Independent Reading Book #2

I have chosen to read The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. I chose this book because I saw it on the Amazon Bestsellers, and it seemed interesting enough with good reviews. The book is written from the view point of a dog, which turned me off a little, but I decided to give it a try.

The Road - Visual Project

All photos and photoshopping taken/done by me.

The Road: Passage Analysis

In Cormac McCarthy’s, The Road, he describes America after an unknown tragedy has occurred, which leaves the World in ruins. The novel follows a Father and his son, and their struggles to survive the harsh new world. Every day is a challenge, and the only reward is yet another day they must endure; death is never far away and often seems better then to continue existing. The Father and son have only each other to rely on and the following passage expresses the hopeless state in which they live.

“Do you want me to tell you a story?
No.
Why not? […]
Those stories are not true.
They don’t have to be true. They’re stories.
Yes, but in stories we’re always helping people and we don’t help people. […]
Okay.
I don’t have any stories to tell.
You could tell me a story about yourself.
You already know all the stories about me. You were there.
You have stories inside I don’t know about.
You mean like dreams?
Like dreams. Or just things that you think about.
Yeah, but stories are supposed to be happy.
They dont have to be.
You always tell happy stories.
You dont have any happy ones?
They’re more like real life.
But my stories are not.
Your stories are not. No.
The man watched him. Real life is pretty bad?
What do you think?
Well, I think I’m still here. A lot of bad things have happened but we’re still here.
Yeah.
You don’t think that’s so great.
It’s okay. (226)”

McCarthy often uses dialogue to portray a better understanding of the relationship between Father and Son. It is very similar to McCarthy’s own affiliation with his son. The Father, who remains nameless, is going out of his way to interact with his son and get him excited about life. He has hope in his voice and tries to pass on what little amount of optimism he has to his son by engaging him in happy stories. He sees the innocence in his son, and wants his son to hold on to it, but the boy is a realist, and despite his young age, knows that whatever happiness is left in the World is hiding, and feels no need to pretend there is more then what exists. He does not even indulge himself in dreams, an or any other escape from reality. Dreams are often symbols of hopes and wishes, but the boy has so little of that he either does not have any or feels no motivation to share them. To the boy, dreams are a waste of time because they will never come true, only provide a false sense of excitement or happiness, which in this world is bound to result in disappointment.

The darkness of the whole conversation comes from the young child’s acknowledgement of the bleak time in which they exist, and is comparable to the rest of the story, which matches this passage. There is a superfluous amount of melancholy in the World, and the whole novel emits a tone of despair and dejection. The Father’s tinge of hope is akin to the little faith left in the world, it is infrequent and miniscule, but manages to survive the unpromising state.

The conversation differs from most dialogue in novels because it lacks quotations. What each person is saying is separated by an entire different line, the Father speaking first. The lack of quotation marks results in the dialogue being less overcrowded and more realistic. It at times can be more difficult to follow, but it works well with the novel. McCarthy does invest in other traditional grammar such as indents either. It is his personal choice, and a way the author can express himself. The lack of quotation marks demonstrates that McCarthy is a simple man, straight forward, and avoidant of extras in life, which can complicate uncomplicated things. Please note that this remark is coming from a person who dislikes writing dialogue for the reason of quotation mark confusion. Aside from the bias, the lack of quotations and the minimalism of it illustrates the novel’s lack of surplus items. It adds to the tone of the story, which conveys the clear cut and depressing World they live in devoid of any excessive quirks.

Interview with Cormac McCarthy on The Road

The following is an interview of Cormac McCarthy by Michelle Legasto-Eckard:

I have recently read your novel, The Road, and the novel talks about the future of the World, what inspired you to write this?

I was in a hotel, in a secluded town with my son, it was late at night, and I just happened to look out the window, and I started to wonder what my view from this window would look like in fifty years. I could hear the trains going by, but nothing else. My son was right next to me, and it was just a beautiful moment. I wanted people to realize that life is a good thing. People should be more grateful for what they have. This novel describes the after of a tragedy that brings the world to shambles, and how people lose base with who they are. It was greatly inspired by my son. I am a 73 year old man, and to have an 8 year old son. My son brought this whole new life to me.



Your son has really played an important role in the story.

Oh yes. Well, my son is an important part of my life, the novel is dedicated to him. In a sense it is a love story between my son and I, although I prefer not to use those terms because it can come off as upsetting, but when it comes down to it, the story is about the relationship between father and son.


The America you describe is lonely and harsh. Your writing brings chills to my spine. Why did you decide to structure the novel the way you did, and is this what you wanted to World to come off as?

I wanted the world to come as this real thing, and to be relatable. Not a futuristic fantasy novel about the end of the world. I think that one of the reasons the novel works so well, is because it comes off as conceivable. The world is dark and lonely, the descriptions really help you envision the place, and it's so scary because it you can imagine it happening. There is no real basis behind the structure of my writing.  I don't plot or plan, no fancy gadgets. I used a typewriter. I just wrote it the way I imagined it would be. It came out in an abrupt manner, in a sense, cold and without feeling, and that's just how I imagined the World to be. I wrote it so that there was space between each paragraph and no indents, to give it more of this feeling. I must note though, I am a big fan of imagery, and I think it plays a very large role in the novel.



You say you wrote it with a typewriter, does this mean that you think material possessions and money is a wasted goal?

No, not necessarily. I think there's a lot of very nice things out in the World, I've just always preferred a typewriter. It's simpler. I've just never been effected by the need people feel to have money, and I've lived pretty rough because of that, but in the end it always worked out. I'm not saying that money is bad, just that you should focus on what you like and what you're good at, and happiness will come that way. Sometimes money too. I've always considered myself to be a very lucky man, I've spent my whole life doing something I love and want to do, and at the roughest moments, right before everything is about to come crashing down, something good happens, and that's just the way it's worked out for me.



Well, I see very much how that plays a role in your novel, but I don't want to give a way too much for the people who haven't read it yet, or people who want to see the movie, which is coming out next month.

So continuing on, the story follows a family of a father and son, whose names are unknown? What did you achieve by doing this?

By keeping the main characters nameless, I gave it a less personal feeling. The World has become this large, vastly wrecked place. Very empty and lonely. The details of names, just didn't fit in with the story. In this world where your only goal is to survive, names become unimportant, like many things.



This novel is written in third person. Why did you choose to do this?

I chose to write the novel in third person so I wouldn't only have the story through one character's eyes. It also gave me a better chance be able to describe the setting of the story. The setting plays a large role, and dictates the entire mood. For example it is almost Winter, very cold and bleak. Ruins are everywhere, rusting cars in the street, and collapsed bridges. It just set the tone of the story as very depressing and often without hope.

Well thank you so much for coming in today and letting me interview you, I know that you prefer to keep to yourself and not do interviews, and I am just very appreciative that you let me interview you. I really enjoyed reading your novel. Enjoy, seems like a funny word to use considering how depressing the book is. Incredible, might be a better choice of words.  Overall though the book was excellent. Insanely dark and terrifying, but with just the tiniest tinge of hope to keep you reading.


An interview between the real Oprah and McCarthy
(Part 2)

Steinbeck Pairing on 11th Grade Curriculum

Books – Cannery Row and The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck




Cannery Row was an engaging novel, and is important for the 11th grade curriculum because it expresses Steinbeck’s thoughts on happiness, and how people are seen and judged. He shows through people like Mack and the boys, and Dora that though they seem like they’re bad citizens, they are innately good. The themes of this book are still relevant in today’s society because they discuss the way people are seen. Overall it was an enjoyable read. If this was placed on the curriculum though with The Log from the Sea of Cortez, then I would not recommend it.

The Log from the Sea of Cortez was just super dense, but not in volume. It was a difficult book to read, and it was easy to lose interest in. There was like three chapters alone on teleological thinking, and how it is because it is. There was no story line, just a log of what happened everyday on the boat, and I have no interest of whether a certain species of shrimp was found in different places. There were a lot biological associations with it that not many people would understand or care about. Don’t get me wrong, there were many important ideas in the novel, but it was just so hard to get through, and that’s coming from a person who likes to read, and enjoys books such as Three Cups of Tea, even though fellow classmates have found it utterly boring and hard to get through that this would not be a good book to read with the class.

On a last note, The Log from the Sea of Cortez was supposed to talk a lot about Ed Ricketts and his ideas, and how he related to Doc in Cannery Row, yet there wasn’t too much of it. The appendix in the Log from the Sea of Cortez is really the only time Steinbeck talked about him.