"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

We met on Wednesday 1st December 2010 at The Poets' Corner which worked very well as a venue.  I expect it may be sometime before we get the added bonus of snow flakes falling throughout the entire meeting again, or indeed the opportunity to indulge in a snowball fight afterwards, but it's still seems like a great venue for a cultural debate.  Talking of which...

BOOK: "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

...we discussed "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.  It's about a father and son who have survived a catastrophic event that appears to have wiped out most of humanity and most other creatures too.  Some of the other survivors have turned to cannibalism.  

To one degree or another everyone, even Don, who came into the discussion via speaker phone to give his review, heralded the book as a masterpiece.  Phrases like "the best book this group has ever done" were bandied about.  Some of us, whilst acknowledging the book's many attributes, felt we never wanted to read it again, such was its bleak and harrowing content. 

The scores on the doors (out of 10):

Nick 9

Hamish 10

Robin 10

Tristan 9.5

Don 8.5

Nigel 10

Overall 9.5/10

MUSIC: "Living With War" by Neil Young

Nick was unimpressed with the music.  I can't remember what everyone else said.  Must have been the Harveys.  I think Le Noise, Neil's latest, is very fine.  

Hamish was interested in the album for what it symbolised - the apparent lack of anti-Iraq War protest amongst younger musicians that prompted Neil to do it himself.  Neil Young toured the album with CSNY, and the documentary film of this tour 'Deja Vu' (recently shown on BBC4) is well worth watching.

So another supremely enjoyable gathering came to an end with snowballs followed by a snowy journey home to our beds.