A lonely Road

"Twas in another lifetime,
one of toil and blood,
when blackness was a virtue,
and the road was full of mud..."

Bob Dylan, Shelter From the Storm

"They had a single blanket in the pack and he got it out and covered the boy with it and he unzipped his parka and held the boy against him. They lay there for a long time but they were freezing and finally he sat up. We've got to move, he said. We can't just lie here. He looked around but there was nothing to see. He spoke into a blackness without depth or dimension."

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Cormac McCarthy's new novel, The Road, has about as much blackness as you can handle, and probably not something you should be reading as an international madman announces the successful test of a nuclear weapon in N. Korea. But if you like darkness, end-of-the-world scenarios or just relate to McCarthy's obsession with death, then at the very least read the NYTimes review here. It is a haunting read.