usually on the one television tuned to Fox News. While I am on the elliptical machine, I watch Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption on ESPN, but occasionally during commercials, I switch over to see what Mr. Beck is all teared up about. As one would might expect, Mr. Beck's most recent concern is the forthcoming Armageddon ignited by the troubles in Egypt and somewhat related demonstrations in Tunisia, Jordan, and Yemen. Mr. Beck sees these uprisings as a beginning of an organized attempt by Islamic groups to take over the world.

I really have no opinion on Mr. Beck's concerns. However, as an example of Muslim aggressiveness, he goes all the way back to the Crusades. Now am I not an expert on those religious wars of the Middle Ages, but I am pretty sure all of the Crusades, except the last one, were due to Christian armies invading Muslim territory which in those times included Palestine. The point being that the Crusades were the result of aggressiveness by Christians and not Muslims.

Of course, the Last Crusade is not a war, but the third of the Indiana Jones movies. It's the one where Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford in one of his iconic roles, and his father, played by Sean Connery, are searching for the Holy Grail while being pursued by Nazis. The movie has that great line delivered by Connery, "We named the dog Indiana."

Copy Cats

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped by the local movie theater and caught the alien-invasion flick, Skyline. The movie was not particularly good, and its stay in theaters was short. To me, the story and cinematography are reminiscent of the monster flick Cloverfield. The plot revolves around a couple who have flown to Los Angeles for the birthday of the guy's best friend. The friend is some sort of media mogul and is played by Donald Faison who is best known for playing Dr. Turk on the sitcom Scrubs. None of the other actors were familiar to me, but that certainly does not mean they are not well-known.

During the couple's first night in LA, they are awakened by bright blue lights coming through the window blinds. The lights are from spaceships belonging to aliens with not so nice intentions. When people see the mesmerizing lights, their body is frozen in place, and then they are vacuumed up into the ships. The rest of the plot revolves around characters either trying to hide or escape from the aliens. Neither of these approaches are successful. The military also makes some appearances to provide some action but little success. In the end, the audience is left to assume that the aliens were successful in their conquest of the planet Earth and the human species. I am not kidding. Not to worry, there is already a sequel in the works.

One thing that I noticed was the movie depends on the standard signals to inform the audience that the lead female character is pregnant. For anybody that does not grasp the subtleties of Hollywood symbolism, when a woman pukes and/or declines an alcoholic drink, it means that she is pregnant. I think screenwriters go to those wells far too often, but I guess it makes things easy for both the writers and the audience. There are few other reasons for either of those two situations to be worked into a story. I suppose if the story is about a woman recovering from alcoholism, it would be reasonable for her to decline drinks. If a female character is hungover, is being treated for cancer, or is being poisoned, then it is understandable that she would throw up. I think those examples are about it though.

Speaking of regurgitation, it seems increasing popular nowadays for movies and television shows to recycle previous ideas. As I mentioned above, Skyline is basically a remake of Cloverfield with the Godzilla elements replaced with the extraterrestrial elements from Independence Day. Moving over to the small screen, one frequent source of regurgitated ideas for American television shows is the BBC. Some of the best examples are ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, NBC's The Office, and TLC's Trading Spaces which was based on a BBC show named Changing Rooms. The show What Not to Wear is another example from the network TLC. The original hosts of the British version of that show even went on to have their own show on American television.

The latest show to get the BBC-to-America treatment is Top Gear. The British version of the show is shown here on BBC America. Let me say that I am definitely not a gear-head. I own a 1998 Honda Accord Coupe with peeling paint. It is the EX version with the 3.0-liter V6 engine. That is about all I know about cars. I do not change the oil in my car. The extent of my car maintenance skills are pumping gas, changing wiper blades, adding air to tires, and changing bulbs and fuses. I was quite proud of myself when I replaced the main relay in the Honda. Also, I do not know how to operate a manual transmission. It just seems a bit silly that I would watch a show about high-end sport cars that I would not even be able to drive if I somehow managed to afford. All that being said, I do enjoy the British version of Top Gear.

That enjoyment does not exactly carry over to the American version of the show. I have watched all the episodes so far, and the best I can say is that I do not hate the show. Unfortunately, the American version just does not work as well as the original. While the hosts from the BBC version have an easy, dare I say organic, relationship, the relationship between the three hosts for the American version seems forced. The individual segments are also a bit discombobulated. Some of the segments seem more like the bland car reviews from the PBS show MotorWeek. Other segments, such as the Stig test-driving supercars and celebrities driving on the track, are just straight duplicates of the British version. The one improvement to those segments is the little diagram that traces the path around the track. I always thought the British version should have something similar. I do not even know the shape of the track on the British version. I was glad to see this improvement included on the American version.

Finally, I watched the premier season of The Walking Dead which is a television show about zombies. The show is broadcast by AMC, and as one might expect from the channel that is known for the hit show Mad Men, the focus of The Walking Dead is more about the drama between the living survivors than their efforts at fighting off the undead. Of course, it would be impossible to do a show about zombies without borrowing from some of the many zombie movies. Despite the fact the Evil Dead movies are among my favorites, I am usually not one for horror flicks, but I have seen a few zombie flicks relatively recently including the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, the horror comedy Shaun of the Dead which starred Simon Pegg, and Zombieland which starred Woody Harrelson. I suppose working with zombies does not give one much flexibility, and the zombies from The Walking Dead are basically the same generic zombies as from those movies.

Why Award Shows Suck

I am certified in my particular profession, and I am a member of the professional organization for that profession. I am also a member of the local chapter of the organization. This evening, I attended the monthly chapter meeting. For each meeting, a variety of issues and notices are covered prior to the main speaker. These can include upcoming events, volunteer opportunities and job openings. At tonight's meeting, one of these items was the announcement that one of our local members had received an award given by the region that includes our chapter.

Now, I do not want to diminish this person's accomplishment. By all indications, he worked exceptionally hard and did a fantastic job, all of which culminated in amazing results. It seems that he completely deserved the award that he received. That being said, after receiving the award from our local chapter president, the guy broke into an acceptance speech right out of the Oscars or Grammys (minus being rudely interrupted by an obnoxious rapper). He started with the traditional "I would like to thank..." and proceeded to thank the members of the board, the other volunteers on his team, and the guy that held his position the previous year. He even threw in a few "special thanks" for some people. By then, I was waiting for his orchestra music cue and the cut to commercial. I think he definitely went over his 45-second limit. This was before he recognized his replacement for this year, and they exchanged a few jokes ("Thanks for not setting the bar too high").

I think this guy was talking completely off-the-cuff, and I don't think he was aware beforehand that he was receiving the award. It wasn't like he had a prepared speech that he whipped out of his pocket. Regardless, it was obviously that the guy was taking a page out of the award-show playbook in the same way that a rec-league softball player prances around the diamond after hitting a home run like he just won the World Series. Spawning acceptance speech emulators and imitators are one reason award shows suck.

Of course, I'm not the only person that think awards shows suck.

Living in the Past

On Saturday, El and I stopped by our local used book store where I picked up some new-to-me reading material. Included among my purchases was the book that I'm currently reading, Empire, which is the part of Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series (or American Chronicles as the publishers preferred). I have been reading the novels in the series in chronological order by history as opposed to the order in which the books were originally published. Thus, I have previously read Burr, Lincoln, and 1876. I liked Burr and Lincoln, but I think those books were helped by the built-in drama from the time periods they covered. Particularly, each novel included a significant country-shaping war. I thought 1876 was a bit drier and harder to get through since the plot revolved around that year's bitter drawn-out election (not to be confused with other bitter, drawn-out elections).

I haven't read any of Vidal's other works, but in addition to the remaining books in this series (next on the list is Washington, D.C. which I also bought on Saturday), I plan on reading some of his other historical fiction novels, particularly Julian and Creation. Although I wouldn't say that I have read a ton of historical fiction, in general, I like the genre. For instance, I enjoyed Wilbur Smith's series of novels set in ancient Egypt, including River God and Warlock. I also have a book of Egyptian whodunnits but that might not actually qualify as historical fiction.

I recently finished Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. That book is also suppose to be a part of a series, but so far it is the only installment. As I eluded to in my short review on Goodreads, I didn't really care for the book. While the general idea was interesting and the book was well written, the Christian overtones (which are understandable as Card is a devout Mormon) were a bit much for me. The general idea of the book seems to be that the Native Americans would have fared much better if their religions were more like psuedo-Christianity.

Pastwatch would also probably not be considered historical fiction, but would be an alternate history. There is the element of time travel, so it could also be consider historical fantasy or science fantasy. To split hairs, stories that include time travel should not be considered science fiction, but rather science fantasy, since time travel is generally not considered to be scientifically possible. Faster-than-light travel is also not considered scientifically possible, so works that included FTL travel would also be science fantasy. Yes, both Star Wars and Star Trek are science fantasy and not science fiction. You wouldn't actually be able to hear those non-existent explosions anyway since there is no air in space to carry the sound or make the combustion possible. Laser guns and perhaps teleportation (but probably only inanimate objects) would be science fiction since they are theoretically possible. Of course, annoying Bluetooth devices are here today.

There are lots of other futuristic elements that are also theoretically possible and fall squarely in the realm of science fiction. Traveling to distant reaches of space while in suspended animation or in giant ships that contain whole civilizations are thought to be possible with more advanced technology. Conversely, staying right here on Earth while being connected to vast computer network is also fair game for science fiction. This was the basic element of the Matrix series of movies, although that series ventured into science fantasy with its more mystical elements.

Personally, I thought the whole plot of the Matrix series was silly. Being educated as an engineer, I know that even advanced machines are simply tools designed by humans for use by humans. I have to assume that even self-aware machines would follow their basic design and programming. I think Morpheus's explanation for how the world of the Matrix came to be quite is unreasonable. It would be much more likely that two or more groups of people went to war with each other and started the destruction of the planet. I would assume the intelligent machines were thus designed the save the human race, and they probably concluded that isolation was the only possible way to protect humans from each other and as well as from themselves. Considering our current plugged-in society, I doubt there would be too much resistance to this permanently jacked-in state, particularly after a generation or two. Every person's needs were adequately met which is quite a contrast to our current reality. Of course, it is quite possible that my preferred explanation was actually the final resolution for the whole series, and I just missed it.

My Favorite Things

As I mentioned in my first post, my girlfriend El has been blogging for years. Her site is over at erigby.com, and she kindly mentioned my humble page a couple of weeks ago. She occasionally mentions me in her posts including snippets of our more humorous conversations covering such wide topics as dorkiness, post titles, and personality types. Of course, not all of our conversations make one of her posts. In response to my comments on her television viewing habits, she told me that she does not actively follow the Ghost Whisperer. I know that she likes to have the TV on for background noise particularly while she is busy in the kitchen or on her computer. She ends up on the Ghost Whisperer because it always seems to be on. Reruns of the show are in constant rotation on SyFy, WE and ION networks. I think she is also fascinated by Jennifer Love Hewitt's (a.k.a. J-Love or some such) complete lack of acting ability. Of course, J-Love is also know for lacking of any discernible musical ability.

There are only two things that El and her family really know that I like. Those two favorite things of mine being books and beer. On gift-giving occasions, El's family tends to give me books, beer, and of course, books on beer. That is pretty fine by me. This past Christmas, El's mom gave me When We Were Wolves which is a collection of short stories by Jon Billman who is suppose to be an up-and-coming new author. The stories that he spins are based in the western United States, primarily in Wyoming, but also in Utah, Montana and South Dakota. The eponymous story involves a hockey team from a Wyoming state penitentiary and their coach who is the prison's priest. Other stories cover trout fishing, smuggling honey out of and alcohol into Utah (the Beehive State), and passing time with idle U.S. Forest Service firefighters. All in all, the stories opened doors to ways of life that were outside my personal experience, and yet in some ways, quite familiar.

In other news, I was chatting with my friend Alan today, and we were discussing doing our taxes. Two months ago, Alan's wife gave birth to their first baby, a little girl name Ashlee. Alan mentioned how they get to claim Ashlee as a dependent for the whole of 2009 even though she was only born in mid-November. Of course, he did not so much care for my idea that newborns should be prorated as dependents for tax purposes. Then again, I also think tax credits for children should be dropped in favor of child luxury taxes.

Sympathy

I am probably the last person on the planet to post about The Sopranos, the pop-cultural phenomenon whose six-season run ended in 2007. I've never had HBO, so I couldn't watch the show when it was first on the air. However, it was hard not to at least be aware of the show, and I got the general idea from water cooler talk and morning radio deejays. I figured I would eventually get around to watching the show, but even with reruns in constant rotation on A&E, which I do get, I never got around it.

Enter Netflix which my girlfriend and I have had for awhile now. Since we first got Netflix, we've cranked through a ton of movies, including all ten of the previous Star Trek movies prior to the release of the latest incarnation (which we saw in IMAX). While we still had plenty of movies in the queue (and still do), we decided to start getting DVDs of TV shows. Since the end of August, I've been getting the DVDs of The Sopranos, and I've just now finished the fourth season. Meanwhile, my girlfriend has cranked through five and a half seasons of Desperate Housewives including the first part if the current season which have been recorded on our DVR. When I finish up with The Sopranos, perhaps we'll move on to the DVDs of Lost.

I like to kid my girlfriend about the TV shows she watches being pointless dramas (Dollhouse, Ghost Whisperer), silly sitcoms (The Office, Parks And Recreation) or some combination of the two (Ugly Betty, Glee). I think Desperate Housewives is on the same level as the the daytime soap operas. Of course, take one of those soap operas, throw in some screwed-up mobsters, plenty of crime and violence, and a seedy strip club, and then I'm hooked. What does that say about me? Does that mean I'm pure evil? I do like that rock 'n roll music, so I guess I'm a lost cause.

One of the key elements of the The Sopranos is the music. Most notable is "Woke Up This Morning". The bluesy theme plays during the show's opening sequence which follows mob boss Tony Soprano as he makes his way home from New York City to New Jersey. The song could be considered Tony's personal theme song, although not in the same way as that James Bond's theme plays throughout the 007 movies.

Of course, theme music is not limited to movies and television. Music and sports have been linked since before marching bands began playing at halftime of college football games. Baseball has arguably the biggest links between sports and music with the most memorable being former Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Carry singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh inning stretch at Wrigley Field. There is also the entrance music for closing pitchers. Major League closer Trevor Hoffman is known for trotting out from the bullpen to AC/DC's "Hells Bells". Then there is Mariano Rivera who enters to Metallica's "Enter Sandman" which he had never previously heard before the song was selected for him. In baseball, musical entrances aren't limited to the pitchers. Nowadays, every hitter has music that plays as they make their way to the batter's box. Being a fan of the Atlanta Braves, I get exited at the first notes of Ozzie Osbourne's "Crazy Train" which accompanies slugger Chipper Jones to bat. That song was also used by Larry Johnson and probably several others.

Entrance songs are also popular with professional wrestlers, boxers and MMA fighters. The pièce de résistance of musical entrances would have to be from the movie Rocky IV which has the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, singing "Living in America" as Apollo Creed in an Uncle Sam top hat makes his way to the boxing ring to face the Russian Ivan Drako.

I would venture to guess that if you asked the average guy, he has at least one song already picked out for his personal entrance music, just in case he gets the call from the big leagues (or maybe Vince McMahon). For me, I favor a particular ditty by the Stones. Yet another nail in my coffin, I guess. Do I keep a CD containing that song in my car? Yes, I do. Do I play the song loudly on the drive over to my friendly neighborhood bi-weekly get-together? Ummm... well... yeah. Does it help? No, not really.

As we come to the end of this post, we fade to black, and the credits get ready to roll. Cue the music.

"Please allow me to introduce myself..."