The Road, Cormac McCarthy

The Road is one of those books that I knew I should get around to, but just never seemed to make its way into my reading rotation.  I knew that it was post-apocalyptic, which I enjoy.  I knew that McCarthy is a well-respected author, for good reason.   I was waiting to watch the movie until I read the book, and even that wasn't enough of a push.  Well, I finally got around to it, and now I know why I resisted.  I knew that the story was depressing as hell and it would suck me into its dark, ash-filled, cannibalistic world like a black hole sucks in light.

The story centers around a man and his son, wandering a world that is utterly dead.  While  this is obviously because of some man-made disaster, we never really learn what.  The man and his son have been wandering and scavenging for years, sometimes going days without finding anything to eat.  There are no animals, nothing grows-the earth is filled with ash and smoke and burned out cities.  They often have to hide from gangs of cannibals, looking for other survivors to hold captive and use as food.  Despite the apparent hopelessness of the situation, the man and his son keep traveling along the road, not really believing that things might be better on the coast, but unable to bow to the seeming inevitability of death. 

Here's the thing-despite the fact that at least once I was contemplating suicide on the characters' behalf, I loved this book.  The writing is genius.  I've never read any of McCarthy's books before, but if all of them have the same ability to convey with just a few words the enormity of life and love and death then I'll read them all.  I'm always in awe of authors who can choose exactly the right words to create a vivid picture for the reader-no more and no less.  Being rather verbose myself, I admire this ability.  I also admire the imagination that can come up with this kind of skewed reality in the first place.  Though it makes me wonder what kind of dark place McCarthy's mind is.

My one complaint-the ending.  Not that it is left completely open-ended.  I get that as a metaphor for life in general, and that as long as there is life the story is never over, everything is uncertain except for the passage of time, etc..In fact, my complaint is that the story should have ended about 10 pages sooner than it did, with the boy completely alone.  Now THAT would have been a head-scratcher, real food for thought, a book group discussion starter. Despite my feeling that he caved a little bit at the end, overall I am deeply affected by this book, and find myself thinking about it off and on in the days since I finished it.  What more can a book have to recommend it than that?

The Hunger Games and Catching Fire

For months I have been hearing about The Hunger Games, a young adult novel by Suzanne Collins.  Not only had all of my teacher friends read it, but so had many other people I know who are not teachers, nor do they have children.  This should have been my first clue that The Hunger Games is so much more than just another young adult book.  But, as someone who has to read children's literature for my job on a  daily basis, I usually put my foot down about reading it during my precious free time each day.  Finally, a critical mass of "It's so good!" and "You really have to read it!" built up and I borrowed the book and it's sequel, Catching Fire, from a friend.

What a great decision that turned out to be.  I devoured each of them, finishing each in a day.  Young adult novels they may be, but there is plenty of meat to them to satisfy even the most discriminating adult reader.In a post-apocalyptic North America, the land is divided into 12 districts, each with it's own role in the larger society, and all ruled with an iron fist by The Capitol.  The main character, Katniss, lives in District 12, the coal mining district located in what was once Pennsylvania/West Virginia.  At 16, she supports her mother and younger sister by sneaking out of the district and hunting in the nearby woods with her best friend Gale-an act punishable by death.  Once a year, the Capitol holds the Hunger Games, where two 12-18 year olds are taken from each district and forced to compete to the death in a large arena.  When Katniss's sister is selected to go, Katniss volunteers to go in her place.  She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta are sent to the Capitol, where they are paraded around town while those lucky enough to be born into the only place left on the continent that have enough food gawk and make bets on which one will die when.  The Games are shown daily on the only television station, and everyone is required to watch.  The first book details the struggles and horrors of Katniss's first Hunger Games.

In Catching Fire, Katniss is once again the target of the Capitol, not as a lowly tribute, but as a victor.  Now everyone in the country knows her name and face, and the story that was created to help her get help from the public during the first games.  Because of her perceived acts of defiance towards the Capitol, she is seen as a threat to their chokehold on power.  Because the 75th anniversary of the Games is approaching, the government decides to have a special Games-where all previous victors have to compete.  This throws Katniss right back into the spotlight-but this time it turns out she is not competing alone.

These books are phenomenal.  Katniss as a character is richly developed, as are all the other characters.  The action is non-stop, and Collins does a great job creating a mood of unsettling fear.  I felt tense and anxious while reading the book, but in this case those feelings added to rather than distracted from the story.  The first book, The Hunger Games, is a great look at our tabloid culture.  I mean, really, what is a more stunning example of our hunger for tabloid TV taken to it's extreme (yet logical) conclusion than watching people actually have to fight to the death while we watch and make bets?  I guarantee of there was a show like The Hunger Games allowed on TV today someone would watch it.  Remember those videos from the 80s-"Faces of Death"?  I rest my case.

Both books also examine how absolute power corrupts, and how trying to control people with fear, resentment, and aggression leads to an uprising.  People will not be violently oppressed forever-sometimes all it takes is the right person, the right circumstance, to set the whole thing ablaze.  Even if that person doesn't even know she's doing it-as far as she knows, she's just trying to keep herself and her family alive.

The third book in the series comes out this summer, and frankly I can't wait.  The second book ended with such a cliffhanger that I still think about it occasionally when my mind wanders.  If it is anything like the first two, I know I have at least a day of obsessive reading ahead of me!