Speaking of sock-rocking and resolutions, I’m off to a good start on my 50 in ’11 book list. I meant to make Cormac McCarthy’s The Road my first book for 2011, but I unplugged (somewhat involuntarily) over the holidays and tore through roughly a book a day, finishing The Road way before New Year’s Eve.
What struck me most about the book was its immersiveness; I quickly picked up on the main characters’ constant fear of ambush, and found myself looking over my shoulder in the dark long after I’d put it down, and locking my bedroom door at night.
In addition to being well-written in that regard, the book also included some gorgeously poetic (though not exactly upbeat) passages:
“There is no later. 
This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” (46)
“He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.” (110)
I particularly like the book’s closing passage, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. If you have the chance to pick up a copy, be sure to read the whole thing.
I’m working my way through Whipping Girl by Julia Serano now, and it’s fabulous so far. Thoughts on that soon!
