This is the end, my only friend, the end

You know what's cool? When colleges send you e-mails telling you FAFSA is due TOMORROW. Guess where I most likely will not be going? I guess it doesn't really matter much, considering I already got into my number one school... but still... If you're not even going to tell me if I've been accepted until March... Grr.

So, the books I am currently reading now are On the Road by Jack Kerouac and The Road Cormac McCarthy. OH GET IT. I'm also reading them for the same person, so double the funny right there. To triplicate the funny, my dog attacked my copy of On the Road!

The Road is about a post-apocalyptic future, following a father and his son in their search for food and warmth and safety. There are also crazy smelly hobos (hoboes?). Soooo yep. Marky Mark happened to see me reading it and warned me against it--he actually told me to put it down--saying it was as disturbing as Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan. As he put it, "There are just some images burned into my mind's eye that I don't want there". This is one of those things. I don't know. There were certainly a few skin-crawling scenes, but not what I'd say are Schindler's List-level disturbing. He also seemed quite shocked that Robby D would hand it over to me. (He said he thought I'd like it because "you're kind of dark".) Like, I have never seen such a surprised look on his face. I didn't know Marky Mark could feel fear or surprise, but there you go!

So, the way the story is told seems very reminiscent of the opening and ending chapters in 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. There are two characters, the man and the boy, whose identities are revealed in the meat of the book. But, The Road does this as well--only you never actually learn the father and son's name, they are just 'he' and 'the boy'. Yup....

NOTE: When someone speaks in this book, quotation marks are not included, the speaker just gets a separate line. For ease, I will add quotation marks. "'You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget'" (12). Et tu, Marky Mark?

The word 'wonky' is used in this book. This is the only time I've ever seen this word used in print other than on the webcomic 'Boy Meets Boy'. Harley Goldman is proud.

"Where you've nothing else construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them" (74).

"'And nothing bad is going to happen to us.' 'That's right.' 'Because we're carrying the fire.' 'Yes. Because we're carrying the fire'" (83). They're the good guys, carrying the torch--you know, of life. What have you. 'Carrying the fire' is what the father says the 'good guys' do, and that's how you can tell if a person is a 'good guy'. (Later on, a woman refers to the breath of God as something that is passed on from person to person--passing the torch, get it) Actually, I should mention this. People, other people left to survive, are so desperate they've turned to eating children. At one point the father and son come upon a headless infant body roasting over a spit. That should be disturbing--but it's so unreal to me I can't be freaked out by it. I mean--I literally cannot imagine that or anyone doing that. It does not exist for me. My mind can't comprehend it.

"Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die" (114).

A favorite scene is a brief encounter with an old man. They pass him by at first, and the father says 'No, we can't stop', etc, but the son wants to go back and help him. The father "looked down at the old man. Perhaps he'd turn into a god and they to trees" (163). I was pleasantly surprised to see this. I actually smiled. I'm not sure why such a reference should be so pleasant, but what it's referring to is something that isn't just inherent in Greek mythology, EMMA. Ahem! What was I saying? Ah yes. Every culture has at least one tale of a god or deity visiting a person as a destitute being and judging their soul by how they react. Often the spirit asks for food, and if they receive food the giver is blessed and if they are turned away the refuser is cursed. For example, I recall a Japanese tale where a servant girl was beaten and a spirit took pity on her. When her master was out, the spirit visited and the girl told him to take rice, but to flee quickly because her master would kill the visitor. The spirit gives her a magic handkerchief. The master finds out later about the food that was given away and the girl is beaten soundly, but later the girl cleans her face with the hanky and the bruises disappear and she becomes more beautiful than before. This continues until, of course, the master finds out and beats her and turns her out, then uses the hanky on himself. It works backwards with him, however--when he realized what he's done to himself he's a Frankenstein-esque beast. Talk about images that are forever burned into your mind... Uh. A more well-known example would be 'Beauty and the Beast'. I don't remember what the Beast did to make the traveling spirit-guy mad, but that's why he's... well, a beast. I can't think of any where the god turns the scorners into trees, however.

"'What do I have to do?' 'Tell us where the world went'" (166).

"'I guess God would know. Is that it?' 'There is no God.' 'There is no God and we are his prophets'" (170).

So yeah. I was kind of cool on this one. This wasn't exactly exhilarating to read, nor was it torture. It was sort of in the middle. In this genre, it didn't really bring anything new to the table but it wasn't exactly old hat, either. It simply was. It existed. As the fact that it kind of was, and just kind of happened, the ending felt kind of strange--because it could very well go on forever. To end it was kind of like, well, ending the life, but without the mourning and sadness. (Which is kind of what happens, so...) Yeah. I mean, it's a read, but it's... it's just a read. I don't know. But, as for books Robby D has suggested to me, it's a million times better than Their Eyes Were Watching God. Which sounds like it would be an oddly appropriate title for this book. Uhm. Yup.