McSweeney’s Issue 28

McSweeney’s Issue 28 by Dave Eggers

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like McSweeney’s, and I love the packaging of this issue, and in theory the idea of it is terrific—that is to “resurrect and reinvent the art of the fable.”

I think the reality is that the eight stories are moderately entertaining, but I feel slightly unsatisfied. As if I were only just getting started yet had already reached the end. I feel like the issue is missing having at least one slightly more substantial story in the mix.


View all my reviews.

What shall I read next?

I’m seeking opinions as to which book I should read next. Take your choices from the list to the right under “Now Reading” and “Planned Books,” or suggest something entirely different if you think it might be particularly notable. Enter your pick in the comments section. I’ll make a decision next weekend, with or without suggestions.

I’ve had several of these books on my list for some time now, and really need to finish them off. Maybe with your encouragement I’ll do so. And hopefully, in the process, I’ll make a wonderful new discovery.

Books and books and books

I hope everyone will enjoy the new Library page that I’ve added along with the “about me” and “contact” and “gallery” pages already there.

The Library page actually already existed for a while now, but it wasn’t so plainly and easily accessible. It’s a fun way for me to share what I am reading, have read or am about to read. And for those books that I write a review about I can either put the review with the book page for that book, or I can link the book page to the review post.

Anyway, I hope you find it interesting, and if you ever think you want to purchase one of the books you see just click the link or the cover image you see on that page and it will take you straight to Amazon where you can order the title.

[UPDATE] I have switched off the library plugin I was using. If you would like to view my reading lists now then please go to goodreads.

The Road — by Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road is the post-apocalyptic story of a father and son and their journey across the future wasteland of America.

I’ve read quite a few novels that are set after the apocalypse. Where the end of the world has essentially happened—either by nuclear bomb, or virus, or climate change—and those few who survived struggle in the aftermath. So, there wasn’t anything new to me about the basic premise of the story. However, very few of those previous works were written by an author with as audacious a vocabulary and as nuanced a turn of phrase as Cormac McCarthy.

His language is very spare and direct, and yet he uses words and sentence constructions that are incredibly rich and indelible.

The horrors that the two main characters endure, and the harsh decisions they must from time to time make are depicted in distinctly compelling prose. And believe me, they do come across some horrors.

If I do have a reservation about the novel at all it stems from a single passage on page 87 that seems to me to be written by a different narrator than the others. I don’t know if I am simply not understanding this passage, or if there is a mistake, but where the rest of the novel appears to be told in third-person narrative fashion, this passage is told in first-person. So, like I say, it may simply be an error or something. Maybe someone forgot to find-replace the instances of “I” to “he.” But that reservation is minor, and I enjoyed the book very much.

The trade paperback edition I read was 287 pages long, but the typeface is large and there is a lot of white space on the page. Certainly no one should be intimidated by the length.

This is the first novel I have read by Cormac McCarthy, but I will now strongly consider reading some of his other novels. I hope that, if you choose to read it, you enjoy it as much as I did.