Roadkill
Oops.
From my birthday entry last year:
Just finished up another Neil Gaiman Sandman book and Cormac McCarthy's
"The Road," which is the bleakest, most depressing, most — frankly —
useless post-apocalyptic book I've ever read. It's pretentious up the
wazoo, eschewing apostrophes in contractions and occasionally
purposefully (I have to assume) misspelling things like "bye and bye"
instead of "things happened by and by." Since it's not exactly Riddley
Walker era dystopia, and the lead protaganist was alive during the
nuclear holocaust, there's really no reason to imagine that his
language skills are slipping in those terms. I'm sure there are purists
who will call it poetry; I'll call it rubbish. And there's no arc, not
really. Just a slow drag to the end, at which suddenly there's one
glimmer of hope and then it's over. So what was the point?
Well, clearly I'm not getting invited to judge any literratchure any time soon. Not that any offers were exactly pouring over the transom before now.
I stick with my judgment: The book blows. And this from someone who loves post-apocalyptic/dystopian books.
However, based on the other subject matter being discussed in that post from last year, my perceptions can be wrong about many, many things.