The Road (Oprah's Book Club)
by Cormac McCarthy
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Book Reviews of The Road (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: Despair and Hope
Summary: 5 Stars
The other day, I was browsing books at the grocery store when The Road by Cormac McCarthy caught my eye, mostly because of the tag line on the back: "The searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's Masterpiece." I'm a sucker for postapocalyptic stuff. I thrive on Mad Max movies, and I am one of the four people in America who actually enjoyed Water World. To add to the book's appeal, it won the Pulitzer Prize, which meant it would be actual literature instead of cheesy sci-fi stuff.
I opend the book to the first page and immediately felt myself immersed in McCarthy's vision of the future. In reality, the book has three characters, the man, the boy, and the ruined earth. The world is a charred, burning vale of ash, and the man and his son journey through it with no appearant purpose. They keep moving because they can. Their odds of survival on the road are minimal at best, and their constant struggle becomes that of the reader as well.
I found myself constantly hoping that things would change, hoping, perhaps, for a hidden valley untouched by fire and ruin. As another critic promised, "The Road offers nothing in the way of escape or comfort.*" This is a survival tale at it's most gritty. This is not a book for the faint of heart. There is violence and despair on every page, but it is not meaningless, and McCarthy uses it as a foil for the perfect goodness of the boy, a child who refuses to give in to the anarchy around him. When confronted with a thief who tries to steal everything the man and the boy have, the boy begs his father to spare the theif's life. Knowing that the thief would have left him and his father to die, the boy wants nothing more than to help the wretched criminal.
The man is a deeply real character, forced to provide not only food and shelter, but some kind of moral structure for his son. The ghost of his wife still haunts him with her abandonment and refusal to survive. The man makes the ultimate sacrifice of the moral high ground so that his son won't have to. The complexity of their relationship is expressed though the simplest of dialogue.
The boy begins with: Yeah, but stories are supposed to be happy.
They don't have to be.
You always tell happy stories.
You don't have any happy ones?
They're more like real life.
Buyt my stories are not.
Your stories are not. No.
The man watched him. Real life is pretty bad?
What do you think?
Well, I think we're still here. A lot of bad things have happened but we're still here.
Yeah.
You don't think that's so great.
It's okay.
I finished The Road in less than two days. McCarthy makes it very easy to keep reading. There are no chapters to pause at, and even the punctuation is sparse. There are plenty of page breaks, sometimes two or three on a page, but they only add to the urgency of the story, as if the little family's time is so limited there isn't space for bulky exposition. Even so, McCarthy finds plenty of opportunity to provoke thought inbetween gritty realism. It's amazing how a novel so spare can raise so many meaningful questions. Often the reader sees the man's dreams, and is left to wonder how he copes with the ghosts of the world that was.
This is a remarkable novel, one that left me sad and thoughtful. In the end, McCarthy never really says how the world reached the state it's in. There is no hidden political agenda here, only an unflinching examination of human nature and what it means to be good.
* The New York Times
Book Review: Apocalyptic Love
Summary: 5 Stars
Cormac McCarthy amazingly makes the relationship between father and son remarkably warm in the cold environs of post-apocalyptic United States - after the bomb or something similar has incinerated all of nature. The two main characters, each nameless and referred only as man and boy, allow us to watch their journey on the "Road" in the world we pray never to know.
The book is merely a chronological story of the daily long walks by the pair to the coast and then south - all the time seeking food and other needs for sustenance. All in a world of no sun. Eternal clouds. No stars. "The nights dead still and deader black. So cold." You might think: Why live? The father, understanding the inevitable end to this daily torture ". . . would raise his weeping eyes and see him [his son] standing there in the road looking back at him from some unimaginable future, glowing in the waste like a tabernacle." Unlike most other adults, the man has reason to live - to love and be loved. This ugly world has a beautiful story.
Fighting against all odds, in the moonscape left from the nuclear assault on man and nature, this book mixes two great movies' themes: "Two Women" and "Mad Max." Without sun, no food can be grown. Without light, temperatures plunge and winds sweep the lands. With the strange sunless weather patterns, the already burned trees fall like dominoes, expose the entire deforested continent to all winds, and leave all men prey to the badlands as most succumb if without masks or eye protection. It is not a jungle out there - all the flora is dead. It is hell. But, against these odds, the main characters fight on.
People become desperate in such desperate times. Children, the weakest, are freely eaten by the adults. Every day, following the inevitably black as ebony starless night, requires energy to walk on. Day or night, animal-like senses are needed to assure self preservation. In one conversation, the two discuss this never ending stress in obtaining preservation.
-If you're on the lookout all the time, does that mean that you're scared all the time?
-Well, I suppose you have to be scared enough to be on the lookout in the first place. To be cautious. Watchful.
-But the rest of the time you're not scared?
-Yeah. I don't know. Maybe you should always be on the lookout. If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.
-Do you always expect it? Papa?
-I do. But sometimes I might forget to be on the lookout.
After having read the heavier and less personal "Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West (Modern Library)" and seen the movie adaptation to "No Country for Old Men (Vintage International)", I feared this book of the post apocalyptic world would be strewn with endless pages of blood, guts, exposed viscera and nauseatingly horrific accounts of violence. Surprisingly, it is not. Not that this book is void of shockingly violent behavior, or occasional scenes of putrid details. But, such accounts are not nearly as great as included in the other two works. And, on a personal note, that is appreciated.
This book moves incredibly quickly. The writing is clean, but skillfully done with strong words and Hemingwayesque minimalist style. McCarthy's success is not any surprise to any of his readers.
Book Review: at a loss...
Summary: 5 Stars
I just finished reading The Road an hour ago. I was reading it on the train on my way home from work, and I had to sit at the station once I was dropped off so I could finish it. I can't say that I'm in the best of moods as a result of reading this. Among the heaps of accolades piled on The Road, the one I must disagree with is the supposed sense of hope left with the reader coming away from it. I feel beaten and exhausted, and harbor a very pessimistic outlook on the future of our world and species.
So, in response to many of the points made in reviews panning this book, I would have to agree. This book is bleak past the point of being oppressive, and offers little in the way of dynamic plot or character development. And as most of those complaining of these things seem to be experienced readers, I am curious as to how it eluded them that this is the point of the book, and McCarthy would not have been able to accomplish what he set out to any other way. The seemingly endless pursuit by the man and the boy of some vague notion of an unknown salvation is reflected perfectly in how the book is constructed. Those of you who think you are awfully clever being able to offer a "synopsis" in a few sentences and thus supposedly saving us the trouble of reading it are missing the point by a few miles. Or, to be more accurate, you get the point but it doesn't suit your expectations and so you are quick to dismiss it as poor writing, despite the fact that what you wanted out of the book is not at all what its author wanted.
I myself have come away from The Road feeling crushed under its weight, just as the man and the boy are stifled by the suffocating emptiness and futility of living in their dead world. The fact that they continue to try is a wonder, and it requires of them a certain hardheaded stupidity to ignore the fact that their survival is most likely a pointless endeavor. This is the only redemption that I find in the book; that even faced with no good reason to continue living, the faintest glimmer of hope can sustain humans through the most hellish of conditions.
In regard to the repetitious nature of the plot (i.e. find a place to camp, walk, repeat), it only serves to render their few encounters with other people all the more startling (and more often than not, terrifying). And my curiosity about when they would come across another wanderer or band of "bad guys" is really what kept me unable to stop reading.
When all is said and done, The Road is the most frighteningly accurate depiction of life in a post-apocalyptic world that I have yet come across. There are no monsters in the night, only people whose need to survive has driven them to varying degrees of madness. There is no climactic battle between good and evil, only a boy being given over to an unknown fate. Life in such a world would be unbearably monotonous and murderous to the soul, unremarkable day-to-day rituals given a ceremonious importance in the utter lack of anything else to care about.
I have spent a lot of words on this and feel that I've still said nothing. I am tremendously moved by reading The Road, in a way that is impossible to describe with much accuracy. The burned land which the man and the boy inhabit is illuminated only by what little light of the sun makes it through the ever-present blanket of airborne ash encricling the planet. Look at the moon, feel the warmth of direct sunlight on your face, admire the green of living things all around you. One day you may not have these luxuries.
Book Review: The Fisher King
Summary: 5 Stars
Was I the only one who noticed several similarities between the novel and the Arthurian legend of the Fisher King?
In the legend of the Fisher King, there is a kingdom that has been laid waste so that nothing grows and everything is gray and dead. In this kingdom live a King and his son, who secretly are keepers of the Holy Grail, a symbol of goodness and light. Unfortunately, the King has been wounded, so the son must go out and fish in order to gain sustenance for them. Eventually, a pure knight (usually Percival) comes and discovers that they have the Grail, and instructs them that they can revive their kingdom by using the Grail to heal the King, who was the source of the pestilence all along.
Taken symbolically, the main idea of the Grail legend is that in the midst of desolation and impotence against time and entropy and human failings, we carry with us (and usually greedily protect) the thing that can eternally revive us - goodness, or God's love, or decency, whatever you want to call it. Unfortunately, we usually keep it locked up in our hearts rather than use it, because our humanity is a precious thing to us, and the world is a dark place.
It is also interesting to note that in French, "Fisher" and "Sinner" are nearly the same words (the original versions of the Grail legend were written in French).
Throughout The Road the protagonists refer to themselves as "Keepers of the fire", that they are protectors of goodness the same way the Fisher King and his son were protectors of the Grail, itself a symbol of holy fire. Likewise, both end up by the ocean, the same way that the Fisher King and his son were forced to live next to the river, as it was the last source of life left in his kingdom. The man the boy encounters in the end of the novel can be taken to be Percival, the white knight, whose open decency and kindness to the boy can be seen as a revival of goodness.
The protagonists speculate that there is still life in the ocean. The fact that the man at the end of the book does not seem to be a cannibal, and his relaxed demeanor, indicates that he has found a source of sustainable food. The boy's use of speech at the end indicates that he goes on to live with the man and his family for a sizable length of time. Perhaps, like the Fisher King, they can subsist by fishing (itself a religious metaphor - Jesus and his apostles were both literal fishermen and fishers of souls.)
Finally, the passage at the end of the book about the mountain stream and the trout can be linked to the Celtic legend of the Salmon of Wisdom, which is considered an origin myth for the Fisher King story. In the legend there is a salmon that lives in the Fountain of Wisdom, who has all the knowledge of the world (the maps on the Salmon's back, the perfect and whole precursor to the tattered map the father carries with him throughout the novel). In the Celtic legend a man eats the salmon, and thus gains absolute wisdom with which he creates civilization (Douglas Adams' book the Salmon of Doubt is a humorous reference to this). This is interesting especially because McCarthy wrote much of the book in while staying in Ireland.
Thus the trout symbolize the undisturbed world that has been lost, not just to the protagonists, but to all of humanity, since by our very nature we are disruptive. However, through our goodness and attempts at decency perhaps we can manage somehow to survive in spite of ourselves.
Book Review: "There's not a lot of good news on the road. In times like these."
Summary: 5 Stars
I had been interested in reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" the first time I saw it in a book store, but after seeing it at the top of numerous best of 2006 lists I knew that I had to give it a try. I'm glad that I did. So often you find yourself disappointed in a book that gets so much attention, but with "The Road" it is very much deserved. It is a truly haunting, affecting novel that I doubt will be leaving my thoughts for a very long time. The story finds an unnamed father and son travelling along a road through the wasteland that the world has become in the wake of an only vaguely described, most likely nuclear, disaster that has thrown the entire world asunder. What humans have survived have become scattered and turned on each other as food and resources became scarce in the years following the disaster. Now the father and son are wandering alone down the desolate road (personified into an ominous, looming third character by McCarthy's masterful writing) in a desperate bid to get south before the harsh winter season finishes them off. They do come across other people at times, although the encounter rarely ends well what with desperation afflicting everyone and menacing hordes that have turned cannibal scouring the roads brandishing lengths of pipe as weapons. There is also a war of sorts going on within the father's conscience: he loves his son and will do anything to protect him, but looking around at the world his son will one day inherit he cannot help but wonder what the point is. The dreadful prediction that his wife gave to him before committing suicide years earlier also weighs heavily on his conscience: that a day will come when he will be forced to admit that he cannot protect the boy or take care of him anymore -- and what will he do then? World-weary as the boy is at his early age, he displays an astonishingly pure heart and naivete that the world seems eager to crush. Father and son are constantly at odds over how good and giving they SHOULD be compared to how heartless and selfish they NEED to be in order to survive. Other reviews have called the boy Christ-like, and I leave it up to each reader to decide the accuracy of that claim, because it is left gloriously open-ended by the brilliant McCarthy, who refuses to beat you over the head with his metaphors the way many other, lesser writers would. The father, at any rate, is trying his best to walk the line between good and bad, survival and certain death for his son's sake, encouraging the boy when he seems on the verge of losing faith that "This is what the good guys do. They keep on trying. They don't give up."
I finished this book an hour ago and I can feel its presence sitting on the desk two feet away as I write this. When I stop to think about it I get the shivers, and I know that "The Road" will have the same haunting effect on me long after I have shelved it in my room. Many critics, The New York Times included, have stated that the fiction book is a dying art, but a book like this shows that there is still plenty of life left in the genre when placed in capable hands like Cormac McCarthy's. In fact, between this novel and Barbara Kingsolver's stellar The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel (Perennial Classics) I have renewed faith in the genre. A lot of reviews have cited this book as the best of 2006. Forget that, I say. Try best book of the last twenty-three years instead.
Grade: A+