I Struggle with the Modern

Watching the Mets play baseball is exactly like watching the final season of Dynasty.

Anyhow.

This past Christmas one of the brokers we work with had a kind of Jerry Maguire moment but rather than writing something original he sent everybody copies of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. He'd seen the movie and loved it and then read the book and loved that too and he thought everyone should read it. There were copies all over the place and I ended up with one. It's the ash-gray cheap paperback movie release edition with Viggo Mortensen in ashes on the cover. I kept the book at my desk and had never thought to read it as I'd never wanted to--had planned, in fact, always to avoid it--but later it occurred to me that I ought to, seeing as how I was reading Les Misérables at work and The Road seemed to be about misery too, but modern. Last week I started it. I haven't gotten very far. First impression, coming from Brooklyn: in a depopulated world surely they could have found a Razor Scooter somewhere for that kid.