I went to watch The Road this evening.
The book was one of, if not THE, most profound and extraordinary that I read last year - beautifully written, heartbreaking, terrifying. It's not an easy read emotionally, in fact it's a distinctly uneasy read and although it might be set in a post-apocalyptic USA, I couldn't help but feel that the existence of living hand to mouth, possessionless, hopeless, insecure, fearing gangs and bandits that roam the streets hunting for human prey, is not such a futuristic image for some people in this world.
The film is very good but I fought back tears so hard I ended up with cramp in my throat. There is a more hopeful message to the film than in the book, I feel, and that's OK.
This was a paragraph from the book I wrote down when I was reading it back in October.
"He carved the boy a flute from a piece of roadside cane and he took it from his coat and gave it to him. The boy took it wordlessly. After a while he fell back and after a while the man could hear him playing.
A formless music for the age to come. Or perhaps the last music on earth called up from out the ashes of its ruin. The man turned and looked back at him. He was lost in concentration. The man thought he seemed some sad and solitary changeling child announcing the arrival of a travelling spectacle in shire and village who does not know that behind him the players have all been carried off by wolves."
