Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
I am listening to this now, and it is freaking me out. I don’t see how anyone could see this as entertainment. It makes 1984 seem like an optimistic fairy tale. From Wikipedia:
A never named father and his young son journey across a grim post-apocalyptic landscape, some years after a major unexplained cataclysm has destroyed civilization and most life on Earth. The land is filled with ash and devoid of living animals and vegetation. Many of the remaining human survivors have resorted to cannibalism, scavenging the detritus of city and country alike for flesh. The boy’s mother, pregnant with him at the time of the disaster, gave up hope and committed suicide some time before the story begins, despite the father’s pleas. Much of the book is written in the third person, with references to “the father” and “the son” or to “the man” and “the boy”.
The link to Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction helped me to understand what is going on. It is literature, in the sense that it makes a standard scenario even more real.
Even so, listening to this, at least for a sensitive person like me, probably has more impact than watching it in a movie. My mind can fill in the details and make it more real than real.
Definitely not the last thing to do before going to sleep.
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