Great like all McCarthy’s work. Bleak, existential, different, very believable.
I like Blood Meridian more though.
TV gave me the impression a lot of American kids have to read it in highschool.
Edit: No, I was thinking of On the Road
Lot of kids don’t have to read that one either, unfortunately.
I started reading it just before COVID hit. My reading habits are very sporadic, sometimes I’ll devour a book in a day, other times I’ll read a chapter or two once a week and it takes me months to finish a book. This happened to be one of the later cases
It was really good, but holy shit that was not the book to be reading when people were getting into fights over toilet paper.
So I did not finish it, I intend to eventually, but it had to go on the back burner.
Everything about it just kind of oozed bleak hopelessness. I’ve caught myself starting to say I enjoyed it, but “enjoyed” is really the wrong word, there is no joy to be found in that book, perhaps you appreciate it, maybe you feel it, maybe you just read it and acknowledge that it’s a good book.
It’s the best book I won’t read twice.
Holy fuck, the shit that happens in it is insane.
That pretty much sums it up.
Nothing. Never heard of it before.
I can say “haven’t read that one”.
Very good adaptation of the manga “Lone Wolf and Cub” by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima written and drawn between 1970 to 1976.
It was hugely influential, spawning a number of films, notably two of which were combined into a single US release titled “Shogun Assassin” in 1980.
It would also serve as the basis for the graphic novel “Road to Perdition” by Max Allan Collins in 1998, which was also itself turned into a very good movie in 2002.
I happen to read a lot of books and watch a lot of movies in the form of graphic novels. About half a year ago I finally got to read Manu Larcenet’s adaptation, and the amazing art certainly lived up to its end. Unfortunately I didn’t find the story particularly interesting, and from what I understand, that might have been due to the GN omitting the interior thoughts of the characters. Sort of like the recent Watership Down adaptation, perhaps. Really good-looking, but missing a lot of the spirit of the original.
There’s also the fact that historically I’ve sort of been obsessed with post-apoc depictions in comics, so I’m a bit jaded in certain ways. So much so that I put together an article of 15 mini-reviews with rankings over at the evil empire. Guess which one topped the list?
Vic and Blood man… I thought I was the only one who remembered that one!
Did you know that it was originally a short story by Harlan Ellison and a FILM in 1975 before Corben worked it into a comic?
The film is notable for starring an IMPOSSIBLY young Don Johnson (25 or 26 at the time of production).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog_(1975_film)
Trailer:
Dark Horse has been collecting all the Corben material as a series of REALLY NICE hardcover graphic novels, I hope they get a shot at Vic and Blood.
(Den volumes 1-5, Murky World, Dimwood, Rowlf, Rat God, and the forthcoming Last Voyage of Sindbad, Best of Fantagor)
https://www.darkhorse.com/search/richard+corben/
I’d also say, if you like that, check out the less serious film “Six String Samurai”.
Hah, wow… yeah, I knew about the Ellison source, but somehow missed the Don Johnson movie. Groovy, man, thanks for sharing.
As a digital reader these days, I believe I have the complete Den cycle across all its various sources, plus Murky World and a bunch of other Corben works. Good to hear Dark Horse is republishing it for print-readers, though. I do like to call him the ‘Moebius from across the pond.’
And good to see young Elvis Costello in his own movie, lol.
Btw, possibly you might like this movie I posted a couple months ago. It’s a post-apoc Western, made in New Zealand, only only 15min in length. I love how much is imagined a little differently due to it being NZ-made.
Reminds me of an Australian zombie flick called Undead from 2003:
Like a number of books, I greatly appreciate the writing skill. The story is beyond brutal. To echo what others have said in the thread, it is a one and done.
Shock driven storytelling, lacking character development. It’s mostly disjointed horrific images in a dismal setting.
Cormac McCarthy’s aversion to quotation marks and proper capitalization make it literally challenging to read, and it’s supremely depressing.
I love it.
The writing style is not for me. I only finished it by force of willpower.
The boy said OK. The man said OK. They looked at each other. They looked the other way they walked. They stopped and drank some water. The man said ok.
The boy said OK. The man said OK. They looked at each other. They looked the other way they walked. They stopped and drank some water. The man said ok.
I completely agree, I gave up several times because of this, although no, it was about eight or ten times, in the end I still haven’t finished reading this book, even if I liked the plot along with the atmosphere of despair.
I’ve never read this book, only heard accolades. But this synopsis and review makes me never want in on this action. If this is an accurate synopsis, how was this ever published? The example passage sounds like a low-literate 4th grader wrote it.
I read Blood Meridian. It took me a while to come to terms with the style. I ended up having to go back and reread portions just to understand what the hell was going on.
Seems like someone could publish any of his books as “punctuated edition” and it would be far more enjoyable.
I presume his editor was like “dude, you HAVE to use some punctuation!” and he had to push and fight to not have any in there. One wonders why he would be so insistent upon making the books hard to read. Like the little periods and commas are really cramping his style.
It was fine. Not terrible, but I definitely don’t get the hype. A bit dull and dreary, but does a better job of portraying a post-apocalyptic world than many/most others.
I don’t really get the takes like “the shit that happens is insane” - everything that happened felt pretty expected and par for the course to me. It’s a decent, straightforward small-scale post-apocalyptic story.
McCarthy is an incredible writer but the tone and subject of The Road are very bleak. I enjoyed the language and author’s skill but don’t think I could reread it.
I am obliged to recommend Blood Meridian by the same author if you haven’t read it. It is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Seriously, read it if you haven’t.
What a weird question. Are you trying to get us to write a book report for you?
Well, I don’t know, it’s just a question, why can’t I ask if I’m interested in people’s opinions here? You can just not respond if you’re not interested, right?
I really like Cormac McCarthy’s content. I would read it more if he didn’t have that infuriating allergy to normal grammar.
I recommend the audiobooks then. You wouldn’t feel his allergy to grammar that way. Blood Meridian audiobook is great.
