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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

An Odd Case of Mismarketing?

I think some of you are aware of the fact that Cormac McCarthy is my favorite author and that The Road is my favorite book. Not to do the whole flag-planting routine of I-saw-it-first or whatever, but I read No Country for Old Men about 2 and a half years ago, only to learn later that it was being adapted to film. Since my first exposure to McCarthy's work was The Road, though, I think I sort of spoiled my chances of enjoying No Country, which is surely a very fine book in its own right, but less suited to McCarthy's special style. In fact, I'd go on to analyze The Road later, emphasizing how McCarthy purposefully forgoes the application 'standardized' writing conventions like punctuation and proper sentence construction, to mirror the hellish, blink-and-you'll-miss-it intensity of The Road's overall setting... It was a brilliant expression of poetic license in a novel, an expression I thought was unique. Turns out, that's just how he writes in general, apparently.

Brief aside to the Coen Bros. The movie was great, but somehow I imagined some parts would be "bigger," particularly when Llewelyn (cumbersomely named protagonistman) had to run away from the abandoned SUVs in the desert night while being fired upon. The film shows his only escape was a quick swim through a little ravine. That is to say, reading it, I thought he basically fell into a canyon-size gorge and injured himself; therefore, even though he was wounded, it essentially amounted to a successful escape because the 'bad guys' didn't want to follow him after that fall, or perhaps they could no longer see him.

Small gripes aside, I wanted to say that new copies of The Road come emblazoned with the all-too-cheezy feeling "NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE!!!" blurb on the cover. I heard rumors that the story was also to be adapted to the screen, but was pretty sure it had not been released yet. A few internet checks later I think I'm 100% correct claiming that, so it's just weird that those blurbs already come on the cover of The Road, preemptively so it would seem. As if that story really needs any more selling though -- seriously, for anyone who feels burnt out on pleasure reading, pick up The Road and tell me it wasn't good, I dare ye.

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