The Road

I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Holy shit, was that good!

At one point, he uses the term palimpsest! I think the only reason I know that word is because of the Archimedes Palimpsest, which I had the privilege of seeing at the Walters in Baltimore. Do most people know this word? Cormac McCarthy seems to think so!

Later, he uses isocline!

At the tide line a woven mat of weeds and the ribs of fishes in their millions stretching along the shore as far as eye could see like an isocline of death.

Oh, my! Is this prose or poetry? "…like an isocline of death." Now that is a simile!

Update: I saw the movie adaption from 2009 starring Viggo Mortensen as the man and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the boy. It was really well done! It's strange to describe something so bleak as beautiful, but it was.