I am reading with my ears The Road by the late Cormac McCarthy. I imagine this is similar to a blind man experiencing art through touch. Obviously there is more than one route into the brain for the outside world to take. I wonder, though, how the story feels different, sentence for sentence, as it is interpreted by the auditory cortex versus the visual cortex. The narrator was born to read aloud this book. I mean the haunting timbre of his voice, especially as the narrative segues between its spare points of view, is just excellent. Sadly, as with McCarthy, the narrator is no longer with us.
The book feels like a tocsin for the times. There’s an ever-present sense of doom as the boy and his father make their way south through apocalyptic ruin. I read somewhere that there is a renewed enthusiasm in the country for prepping for the end of times. Especially by the monied class. Some dude built an elaborate underground bunker made of reinforced concrete in the middle of a man-made lake. The bunker is accessible only through its “roof”, the only portion above the surface of the lake, which is connected to the shore by a retractable drawbridge of sorts. Except the lake isn’t filled only with water, it can’t be, because as it encircles the roof it functions more like a moat that can be set on fire with the click of a button on a remote. Surely the intention here is to keep the cannibals at bay and the bunker inhabitants uneaten.
In 2007 The Road was announced as the next novel to read by Oprah’s book club. “Enjoy this hellscape adventure ladies!”* Oh to have been a fly on the wall at that discussion group.
* Specific gender demographics of the Oprah book club are not available, however it is thought to be composed of predominantly women.