Friday, December 4, 2009

The Road & The Way

Read "The Road" yesterday. Odd that I had time and was without kids, but so it was. Feche Boy, KB and I had considered going to see the movie as the reviews were pretty good and I picked up a paper back copy to pre-view it. The writing was more poetry than prose throughout and the author, McCarthy is the master of the VSS (very short sentence for those non-IEW grads). Basically it's an existentialist view of what happens when the lights finally go out and the comforts of modernity cease to exist. Cannibalism and scavenging are the only means of survival and the author paints a horrific tale of life without meaning, future, hope or God. Viking Man and I were talking about some of more horrific scenes; basically where humans are kept alive as cattle and parts are harvested for food as needed. The "Boy" is horrified, demands answers from "The Man" and is told that "we are the good guys" and "we carry the flame." The flame of what is not defined, more's the pity. In other words, they don't eat other humans and would starve rather than do so. But honestly, without a value system that transcends ourselves, what is the point in NOT becoming cannibalistic. Seriously. God is hinted at but never named and The Man places his hope in the relationship with The Boy rather than in something or some One that transcends himself. The book was an interesting read, given the authors writing style, and for the fact that it saved us money at the theater I'm glad I purchased it. Other than that it was dark, dreary and worth skipping. It's Christmas after all and besides bright lights we are hanging our hope on the LIGHT of the world, whose birth we celebrate this season.
JOY TO THE WORLD. THE LORD IS COME.
Alleluia

1 comment:

servingHimblind said...

Yeah that's disgusting. Glad you didn't watch the movie... blech. dark concepts all around.