Book report: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
What’s left when civilization is burned away? In The Road, an unspecified catastrophe has reduced most cities to cinders. Knee-deep ash is everywhere. Permanent clouds block the sun, moon, and stars. Every plant has died, every animal that eats plants has died, and every animal that eats animals has died. The only animal left is the one able to open cans. In this world, a tin of peaches is a treasure beyond imagining.
This book is kind of like The Grapes of Wrath meets The Road Warrior. The population of North America is maybe a few hundred, most of them nasty enough to kill and eat anyone they happen meet on the road. Traveling the road is a man and his young son, both unnamed, moving from the inland north to the coastal south to escape the brutal winters. Along the way, they live by scavenging among whatever our plenty has left them, avoiding everyone else they come across, but still stumbling across horror upon horror. The boy regularly asks his father if they are the good guys. And they are, comparatively.
This is an unrelentingly grim book. The language is simple, but conjures up images that make nightmares seem tame. For these two people, who have only each other, mere survival is the only triumph. There aren’t going to be any flowery meadows of larks and butterflies at the end of this book. If they’re lucky, they’ll manage to kill themselves, or each other, before the bad guys get them.
The father says “I’m sorry” a lot in this book, which seems appropriate. He is sorry that this is the kind of world his son must grow up in. He’s sorry for whatever part he did or didn’t play in the catastrophe. He’s sorry that he remembers running water and electricity and markets with food, things that his son will never know. All he has is his son. All his son has is his father. Without the other, what point would there be to life in this world?
When I got to the end of this book, my feeling was, “Thank our gracious Lord that’s over.” It’s well written and compelling, but it’s like crawling over broken glass. You don’t read this book for pleasure, but for the curiosity of leaning over the abyss to see how far down it goes. I found out that they made a movie of this book. I can’t imagine watching it deliberately.
What’s left when civilization is burned away? In The Road, an unspecified catastrophe has reduced most cities to cinders. Knee-deep ash is everywhere. Permanent clouds block the sun, moon, and stars. Every plant has died, every animal that eats plants has died, and every animal that eats animals has died. The only animal left is the one able to open cans. In this world, a tin of peaches is a treasure beyond imagining.
This book is kind of like The Grapes of Wrath meets The Road Warrior. The population of North America is maybe a few hundred, most of them nasty enough to kill and eat anyone they happen meet on the road. Traveling the road is a man and his young son, both unnamed, moving from the inland north to the coastal south to escape the brutal winters. Along the way, they live by scavenging among whatever our plenty has left them, avoiding everyone else they come across, but still stumbling across horror upon horror. The boy regularly asks his father if they are the good guys. And they are, comparatively.
This is an unrelentingly grim book. The language is simple, but conjures up images that make nightmares seem tame. For these two people, who have only each other, mere survival is the only triumph. There aren’t going to be any flowery meadows of larks and butterflies at the end of this book. If they’re lucky, they’ll manage to kill themselves, or each other, before the bad guys get them.
The father says “I’m sorry” a lot in this book, which seems appropriate. He is sorry that this is the kind of world his son must grow up in. He’s sorry for whatever part he did or didn’t play in the catastrophe. He’s sorry that he remembers running water and electricity and markets with food, things that his son will never know. All he has is his son. All his son has is his father. Without the other, what point would there be to life in this world?
When I got to the end of this book, my feeling was, “Thank our gracious Lord that’s over.” It’s well written and compelling, but it’s like crawling over broken glass. You don’t read this book for pleasure, but for the curiosity of leaning over the abyss to see how far down it goes. I found out that they made a movie of this book. I can’t imagine watching it deliberately.
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