Carrying the fire

It's not exactly a recommended reading for the festive season, but I thumbed through Cormac McCarthy's Road over Christmas. Strangely, amid desolate winter lanscape, excess food and careless holiday spirit, this post-apocalyptic, end-of-the-world vision from one of America's most accomplished living authors proved an unlikely fit.

I got half way through it on a train, travelling home for Christmas, and its sordid, dark mood could not interplay any better with the snow-bound, monochromatic scenery out the window. I raised my head every now and then to peak out and contemplate McCarthy's desolate vision. I read the second part, quite paradoxically, in the middle of merrymaking with my family, but this obvious contrast with the content of the book served the literary experience exceptionally well.

I was immediately attracted to the harsh reality McCormack set about portraying in the Road. It was a solid exercise in stripping down layers of excess that we are used to living around in a modern world ("The alien sun commencing its cold transit"). It was also the despair of the main characters' situation and the gloominess of the setting that resonated with me straight away. A few pages into the story, I knew I was in for a 300-page crash course in langauge of desperation, darkness, loss and no return. But, let's face it, even considering McCormack's mastery of this sort of atmosphere, I would not be entirely swept off my feet, as I most certainly was, if it hadn't been for this ray of hope the author put in the storyline - the boy and his caring father.

In an exclusive interview with Oprah Winfrey, Cormac McCarthy accepts her interpretation of the book as a love letter to his son, who was 8 at the time of writing and served as an inspiration. Funnily, in his talk with the WSJ journalist, he admitted getting correspondence from dads from around the world saying that the book urged them to go to their son's room, hug him and be with him. You don't have to scratch very hard beneath the post-apocalyptic surface of the Road to get its overwhelmingly tender message that extols moral decency, solidarity and sacrifice. It rings out with an added intensity and incredible urgency when set against the sinister reality, a landscape burnt down and flattened, the kind of nightmare most people wake up from in cold sweat.

Throughout the book I couldn't shake the feeling it was incredibly graphic, vivid, perfectly evocative of the post-apocalyptic scenery. I had the images of the ashen horizon, grey, unforgiving skies, debris-strewn roads or derelict homes rushing through my head at the author's will. I remember wondering whether it would be easy or not to turn it into a movie and how much it would have to resemble the end-of-the-world classic Mad Max. Only then did I realize that the Road had been made into a feature by the Australian director John Hillcot, who also directed The Proposition. I rushed to watch it, with the footprint from the reading experience still fresh, only to discover that it was a decent effort overall, but not really adding much to the load of the book. The funny fact about shooting the Road was that they filmed it in large part in Pennsylvania, mostly because its postindustrial rust-belt landscape was a great match for the cold wilderness depicted in McCarthy's fiction.

Language and ideas to remember:
1. they used a lot of tarp or tarpaulin (= brezent) for protection against rain,
2. "Beggars can't be choosers",
3. "Where men can't live, gods fare no better",
4. childhood games, like whist and old maid,
5. to set about (= zabierać się do) cutting one's hair,
6. here is a dry cell lamp, or ogniwo suche,
7. frozen with fear,
8. a stack of paperware bowls,
9. an armload of firewood,
10. as the crow flies = going in a straight line,
11. the survivors / the walking dead in a horror film,
12. phon: apricot / atom / imbecile / gravel / pear syrup / butane,
13. a knapsack,
14. a hard-ass,
15. a chalice = a cup or goblet,
16. play checkers (= warcaby),
17. a field of sedge = turzyca,
18. The richness of a vanished world,
19. dried turd (= łajno),
20. turn the cart sideways against it rolling,
21. carve a flute,
22. sit crosslegged,
23. move through like sappers,
24. kitchen cabinets,
25. bakin powder,
26. a wire hanger = wieszak,
27. the railway embankment,
28. a trallis,
29. with their hands outheld,
30. footlocker = a trunk for storing personal belongings, usu. placed on the floor, by the bed,
31. ember (= niedopałek), a small glowing piece of wood or coal,
32. a ravine (= wąwóz),
33. pliers (= szczypce),
34. cowled = hooded, eg. a cowled monk,
35. slack = to make slower or looser,
36. scrawny claws,
37. to raise the hatch (= właz),
38. play quoits,
39. flint (= krzemień) and chert (rogowiec) are both fire-strikers (krzesiwo),
40. a cheroot = a kind of inexpensive cigar,
41. dusk (zmierzch) - dawn (świt),
42. We have to be vigilant.
43. But the odds are not in their favor.
44. keep a lookout, stand guard,
45. at the controls,
46. a bundle = pakunek,
47. draw stick figurse,
48. a flarepistol,
49. beachcombers,
50. a short shellife,
51. steel drums = barrels,
52. a cupcake = babeczka,
53. to careen, to lurch or swerve while in motion (= przechylać się),
54. Here is a bucksaw,
55. bracken = a kind of large fern,
56. wretched-looking beyond description,
57. a prune = suszona śliwka,
58. eat the last of / carry the last of / see the last of,
59. cock the gun,
60. a jerry jug = a canister,
61. from bow to stern,
62. out of true = not accurately fitted / not level,
63. a suture needle,
64. emaciated = abnormally thin,
65. haggard eyes (= worn / exhausted)