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Old 05-19-2011, 01:36 AM   #61
beppe
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Andanzas View Post

I think I understand what beppe is saying. The Road also recreates a very harsh world, but then there is that tender relationship from the father and his son. They are fighting to have a better life. There are brief reasons for hope. In Blood Meridian the characters themselves are the main reason the world is so brutal. They don't fight against their circumstances; they make everything worse. Even the kid doesn't seem to be different.

I have no doubt this guy is a great novelist, but I won’t be in any hurry to read any other of his books.
You understand it very well.

I found a similar effect of total negativeness and despair in the short Wyoming stories of E. Annie Proulx, with the famous BrokenMountain. The Shipping News, although knitted with the stories of born losers, has registers that are mostly sunny, and a happy ending
It is a good book that I reread several times. It is written with generosity of details and several characters are given full depth, with well crafted writing art. There are episodes and details, from far away "places", that activate the readers' imagination, through a mixture of strange facts and quasi dreams with the hard life of Newfoundlanders. Often the inhabitants of harsh places develop a sense of magic and arcane like a yeast to leaven their hardships, and somehow to be detached by the unavoidable material pains and sufferances. An antidote to despair and frustration. The novel catches this with humor and literary grace.

I find it very entertaining, at every reread.

Last edited by beppe; 05-19-2011 at 02:00 AM.
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