I've taken to wearing lipstick again, something I haven't done since maybe middle school. Except now its not a dark, ghastly shade but a bright coral. I don't know yet whether or not the result is becoming, but I'll probably do it every now and then. Adds to the whole makeup as a mask thing; lipstick more than anything makes me feel like a different girl, one who is capable of anything.
So I've finished reading my first novel for my 1101 English class this semester, which was "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Definitely one of the most depressing books I've ever, ever read. It rivals Hubert Selby Jr's body of work in terms of how depressing it is (and "Requiem for a Dream" and "Last Exit to Brooklyn" were absolutely emotionally devastating).
This time around though it isn't the kind of depressing that results from psychological darkness and drugs and a seedy Urban life, but a post-Apocalyptic journey through the corpse of the world to find some semblance of life, and a chance to once again grasp at normality. You don't know the characters' names. You don't know where they are exactly, nor exactly where they are going. They are just a boy and his father, and the world they live in is completely bleak, dark, black and white in the most literal sense. There are no plants or animals, there are no sounds or colors, everything is essentially lifeless. I liked as well how you don't know much about how the world became to be that way, nor what the eventual fate of the world will be. Its like theres no past or future, theres only this empty, bleak, hopeless present that the characters are faced to trudge through day by day, hoping for a glimpse of the sun.
Today our prof asked us if we thought said novel was pessimistic or optimistic. I think its definitely optimistic, in the sense that both this young boy and his father are filled with so much hope. The father's hope lies entirely in wanting to find some place in the world where his son can be happy and healthy and warm, and live. The boy is a child entirely of this Apocalypse; he was born after the world collapsed, so to speak, so he doesn't understand that there can be anything other than this. His father tells him stories of the old world, and I suppose encourages him in his belief that someday there will be good people, there will be sunlight. And the young boy clings to this throughout the book.
Its a beautiful story, really. I would recommend it. And apparantly McCarthy wrote "No Country for Old Men" as well? I effing love that movie.
I actually saw the new Cohen Brothers film last night, which was "True Grit". Very good. If you like Westerns, horses, and guns, I can recommend seeing it. Everytime I see one of their movies its never what I expect it to be; its usually better, never worse, sometimes different.
Thats all for today I suppose. I'm going to visit my brother soon and I'm excited, I haven't seen him since Christmas.
XO
