on Apr 4th, 2008The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Pages: 287
Year Published: 2006
A father and son travel down from the mountains, all their possessions in an old shopping cart, desperately attempting to make it to warmer climates before winter comes and all of this in a post-apocalyptic America covered in the ashes of destruction - literally.
Cormac McCarthy won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, his latest novel, and it’s not hard to see why. It is a dark, bleak book in which death reigns and hope should be an endangered species. It’s a testament to McCarthy’s skill as a storyteller that hope never becomes extinct in the book. Instead, it continues to exist against all evidence and experience.
However, the core of the book is not a science fiction exploration of the aftermath of apocalypse. It’s the bond between the father and his son as they embark upon their journey and what happens to that bond during their experiences. Several times over the course of the novel, that bond is tested and tested again, especially with regards to what makes one a “good guy” as opposed to a “bad guy.” It’s not an easy journey at all.
McCarthy’s style needs to be addressed before recommending The Road. His use of punctuation, especially in dialogue, is sparse. He’s also not a great fan of attribution in dialogue (”He said, she said.), which can result in a bit of confusion about who is speaking at any given time, I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to Faulkner in regards to McCarthy and that seems fair. It would be the more “A Rose for Emily” Faulkner, rather than the Absalom! Absalom! Faulkner. It’s not all that intimidating, but deserves to be mentioned.
Finally, don’t expect any “Mad Max” routines in this book. How and why the world exists the way it does isn’t explored at all. There are bare mentions of even what happened when the apocalypse descended. In this regard, while it could be called science fiction, it’s more of a literary novel using a science fiction convention for its own ends.
Between The Road and film adaptation of No Country for Old Men, I believe I’ll have to dig out the copy of All the Pretty Horses I bought in college and read that as well. I’ve known of McCarthy’s reputation for some time now, but it seems now is when I’ll finally explore it for myself.
Other participants in the “52 in 52″ meme who reviewed books recently include:
- Jeremy reviews Joe McNally’s The Moment It Clicks.
- Jamie reviews The Archer’s Tale, Vagabond, and Heretic by Bernard Cornwall.
- Heliologue reviews Karen Armstrong’s A History of God.
-K
