May 14, 2007

After the Stain


Thanks to everyone for showing up last Thursday. I still rate The Human Stain an 8 out of 10, even though there were some naysayers in the crowd.

John has agreed to host the next meeting, and has selected Cormac McCarthy's 2007 Pulitzer fiction winner, The Road. The meeting will be Tuesday, June 5, at 7:00 pm. More details soon.

Meantime, here's some commentary on the book:

A father and his son walk alone through burned America . Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearting, a cart of scavenged food — and each other.
The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, each the other's world entire, are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

PS: The book is now in paperback, but (as Tom told us) there are plenty of like-new hardcovers available online.