The Road-- A/A-

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Highly Recommended—a quick yet very worthwhile read

The Road is a beautifully written, haunting tale about a father and son's journey through post-apocalyptic America. McCarthy has an amazing gift for describing the unimaginable devastation of a gray and ashen world. His writing is unorthodox in its punctuation and simple in its style; it may be uncomfortable to some but I found it to be very powerful. The story and general themes were very depressing yet ultimately uplifting. I've read a few reviews that found the book too dark to enjoy. If you can't stomach rather vivid descriptions of cannibalism, etc, then I would suggest that you stay away from this book. However, this novel is not truly about gore and suffering and death. It is ultimately about the bond between a father and his son, a tale of survival and the struggle for morality in the face of desperation. It will lead you to question a lot of things about yourself and life. Some advice: don't read this book anticipating a climactic ending (reason for potential A- for some-- storyline). As the title suggests, absorb and appreciate the road, the journey, the experience that McCarthy creates.

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One of my favorite scenes: after all their possessions are stolen from them at the beach, the father and son catch up to the thief. The following exchange between the thief, father, and son were very thought-provoking to me. Hard to say what is right/wrong. Actually, just considering the role the boy plays in general is interesting.

Couple of the best passages:

“He walked out into the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”

“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”

(this passage is made more interesting because of it's placement in the novel...)

Last note: It will be interesting to see what they do with the book when they turn it into a movie. I thought much of what made the book so powerful was the writing style, which would be hard to translate onto film.

btw, even if you are anti-Oprah's Book Club (I'm not), it also won the Pulitzer... :)