We've been Down that Road

This is a two-part post. I'm preparing to read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and before I venture into the "searing postapocalyptic novel" (notice the missing dash)"destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece," I'm going to reminisce on my reaction to the incredibly overrated No Country for Old Men.

I extracted a few things from No Country for Old Men:

One: Life's bad now, it's not like in the good old days, when everybody knew their place, and gumdannit, no one needed no drugs.

Two: The moment people stopped calling each other "sir" and "ma'am", THAT'S when it all went to hell, see?

Three: If your name is Cormac McCarthy, you're not just writing a thriller. Oh, NO. It's LITERATURE. Never mind that you took the sheriff from Stephen King's Misery. If Richard Farnsworth wasn't going through your head's casting office, you don't know your good hearted, salt-of-the-earth old sheriff types. Never mind that Fargo did it all so much better. Never mind A Simple Plan, never mind all those Tarantino-esque movies. You're above all that. You're Cormac McCarthy! When YOU do that same old thing, you are expanding the territory of American fiction- as the Newsweek blurb would have it.

Hmmm.

And now he's done it again, with The Road.

Imagine- just bear with me- this is going to blow your mind- what if- what IF technology failed us tomorrow, and there were no, like, CELL PHONES, what would happen! Oh, God! That Cormac McCarthy, he's created a new genre, the post-apocalyptic novel!

Sorry, the "postapocalyptic" novel, no dash.

Not to be vitriolic or anything.

No Country for Old Men was a good, familiar thriller from an old coot. The rest was hype.

I shall report from the end of The Road and I have no problem with crow if you add a little ketchup on the side.