Just Let Me Read

So I finished Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events today and almost immediately started Cormac McCarthy's The Road. What a culture shock! So different. And yet.... I could point to many commonalities. They both set out to describe quests in a world turned topsy-turvey for their protagonists. The Road is, among other things, a story imparting the details of a series of unfortunate events. Both explore the dark side of human nature, delving into the question of the source of evil and how it is possible to maintain a moral compass in a world that seems intent on throwing our most noble intentions back at us in the form of unintended consequences at least as evil as the evil our intention was to avoid. They both also address the question of how to raise children in such a world, how to protect them from the dangers and the evil and when such protection might be too much, too long thus doing them a disservice by not preparing them for their inevitable encounters with it.

That's after less than fifty pages of The Road and I'm willing to admit I could be bringing too much of the the thirteen volumes of the Snicket series with me into McCarthy's story. Not to mention, too much of my own personal story. But that is the risk a writer takes when sending their story out there I guess. Every reader is bringing to his encounter with it all their own previous encounters with stories.

O.K. Now let me get back to The Road. I only put it down to get this posted so I wouldn't break the streak of daily posts begun the second week of April.