i'm the guy who brings you the book-to-movie news. and this movie has been in production for a long time. it's going to finally be released in october of 2009, and here is the trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810037227/video/13468775/

this is one of my favorite books that i've ever read... i'm pushing my mom to read it right now. and she reads about 3 books per years

 yep--i'm all over that action. i read the book a coupla years ago and instantly fell head over scarred heart in love with it. one of two books in my life i cried over when i finished it. and then i found out viggo was taking the dad's role and  woohoo!!!

wasn't this supposed to be out last fall?? like, 2008??

This book has now popped up in my life three times in the last two days... I believe I am receiving some kind of cosmic message.

Hi I'm Michael. This was not my favorite book.  It was powerful, but maybe Mr. MacCarthy is too good.  The emotions festered made it difficult for me to read.

 yeah! that rip-out-my-heart feeling while i read was what had me. i don't necessarily want that from everything i read, but in this book, i felt the chaos, the fear, the hopelessness. it fit, for me.

for a different take on a post-industrial America, have you read "World Made By Hand"? in some ways, just as beautiful as "The Road", but with a different vision.

 Haven't read that one, LP, thanks for the pointer. 

I want to be sure to clarify:  I think The Road was a teriffic book, astoundingly good.  I'd like to be able to write a book like that, only, I want the gut wrenching to have a more uplifting payoff.  I don't see (or don't want to see) Mr. McComac's truth about the world; I want the drudgery or chaos or horror to be offset by the patient wife who sits with her husband's head in her lap, gently brushing his graying temples and thus lovingly massaging the dogged drudgery from his mind so he can get back to it tomorrow.

It seemed like Cormac wanted to make a point about our humanity and its resilience, (the boy retains "the fire") but I don't think we need to travel all levels of hell to understand our capacities; a few floors down seems enough.

But, CorMacMac is making the dollah dollah bills, and I'm here, just a mangy scribbler whining about his Superpowers. 

 plus, he has a very serious jacket photo he has to live up to.

 "World Made By Hand" has a more optimistic vision of mankind after the collapse. the author has written several non-fiction books about the sad state of energy resources and the effects he expects will take place in the next few decades. fascinating stuff, though he has a reputation for being a bit extreme in his opinions. but i love this stuff. love his books!

The Road is one of my favorites by Mccarthy along with Outer Dark and the Orchard Keeper. Guess I'm drawn to the apocolyptic humanism and his fabulous southern writing style...who needs happy endings And for dessert, Suttree!

 Wait... VIGGO's in the movie version???

Well, now, I love it even more.  Can't wait to see it - if it's even somewhat faithful to the book, it's a keeper.

I must be the only person who didn't like the book. There are terrific, terrific moments in it, marred by the same repeated conversation, (Boy: 'Why'd ' Dad: '' Boy: '...' Dad: 'You okay?' Boy: 'Yeah' Dad: 'Yeah? Boy: 'Yeah' ) and McCarthy's descriptions became repetitive, spending a majority of the novel reading tin labels didn't excite me. Sure, I get it, the desperation and all. But it could've done with less label analysis. There were moments when I had to put the book down and process a wonderful description or idea. But there were more times when I put the book down and felt as though it would be a chore to pick it up again. When I'd finished I just kinda shrugged. Maybe I'm either unnappreciative, simple, or the fact that I was reading Lord of the Flies made The Road seem inferior. It's still on my bookshelf, so I may pick it up again sometime, but I'm in no hurry,

to my utter disappointment a professor made me read this. The man was a history teacher masquerading as a fine arts professor. I plan to re-read it in a year or two, when the sick taste of his lousy teaching/discussion has left my mouth.

Isn't it ridiculous how a bad teacher can totally ruin even the best books?

 the sick taste of his lousy teaching/discussion

dang, but i'm curious what sort of discussion this teacher led? what'd he say, mullog?

Well, I suppose I can't leave a Kennedy stranded like this...

I despised that book.  Put it down after an hour or so and never picked it up again.  Probably never will.  I didn't see any point to continuing.

I think the "inferior" label is the one that rings the clearest bell with me.  There are simply better books in the same vein, and the guy's writing style made the read a very laborious undertaking.

I gave it to someone else and didn't say a thing about it.  Just let them read it...

Shrike: "Hello?"

Victimized Reader: "Hey!"

Shrike: [laughing] "Oy, man!  How was the show?  You feelin' alright, or you eatin' your oatmeal with sunglasses on this morning?"

Victimized Reader: "I'm ok, no thanks to you."

Shrike: [laughing harder] "Brother, don't pin the side-effects of your hedonistic lifestyle on me.  Anybody that still drinks Jagermeister is just asking..."

Victimized Reader: "It wasn't the hooch, dude.  It was that fucking book you gave me.  I read it while I was waiting for the train."

Shrike: "What book?  Which one?"

Victimized Reader: "The one by that cat with two last names."

Shrike: "Who, Cormac McCarthy?  You talkin' about 'The Road?'"

Victimized Reader: "Yeah, that's the one.  Hey, fuck that book and the guy who wrote it, ok?"

Shrike: [now doubled over with laughter] "What, you didn't like it?"

Victimized Reader: "Dude, you suck at books, alright?"

Shrike: [can only wheeze into the receiver]

Victimized Reader: "You know, I read all that hoidy-toidy lace-doily British bullshit you've been pimpin' at me the last couple of years.  Oh.  Yeah.  That's right.  Laugh it up, pal.  Sat there with Shrike's-Imported-Weird-Ass-European-Book-Of-The-Month in one hand and an un-a-fuckin'-bridged dictionary in the other, and I read all that shit, every word of it.  So, now you finally hand me something from a local guy, and I'm figuring, 'Hey, maybe Shrike's got his head out of his ass at last!' right?  Maybe this'll be more like some Lovecraft or some King, something I can get into.  But, no.  The most depressing shit I've ever read, right out of the gate, and reads like it was written by a remedial English reject from 4-C's.  Where...in...the...hell...do you find crap like this, dude?  Are you part of some sort of government-funded, m-k-ultra paper-pants-wearing, Scientology author's club or something?"

Shrike: [barely audible]  "Oprah liked it..."

Victimized Reader: "Fuck you, dude."

[phone disconnects.  conversation ends]

Well, I suppose I can't leave a Kennedy stranded like this...

I was taken aback by the book, considering the whole back page and inside jacket is dedicated to praise. Not just 'great book' praise, but 'masterpeice, should be taught in schools!' praise. Sure, I get all of the messages in the book, carrying the torch 'n all, and there are nice phrases and descriptions, but there are about 50 pages of nothing, then 2 pages of something, and then another 50 pages of nothing again. Reading tin labels... The flashback to his wife giving up on life was great, but there was no more of that. The basement encounter was horrifying, for all 2-3 pages. The description of the sea was great and despairing. But... there just wasn't enough there for me. A marmite of a book, I s'pose.

Yeah, JD, that may be the source of my ire concerning this book:  the hype.

I should probably give the guy a fair shake considering that nobody could possibly live up to the accolades this book provoked.

I mean, this guy (McCarthy) was praised (no joke) as "one of the 50 people most likely to save the planet," or some such shit, after publishing this book.

How do you even begin to deal with that kind of hyperbole?  Moreover, how do you top it?  "Voted Most Likely To Have Actually Created The Universe?"

Truthfully, if I had read a serialized version of the story in a magazine, I'd probably have told one or two people how cool or creepy I thought it was, but saving the planet????

Oh, that's right.  We live in a world where Yasser Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize.

Oh, that's right. We live in a world where Yasser Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize.

And Mother Tereasa's criminal neglect of the poor in her hospitals are glazed over, but what ya gonna do?

I'm curious too, Mullog, about the nature of your discussion over the Road? What direction did the prof take in the reading to render it so repulsive to you? Other than the intended repulsion, of course

I must be the only person who didn't like the book. There are terrific, terrific moments in it, marred by the same repeated conversation, (Boy: 'Why'd ' Dad: '' Boy: '...' Dad: 'You okay?' Boy: 'Yeah' Dad: 'Yeah? Boy: 'Yeah' ) and McCarthy's descriptions became repetitive, spending a majority of the novel reading tin labels didn't excite me. Sure, I get it, the desperation and all. But it could've done with less label analysis. There were moments when I had to put the book down and process a wonderful description or idea. But there were more times when I put the book down and felt as though it would be a chore to pick it up again. When I'd finished I just kinda shrugged. Maybe I'm either unnappreciative, simple, or the fact that I was reading Lord of the Flies made The Road seem inferior. It's still on my bookshelf, so I may pick it up again sometime, but I'm in no hurry,

Authors like McCarthy are an acquired taste.  I think it takes a certain kind of reader. 

If you don't enjoy The Road you would probably not like any McCarthy because although it's wildly different from his other literature, it's the same style and it's his most approachable. 

The Road is a far superior novel to The Lord of the Flies for what it's worth.

I would suggest to those who have struggled with this book or who could not appreciate it:

Read it on your own in a dark room with a lamp.  Just you and the book, no distractions.  Don't pause to go look up a word you don't know, infer everything, trust McCarthy, he will take you where he wants to take you, you don't have know what ever single one of his archaic adjectives means.  Read the book cover to back in a day.

The prose is dense and the dialogue is sometimes ambiguous but it's deliberate in all of these aspects which makes it beautiful. 

Cormac McCarthy did not ask for the praise he's been given in the last couple years, he's been a recluse living close to the poverty line his whole life.  He never asked for Oprah's award.  Don't be so hard on him. 

The man's a literary genius and one of the best to ever have lived, perhaps misunderstood sometimes, but still nonetheless a genius and his prose falls somewhere between Faulkner and Hemingway.

Blood Meridien is on my shelf, waiting to be read. I've working on Kafka's The Trial and Homer's The Iliad first though.

If you did not like The Road chances are you will not like Blood Meridian.

It has even more purple prose and ambiguous dialogue.

Here's one paragraph of McCarthy that after reading it, even I was like: Really, Cormac?

"It howled execration upon the dim camarine world of its nativity wail on wail while he lay there gibbering with palsied jawhasps, his hands putting back the night like some witless paraclete beleaguered with all limbo's clamor."

Of a newborn abandoned in the woods crying, from Outer Dark.

If you did not like The Road chances are you will not like Blood Meridian.

 

It has even more purple prose and ambiguous dialogue.

 

That's not what bothered me about The Road, it was the endless repetition.

 And Blood Meridian while not quite as repetitive is still incredibly repetitive.  The main character's name is the kid.

We'll see how it goes. Read The Iliad, whole speeches are repeated

I couldn't stand the book. There were some cool moments, but I couldn't get past the... artistic... grammar and mechanics. Guess I'm not smart or artsy enough to get it.

I was lucky enough to snag a copy and get it read before the hype machine kicked off. I like McCarthy's defiantly idiosyncratic style, and I was impressed that he managed to create a story with a...well, a happy ending for him, anyway. My jaw dropped when Oprah made it one of her happy shiny book picks or whatever the hell she's calling it now, though. I pictured thousands of Oprah's followers nationwide digging into McCarthy's book and suffering dyspepsia of the soul at roughly the same time.

 Oprah made it one of her happy shiny book picks

that's the thing about oprah's book club. from what i've heard, each book is a journey through the bowels of human experience, one that leaves the reader feeling (s)he's been wrung out like a bar rag. kinda appropriate for cormac mccarthy, i think.

I read the book over the summer, but never saw the movie. I LOVED the book, but I heard mixed reviews about the movie. The trailer looks good, though.

The only thing I didn't like about 'The Road' was the abruptness of their arrival to the sea.

It reminded me of Sancho Panza losing his ass (donkey) then getting it back without an explanation (Don Quijote de la Mancha).

Didn't care for The Road at all.

Stylistically, it just didn't work for me nor, for that matter, have any of Mccarthy's novels.  I should probably stop trying.  The constant repetition in the dialog was grating, and his psuedo-biblical prose comes off as forced and awkward to my inner ear

As for the plot...well, it didn't seem like anything new, or even an interesting take on the tried and true.  It fell flat.

Different strokes for different folks and all that, though.