We have all been swallowed up by Oprah. Very little mastication was even done to get us there, which is actually here. We all reside in her belly, writhing around like bodies in an orgy looking for the best get that can be gotten. No form, nothing too discerning, just masses moving and hooking. Did Oprah eat us all? Possibly. She has declared not to be dieting so anything is possible. With power comes action and a bigger need for release. Did Oprah buy us all, and in that we have been swallowed down? Now we are talking.

Passing isles looking for sales to complete the grocery list with as little financial stress as possible I found myself looking at the book section. The book section resides as the doppelganger to the peanut butter section (sale was achieved on the low fat gooey kind). Having become obsessed with the Dexter book written by Jeff Lindsay I wondered if I could find the second book there. Doomed with the lackluster crime description and tagged bestseller the chances where high to be at the grocery store, but it wasn't. That's good and bad. I feel relieved, like the art I still enjoy is valid now. The scale of books was as expected, books regaled how to love god more even when he strikes you with cancer, how to eat healthy by not changing your diet, a cluster fuck of Barack Obama books, a long series of crime thrillers where the drama takes place in courtrooms--lonely mothers eat this up, and then there is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I have become used to seeing the book in all kind of places since Oprah admitted her torrid love affair to the dismal non-shitty science fiction apocalypse book. But this daft paperback version I did not expect to ever see.

This flimsy paperback displayed the title in an old Hollywood glimmer way rather than the dark and simple version Chip Kidd designed. Behind the red carpet title was a picture of a withered man holding a child in his beard partnered with the overbearing tagline NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE. When did this happen? When did The Road get made into a film? I ripped the book off the shelf. The bedroom romance novel beside it got wet in the binding by watching me be so decisive, so demanding. I AM GREAT was the look I gave that slutty book.

Back to The Road, which according to the film info on the back stars Guy Piece, with a beard, and Robert Duvall. I hope he doesn't play the child, that would be awkward, but with him I expect some kind of Jesus ended the world for us speech to be added. The director sparked no memory in my head, but the score is done by Nick Cave. Okay that makes sense and not just because I worship at the feet of his scowling fu-manchu. Nick Cave can create the hopeless tone and empty moments of the book, but as for the film I have no hope for this. No film can fully create what makes The Road a great book.

What makes The Road so great is how Cormac (note: if I buy two or more of anything from anyone I'm on a first name basis with them, it's like second date) keeps things moving when nothing is going on. For an end of the world tale The Road doesn't rely on any of the easy fall backs of constant violence, biblical tie ins, and long explanations of how the world came to be an ashy grave with little life left in it. Can this tone be caught in film- I HIGHLY DOUBT IT.

No Country For Old Men worked, but not in the exact telling of the book. It's was great film interpretation by The Cohen Brothers, which did get the times of awkward silence of the book well, and well enough that people walked out of the screening I saw. They looked lost, the plot wasn't TV linear enough for them.

So this is all Oprah's fault. Were just in that big belly looking, waiting, and wondering where we fit in all of this. I'm still glad Oprah gave glory to The Road, middleclassians got recommended a book with no resolution, no happy ending. Not very often does anti-smile entertainment make it to that level of acceptance, but for that I say thanks to Oprah, but for this upcoming trashy film I expect to only nod my head in shame and utter with a large group of people "the book is way better" and blame Oprah for getting the book into the wrong hands. I could be wrong though-like today when I thought my apartment was on fire, but it wasn't.