thisnewday

Finished my 7th or 8th reading of Peter Heller's The Dog Stars earlier today and came to the same conclusion that I had after past reads of this book: that it's one which flirts with greatness but, somehow, comes up just short. I'm not gonna get into a lengthy discussion as to why I think that--that's not my focus here.

What I will say is that, at a major turning point in the story--where Hig encounters Cima and her dad--there's something disturbingly off-key about it. Which, I suppose, could be attributed to Hig's years of isolation and the aftereffects of his illness during the flu pandemic that killed off most of the population, but.

And there are other places too where the give-and-take between characters just feels, I dunno, hurried, contrived, a bit over the top at times, whatever.

So why do I keep coming back to the book? Maybe that's what I keep hoping to discover each time I venture back for another go at it. It's beautifully poetic, in places, and there's real sensitivity in Heller's development of his individual characters.

And there's some actual sunlight, a few brief moments of respite from Hig's post-apocalyptic nightmare which is lacking in, say, Cormack McCarthy's The Road. Which, in my opinion, might be the gold-standard for this genre.

There's probably just enough of those things to allow me to come back, time after time, to indulge the fascination I seem to have retained, over the years, for lives lived off the grid. Maybe since the day I rode my 450 Honda off the commune, for the last time, and back to a more conventional life in the city.

Having closed Heller's book, for perhaps the last time, I feel like my timing is pretty good. Tomorrow is my monthly book club meeting--around a murder mystery that I feel absolutely no affinity or affection for--and this evening I picked up a couple of magazines, based purely on their cover stories, which I hope may ease me back into the world where I supposedly live and may even begin healing the TBI induced by a month of bad fiction.

One is The Atlantic's "Elegy for the American Century" by George Packer and the other is the Smithsonian's "You Are Such a Neanderthal! How new research is changing the beginning of the human story."

Even more therapeutic, before I put together my dinner I went down to the basement and put 27 out of 30 shots into the bullseyes of targets I'd set up three days ago and then hadn't gotten back to.

Like Bruce Bangley, my better days, lately, seem to end with shooting holes in things...

LPK
Dreamwidth
4.24.2019 

Just finished my second reading of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. And the thing that has struck me, every time I've sat down for one of the countless micro-installments that have comprised my two readings of it, is how uncannily the voice of the little boy resembles that of my grandson.

More than that, how the spare and scattered bits of dialogue invoke his spirit and at times even capture the character of our relationship. On my side, the role of protector, caregiver, and would-be mentor. On his, the role of naive innocent, imperfectly protected from the brutality of a world in which any hope, beyond day-to-day survival, is never fully formed and only briefly glimpsed.

And in between we live the grim reality of the road, take our daily steps into that uncertain future. Confront the likelihood that regardless of what luck I may have or what effort I might make to extend my own life, there is little chance that I will see this infinitely-precious child through much more than the very beginnings of his.

Perhaps it is life's only mercy that we cannot know the future within a reasonable certainty...

LPK
LiveJournal
5.24.2013