Did you have the sense that this was it? That the remaining survivors would live out their days in this nightmare world and then that would be it? No more. Or did you have a glimmer of hope that somehow the world could someday begin anew? I chided myself for it, but I kept having this burbling optimism that a corner of this dead, gray, cold, unrelenting awfulness would turn out to have color, warmth, life, like they'd stumble on some part of the earth — some meadow teeming with plants and animals and beauty — that was mysteriously untouched by the devastation.
When they were cooking coffee and biscuits and ham in the oasis of the fallout shelter, I got this sensory overload, like I could taste and smell the food, feel it warm and fill my body. It was so vivid and engulfing, so about the promise of life.
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Yeah, I thought this was it. Constant darkness and cold, every kind of animal extinct, marauding bands of murderous cannibals. I couldn't see an oasis emerging over the next hill.
The fallout shelter scenes were beautiful. Such joy is such simple things. Never have biscuits and coffee sounded so wonderful to me.
I've sort of gotten the sense, just having read a little bit of his other work, that McCarthy is someone who can still experience the specialness of something — biscuits, coffee, sex — even if he's had it a million times. He conveys wonder so well.
I thought this was it. They were going to eat all the canned food in the world and then die.
And that is awful.
As heavenly as the fallout shelter seemed, it was amazing for them to leave it to continue south. I kept expecting something really traumatic to happen in the shelter. I couldn't believe they were going to have two safe and peaceful days. I suppose that speaks to the bleakness McCarthy accomplished. He erased all hope for me.
You're optimism was obviously more persistent, kc
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