My pal Timothy Callahan inspires me. He’s the author of a smart and insightful book titled Grant Morrison: The Early Years, which is a literary analysis of the graphic novel and comic book master. I don’t really know how he did it, aside from being one of the closest readers and smartest people I know, but he wrote 100K words, then revised the book, in like two months. He must have really neglected his family. Hmmph, writers.
To continue a little bit on Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road: There are three issues that need to be discussed, and while I feel like I can be argued away from two of them, McCarthy’s diction completely irritated me.
The Road as a father/son story is acceptable to me, even though I felt like the relationship between the father and son was a little cold. The dialogue was redundant, like the man and his son were little more than strangers to one another.
page 25, man and his son come upon the former childhood home of the father. Son starts:
Are we going in?
Why not?
I’m scared.
Dont you want to see where I used to live?
No.
It’ll be okay.
There could be somebody there.
Not a typo. McCarthy uses an apostrophe sometimes, other times not so much. Then page 27:
We should go, Papa. Can we go?
Yes. We can go.
I’m scared.
I know. I’m sorry.
I’m really scared.
Later, same page:
Shh. It’s okay.
What is it, Papa?
Shh. It’s all right.
I’m so scared.
page 38:
Is it cold?
Yes. It’s freezing.
Do you want to go in?
I dont know.
Sure you do.
Is it okay?
Come on.
next page, after climbing a trail:
It’s really far, he said.
It’s pretty far.
Would you die if you fell?
You’d get hurt. It’s a long way.
It’s really scary.
When McCarthy tired of the ’scary’ line of dialogue, he switched to the “good guys/bad guys” dialogue, which included an obscure inside dialogue between father and son about “carrying the fire.”
page 77:
Are we still the good guys?
Yes, we’re still the good guys.
And we always will be.
Yes. We always will be.
Okay.
and page 83:
What is it, Papa?
Nothing. We’re okay. Go to sleep.
We’re going to be okay, aren’t we Papa?
Yes. We are.
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.
The boy is scared on pages 108 and 113, “very scared” on page 134, then scared and really scared on page 189, when the dad quits the small talk and gets all existential on his son. Some narrative first:
One night the boy woke from a dream and would not tell him what it was.
You dont have to tell me, the man said. It’s all right.
I’m scared.
It’s all right.
No it’s not.
It’s just a dream.
I’m really scared.
I know.
The boy turned away. The man held him. Listen to me, he said.
What.
When your dreams are of some world that never was or of some world that never will be and you are happy again then you will have given up. Do you understand? And you can’t give up. I won’t let you.
Huh?
The spare, redundant, vague dialogue worked better with his other books, All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing, for example. The books’ protagonists come upon strangers throughout the narratives, so the dialogue could be a bit more open-ended. But when the dialogue needed to be intimate, more familiar, without necessarily being sentimental, McCarthy did not deliver.
I have more…
3 Comments
I just responded to Grant’s blog, but I wanted to say I heartily disagree. I think the lack of intimacy and repetition of the dialogue was what made it more powerful. Nothing said except what needed to be said. Simple. Driving the point home. That every day it was reduced to what it was - fear, for the most part. In contrast to the vivid descriptions of their surroundings and landscape, the dialogue is so diminished, and I feel like that only accentuates their situation more. They’re two tiny people in this land that threatens to overtake them. But everyday they have to keep doing the same thing. Keep walking, keep hoping, keep trying. Even if scared. Even if tired. Even if hungry. Sentimentality would have killed that. I thought it was told just right.
And btw, The Road is now my favorite book.
Hi Angelle…Visited your blog and liked it very much. I also appreciate the read and comment. I guess I’m coming at it from the perspective of a father, and there are so many things to say, especially if I know the end is coming…If anything, the way the father went out WAS too sentimental…anyway…If my blog inspired you to choose tis as a “favorite,” then it must have been a powerful experience for you…
oh.. I misread your comment here. haha your blog didn’t inspire me to choose it! It was already, i meant, but since I recently read it, I suppose that’s what I meant by “now”.
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