The Road

I realise I’m laying myself open to a “What have the Romans ever done for us” moment here but I’m trying to segue seamlessly into the blog entry with this so bear with me.

Film adaptations are always a mistake. If you’ve seen the film versions of “Atonement”, “The Naked And The Dead” or The Human Stain you’ll know what I mean. Although there are exceptions to the rule, Burt Lancaster in “The Leopard” is a shining example, I think it’s ok as a rule of thumb. (I’d also cite Bladerunner as a counter example here but I’m sticking to book club books and, in any case, it’s a film that plays fast and loose with Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep” anyway)

At a little under two hours John Hillcoat's “The Road” just falls short of being another exception. It’s a faithful recreation of the novel. It’s unremittingly bleak and at times unbearably sad movie. Not for the faint hearted, it’s particularly resonant if you have kids. It does have one advantage over the book. Although I wouldn’t have said this of the book at the time, McCarthy’s prose dominates. Or it dominated our discussion of it? Although the films fidelity to the novel is almost total it seemed to me, as a stripped down visual piece, more provocative. This might have more to do with how I read “The Road” in the first place. Perhaps, If you’re seduced by the prose you blunt it’s purpose? Maybe concentrating on the aesthetics reduces an appreciation of the moral,ethical and philosophical complexities.

Anyway this a roundabout way of saying that bookclub books benefit from the discussion. I’m reasonably certain at some stage these issues would have surfaced and the books impact would be the better for them. I'd also remember. I certainly won’t forget the conversation with Brid in a hurry. It’s not often you discuss how best to mercy-kill your children and at what point you can legitimately abandon hope. In fact, I don’t think I’ve heard Brid use the word kill so often since the time I forgot our wedding anniversary!