In this story, desolation is in the earth in the air, in the writing itself. From the very start the world is dead, it's long abandoned bones left to be picked over and over by the few stragglings of men and women who stagger across it's inhospitable wastes. Even the respite of dreams are a curse, cruel mocking from a world that once was and will never be again. Nightmares instead are what sustains a hell-scape far worse than any imagining. In such a wild land, the virtues of generosity, trust, and respect are the instruments of ones demise. And after a time, not even the good guys can be seen as good anymore. Yet in this landscape exists the whispered scraps of those long abandoned golden ideals, held by two travelers. Though these virtues are a warped fun-house image of what they once were, they can set man apart from monster, however thin the distinguishing line may be. There are a few individuals who carry the fire, the vestiges of what the earth once was, now dressed in plastic tatters and rags.
Well I tried to make that pretty, but I can't think much further than that because I just got done crying harder than I have ever cried for any other book I have ever experienced. It was not just the silent sniffling most readers experience. Just light enough a drizzle to stain the pages, but not too much to blurr out words for too long. I did not register the end of this book. I skimmed the last few lines, already strangling sobs. With it's end I no longer contained it. I wept loudly, harshly, for a long time. I cried like a bitch and I will not deny it. I fear I won't be able to go back and analyze this book properly because I'll just relapse in the the consuming sadness of the loss of this both heroic and godly yet completely mortal and fault-ridden man. For his son's loss, for the loss of innocence and purity and for the loss of the struggling bond between them. Something so awkward and forced and yet so genuine I have never encountered. The need for eachother, yet the opposition each posed for the other. The overwhelming realness in their sparse relationships of few words and shared strife is what strikes me deepest. That though the earth was barren, they had one another, and though they did not always understand it, they loved eachother in ways that are impossible for me to fully comprehend. I can't even finish this properly because I feel like I'm going to cry again.
Well I tried to make that pretty, but I can't think much further than that because I just got done crying harder than I have ever cried for any other book I have ever experienced. It was not just the silent sniffling most readers experience. Just light enough a drizzle to stain the pages, but not too much to blurr out words for too long. I did not register the end of this book. I skimmed the last few lines, already strangling sobs. With it's end I no longer contained it. I wept loudly, harshly, for a long time. I cried like a bitch and I will not deny it. I fear I won't be able to go back and analyze this book properly because I'll just relapse in the the consuming sadness of the loss of this both heroic and godly yet completely mortal and fault-ridden man. For his son's loss, for the loss of innocence and purity and for the loss of the struggling bond between them. Something so awkward and forced and yet so genuine I have never encountered. The need for eachother, yet the opposition each posed for the other. The overwhelming realness in their sparse relationships of few words and shared strife is what strikes me deepest. That though the earth was barren, they had one another, and though they did not always understand it, they loved eachother in ways that are impossible for me to fully comprehend. I can't even finish this properly because I feel like I'm going to cry again.
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