before I ham-handedly make one?

There is now.

What I mean is, I think there's one in film, but not yet in books. So this can be the books one.

Okay.

I finally read it, based mainly off recommendations from people on here. It was okay, I thought. Maybe I just didn't connect with it that well, because all of the things people said they felt while reading it, I didn't feel. I definitely didn't feel like crying. I don't think being a parent had any bearing on how I felt about the kid. And when I finished it, I didn't feel drained or emotional or anything. I just started another book.

Should I try it again?

That was kind of my reaction. It was a good book, I thought, but not great, and like you, I never felt remotely like crying (and I cry easy). I quite liked the ambiguity at the end, and it was all very well constructed and difficult to put down, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to offer McCarthy a Nobel Prize on the spot which is what seems to have been a lot of people's reaction.

I read this today on a train. I also thought it was very good and that, but I was nowhere near the reaction on the old OTF thread or, indeed, the purple review quotes on the back cover, inside back cover, inside front cover and first three pages. After 50 pages or so I'd basically understood that you don't want your son to die, or you to die before he's grown up, and that nuclear apocalypses are a total bummer. I also found it mildly irritating that McCarthy has to throw in obscure words in the middle of his generally bare-bones prose: for instance, the last page's musings about trout might be better if they didn't include the words "torsional" and "vermiculate", the distracting presence of which caused me to go back and reread the whole section, dampening its impact. I couldn't help wondering whether such embellishments were a (successful) ploy to get an even more positive review out of people like Kirsty Wark and Adam Mars-Jones.

Oh, and something that's almost certainly just me, and not the book's fault at all, and just by the by: if I know a book is in the process of being dramatised for the cinema, I can't help but constantly imagine how each section would work on film, who could play the leads, etc. Distracting (especially once I'd decided The Krankies were my number one choice).

Do you feel the amount of hype affected your enjoyment of the book? Because it's definitely a good book, just not shit-your-pants good, which is what the acres of pull quotes from reviews suggested.

Nah, I don't trust critics.

I just posted about it in the 'current reading' thread. It's alright, was basically what I said. I read it in one sitting and enjoyed it, but as a good page-turner and little more. The half-arsed attempts to inject some Beckettian gravitas into the proceedings were clumsy (the blind old man, tapping his cane) and it all reminded me of ITV's 1999 TV drama 'The Last Train' a little too much.

Maybe if I was a father I'd have enjoyed it more.

I'm not a parent and I thought it was one of the best books I'd read in ages. (The backlash to the backlash starts here!)

This is a real 'different strokes' deal, I reckon.

I can see totally see why people might not like the style or find it a bit slow or whatever. But I'm pretty shocked by people saying "well, it was OK".

My reaction to it was visceral. It left me absolutely reeling, feeling as though I'd been punched in the stomach. I'm haunted by it, but it's inspired me to savour the time I spend with me son and be the best parent I possibly can. You can't ask much more than that from a book.

Just finished 'Blood Meridian'. It's amazing. Like a cross between Beckett, The Bible and the most violent Western ever. Highly recommended (if you liked 'The Road'). Thanks to the OTFer who recommend it to me (on the old thread - can't remember who it was).

I thought it was as good as such a short, sparse, limited book could be. I didn't think it was slow at all, quite the reverse.

In what respect did you think it was 'limited', Horse?

In that it's just two nameless characters staggering around a nuclear wasteland. Y'know, there aren't any births, marriages, tricky job interviews etc.

Wow. Just... wow.

Two potential meanings of "limited" there, Toro, I don't think The Horse is using the perjorative one.