McCarthy’s The Road

If you have not read The Road by Cormac McCarthy, you must immediately get a copy and read it.  I’m somewhat confused by Oprah choosing it for her book club, but I’m glad she did because most likely millions of people have now read it.  That’s good.  It should be required reading to be a human being.  I shouldn’t question Oprah too much.  She did choose Faulkner a few summers ago, and The Sound and the Fury is no joke.  If you are not familiar with Cormac McCarthy’s books, The Road is not the only good one- Blood Meridian, All The Pretty Horses, Child of God, No Country for Old Men- but it may be one of his best. 

I had the book with me at my wife’s most recent obstetrician appointment.  As we were walking out of the room, the doc exclaimed, “Is that yours!” Which scared my wife and I, but then we realized he was pointing at the book.  He went on to tell us that it was one of nine books he read on vacation, and it was the best.  He also added that one knows one is comfortable with his sexuality when he carries around Oprah books in public.  Okay, thanks- I guess.  But let’s make it clear that McCarthy does not write “chick lit.”  On a previous visit, the doc told us a story about finding a tick on his scrotum, but that’s neither here nor there.   

  I don’t want to go into the details of the book too much in case you haven’t read it yet.  Once you start, it is difficult to put down.  It is written in short vignettes with no chapters, but it flows so smoothly there are very few good stopping points.  It took me two days of sporadic reading to finish.  It’s about a father and son in post-apocalyptic America walking a road with a vague notion of heading south.  If you read my post about Cat’s Cradle, don’t worry.  I do read books that are not apocalyptic.  The Road is much more than a book about the apocalypse.  It is about how we conduct ourselves as human beings.  With all of our faults and all of our evil, what keeps us moral?  What keeps us decent?  If civilization fails, how would we get it back?  The book is dark, but it is about that small glimmer of hope that we, as humans, can be good if we try. 

If you are a father with a son, you will undoubtedly have a special experience with this book. If you have a heart and mind, you will have a special experience with this book.  That’s what meaningful literature is supposed to do.  I’m all for escaping reality for a short time and having fun, but in the end we have to return and figure out how to live well and live with each other. Otherwise, bad things happen.  When we don’t think about these things, people lose focus of what’s important.  We become dangerous animals very quickly.  The Road is a book that will make you think, and if everyone read it, the world would be a better place. Get it and read it.

    

A Family Undertaking

Dear friends,

My grandfather passed away recently.  When I was growing up he was at our house or we were at his house at least once a week.  I lived with my grandparents for a few years before getting married, which was seven years ago.  I always felt he handled himself with intelligence, diginity, and kindness.  He always tried his best to take care of his family. I try to be like him. 

He requested that he be cremated and his ashes kept until my grandmother passed away.  Then he wants his ashes placed in the coffin with her.  I always had some misgivings about cremation, and I wasn’t sure how I would handle this.  I was able to be with him in his final moments.  It was the hardest thing I’ve had to do, but it helped give me some peace and closure.  At the service, I was heartbroken, but I didn’t feel like I needed a viewing or a graveside service. 

I watched A Family Undertaking recently, a documentary on PBS about how different families care for their dead.  If we live long enough, we have to think at some point how we want to be cared for after we die.  When do you buy burial plots and make those kinds of decisions?  The documentary made me think of these things.  Not in a morbid sense, but in a realistic, pratical sense.  I want my fmaily to have closure and be at peace when I’m gone. 

The film examines the aspects of funeral services, caring for the body et cetera.  People pay others to take care of these things, so they don’t have to while they’re grieving.  Most people turn over the bodies of their loved ones to strangers to care for without really knowing what kinds of questions to ask or what options are really available.  Funeral homes know this and take advantage of it.  The film also examines Americans who decide to care for the bodies and funerals of their loved ones themselves.   I didn’t even know you could do this, but it makes sense. 

I didn’t necessairly agree with everything some of the families did, but it was moving and seemed much more genuine and profound that these people cared for their own dead.  This is something Americans don’t do anymore.  I have to wonder if it has affected our national psyche in some way.  As a teacher, I have known a lot of students who have no real closure with the death of a loved one, and that grief is a heavy burden. 

The second part of this train of thought is that I don’t subscribe to the typical funeral-home belief that we want to preserve the bodies of our loved ones as long as possible.  Correct my science if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember learning that there is a set number of atoms in the universe.  There are no new atoms; they just realign or break apart or whatever it is the do when they change from a leaf to dirt to tree food to fruit , et cetera.  If this is the case, I don’t want to be stuck in a fiberglass coffin that will last to the end of time.  I don’t want my body to be preserved.  I want to go back into the earth.  I want to complete the cycle. 

 Naturally, one side of the argument is it doesn’t matter; you’re gone.   However, I’d like to at least be able to think now that a mortician is not going to be cracking jokes with his buddy while he’s draining my blood and pumping me full of pickling juice.  No embalming for me.  No fiberglass coffin either.  I want it made of soft wood that will decay in a natural amount of time.  I doesn’t have to be fancy. I don’t even need any cushioning.  If I can’t be buried in a graveyard that way, I’d prefer to be on private family land, which is legal in the state of Virginia and most other states according to the film.  This is the way it was done for eons. 

It’s something to think about. 

Live brave and kind and healthy and happy,

W. Knut

Cat’s Cradle

Dear Friends,

It’s been a while.  I’ve been bad.  I don’t write like I should. 

Tonight, I just wanted to share with you the joys of a little book called Cat’s Cradle. It’s was written by Kurt Vonnegut many moons ago during the Cold War when fear was rampant.  Most everyone thought someone somewhere would do something stupid and wipe us all off the face of the earth.  The book is satire.  

I propose that the book be required reading in high school and again in college-even technical and business colleges- along with the Bible (that will have to be another post).  Cat’s Cradle deals with human stupidity and focuses on two main topics humans use to explain things, but never truly understand: science and religion.   It’s apocalyptic. 

The book features the dysfunctional family of one of the men who created the atom bomb, a writer researching the family, an island dictatorship, and a made-up religion called Bokononism.  Verse 1 in the Books of Bokonon states, “All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.”  A scientist in the book states, “New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.”  Throw in some greed, lust, midgets, and dark humor and you’ve got a damn good story we should all learn from in the age of terrorism.  Find a used copy and read it. 

A famous calypso from Books of Bokonon featured in Cat’s Cradle:

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, “Why, why, why?”

Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.

Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy,

W. Knut