The Road (Oprah's Book Club)
by Cormac McCarthy
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Book Reviews of The Road (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: Nothing Original to Add but I had to Chime In
Summary: 2 Stars
This review started as a comment on a comment and then spiraled out of control. I agree with much of what the other reviewers have said but wanted to, I don't know, back them up or provide solidarity or something.
Either the book is a novel about how bad the world is going to get--which requires realistic detail so it's not out-of-hand dismissable--or it's a book about a father and son and the lengths to which they will go to for each other--in which case the horrors of the setting are competing for the story. You don't need a backdrop like this to tell the story. And the backdrop is SO TERRIBLE that it pushes reasonable suspension of disbelief. I cannot imagine a catastrophe this bad that would allow anything to survive. So my mind starts to wonder more about the catastrophe, and then testing my hypotheses... and then I guess I missed the sentences that were supposed to be uplifting because I am trying to figure out the science. Over and over again.
This is the only book by the author that I have read and I do not want to read any more, if his general thing is to write depressing books. I could forgive sloppy details like pushing the shopping cart through the sand (as was observed) but not the baby on a barbecue. What lesson am I supposed to get from that? It's too extreme. Everything in this book is too extreme. If he's just writing symbolism, then there needs to be an extremely potent message or lesson to learn. And in this book, there isn't.
I can't even focus on writing this review because I am still trying to figure out what would make fires so large that they burn freeways and melt asphalt around people. This is not a man-made tragedy. So it can't be and object lesson of be good to the earth or else (which would have been very heavy-handed anyway). It can't be a people are bad lesson, because the main characters are good. It can't be a mothers aren't as good as fathers lesson, because a mother redeems the story, apparently (although not the boy's own mother). If it's just a fathers love their boys story, why is the setting so bleak? To repeat again something that has already been observed, is it any wonder that two people--much less father and son--would cling to each other in adversity? So the story doesn't really prove much about fathers and sons.
SPOILERS:
I give it two stars for keeping my attention, even after I closed the book halfway through and vowed not to pick it up again. The scene with the people in that basement was excellent writing, as was the decision that the mother made. I wonder if she was pregnant again. I wonder if she tried to take the two remaining bullets and off herself and the boy and the father fought her over it. Wouldn't that be a scene worth seeing? That's the kind of moral dilemma that really makes readers uncomfortable. Obviously we'd try to feed our children and hide from cannibals. Scenes like that, of such a "duh" reaction to the surroundings, just served to gross me out. Scenes like the basement and the not-included scene of a mother who leaves a child in the world (doesn't portray her very well... I wonder if that's just how the father chooses to remember it) she can't bear to live in are powerful. Why aren't there more?
The book's misery is not redeemed by its supposed message of love. And I refuse to believe that society would turn out this way. For all of its goofiness, David Brin's "The Postman" seems far more likely a scenario.
Book Review: A short story 267 pages too long
Summary: 2 Stars
The plot is remarkably simple - I won't give away any part of it (except the mention of the apples below), but enough to say that my Mom (who has not read the book) as I mentioned the plot to her while I was on page 121 (that is 166 pages before the end) advanced the grand finale with uncanny detail. Either she is a foreteller or more likely the plot is so thin that even by sharing a meager 30-second reccount of it, the ending becomes immediately evident.
I believe that a short story format would have been much more effective to convey the message of unconditional love in desperate times. As it is, the paragraphs extend only to show off the author's prolific vocabulary.
There are some profound philosophical questions in the text (for example: why live?; the possibility of self-destruction as an exit; holding on to the past versus living in the present; survivalism versus civility) but the author prefers to treat them blandly and the few real moral dilemmas are framed in a way that never present a conflict that would really shake the reader's code of ethics. Ethics and morality should be explored boldly or not at all - as is, "The Road" is light reading with delusions of grandeur. And I'm in no way advocating for an intractable prose that only the most educated can access, but for a story crafted in a way that makes the reader reexamine his or her own set of values.
There are big inconsistencies in the story. I had to remind myself that sometimes suspension of disbelief is necessary to enjoy fiction, but the fresh apples were a bit too much. I mean, think about how old the boy is and that'll give you an idea of how long those apples had to stay fresh!
EDIT: I had a comment that mentioned the apples were actually not fresh. I stand corrected yet I still object to the plausibility of finding apples lying around in the open in a world that has seen such despair and starvation.
Additionally, the plot doesn't feel original. This same story could have been constructed in a myriad other contexts... Oh, wait a minute, in fact IT ALREADY HAS - the movie "Life is Beautiful" comes immediately to mind.
Sure, I found some passages moving: my personal relationship with my Dad was similar in many ways, powerful everlasting love; yet that's not enough for me to brand this book as a masterpiece at all.
Furthermore, the minimalist writing (no quotes in the dialogs, short disconnected vignettes, lack of a chapter structure) together with the loaded vocabulary make the story unnecessary confusing at times; yet I can't help but think this was done on purpose to mask the lack of substance in the story.
Indeed, there's a lot of white space in this book. If you don't believe me, just grab a copy from your local library and measure the font size, the separation between the lines and the page count. Then compare it to a book like "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand or "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien. The point here is not to compare the stories themselves, just the fact that some stories require 700 or even 1500 pages of dense narrative to be told, while some others don't. "The Road" only needed 20.
**---
1 star because the core story is sad but still nice.
Another star because it deeply moved a close friend of mine, so it does have something that reaches the heart of people.
Overall, not a terrible book, just uneventful.
Book Review: Haunting to the core, McCarthy cuts into my mind with the sharpest knife he can find...
Summary: 5 Stars
In McCarthy's harrowing vision of the future the world in general is bleak and dark, covered in ash and completely void of any real hope for survival. It's amidst these circumstances that we're introduced to the man and the boy, a father and son who are trying their hardest to prolong their life as the prospect of death grows stronger with each breath. They are alone in a world full of savages, other survivors of the apocalypse who satisfy their insatiable urges of survival by ravaging others, raping and eating those whom they come across. It's in this environment that Cormac McCarthy spins one of the most visually and emotionally gripping novels I've had the privilege and the pleasure to read.
As Cormac paints this disturbing picture the reader is taken to another world, a world dark and dense yet truly captivating to the core. The man and the boy (how they are referred to in the novel) travel alone through this world, pushing along a grocery cart filled with their belongings as they scavenge for food and try to avoid `the bad guys' as the man calls them. The man is haunted by the realization that they may not have many more days ahead of them. His wife committed suicide herself in order to spare herself the torture of rape, murder or starving to death but the man is unwilling to willfully take his life or the life of his son. As the novel progresses you can see how the air of death glooming overhead slowly picks away at the man's sanity, not to mention his sons confidence and determination.
Visually this novel is brilliant. Cormac masterfully puts the reader in the shoes of his characters. Every scene, every new discovery is effortlessly painted with the most spectacular imagery that the reader feels as if he's there alongside this man and this boy. The ship sequence to me is one in particular that stands out as fantastic. I remember reading it and just visualizing everything to clear. Cormac outdid himself; I mean really...I have yet to read something this engrossing.
This has been heralded as the best book of 2006. It's been labeled a tour de force and in my eyes that pretty much sums up this book. It truly is deserving of all its praise. It proves that sometimes simplicity goes further than exaggeration. Cormac's account isn't heavy on detail but it's heavy on soul. It beats forth with the heart of a survivor and it pumps blood through its ashy veins. There are actually moments in this novel that brought tears to my eyes, the ending in particular, but there is one scene where the father gives his son their gun, their only weapon against `the bad guys', a weapon with just two bullets left, and he instructs his son of what to do with that gun if he were to encounter the cannibals. The scene alone is heartbreaking and one that I will remember always.
A note to readers, this is a quick read. I blew through it in just a few days (I took it with me on vacation so it was much easier for me to just read with no work involved). Cormac's writing style here, as I mentioned, is simple enough so as not to be tiring or exhausting. It's the perfect compliment to cool summer day, parked outside in the sun with a drink in one hand and this masterclass of a novel in the other. I highly recommend this read to anyone for I haven't had this much enjoyment from a novel in quite a long time, maybe ever. Cormac has won me over and I'm sure he will do the same with you as well!
Book Review: A Chilling, Bleak Vision
Summary: 5 Stars
To me, this book reads like an expanded short story. I'm not sure if McCarthy had that in mind when he framed the story, and it's doubtful that is the case because he's just too polished and too much of experienced author to start out with a short story and end up with a novel. However, I suppose anything is possible. Not that it matters.
This is an excellent book. McCarthy, with his considerable grasp of the language, paints for us a terrifying, bleak and haunting world. He gives us his vision of an apocalypse with the precision and power one would expect from this accomplished award-winning novelist. There is room for softness and grace in McCarthy's fallen world of The Road, but you won't find these qualities with any regularity.
I enjoyed the cadence of the words and sentences, and it is another reason I think this book seemed to be like the expansion of a short story. This is gripping, compelling stuff, and it read fast and easy. I usually take forever to read a novel, but only because I typically read 3 or 4 pages and put it down for several days. Yeah, I'm that pressed for time. This novel grabbed me though, and with the added pressure of a book club deadline, I just zipped right through it. I think, also, because I'm a bit of a survivalist type, I found the subject matter persuasive and relevant.
McCarthy, to my way of thinking, is a master of our language. He selects and uses some elegant, luscious, occasionally obscure words throughout the book. For me, his use of the language is one of the many things that kept the pages interesting. I admire an author that makes me feel like I'm eating a sumptuous meal of tasty words, and it's one of the things I aspire to in my own work. For me, feeling a tad richer and fulfilled for having read the author's careful choice of words is what marks the book as a classic. I felt that way upon finishing The Road.
I noticed his selective use of contractions, as well as his option to skip the use of quote marks when writing the characters' spoken words. I find both rather annoying. For one thing, I can't get away with writing "cant" when contracting "cannot" because I am a nobody author. Though rare, there were times while reading this novel that I found myself in the middle of dialog between the two main characters, but I didn't immediately recognize it as such because of McCarthy's lack of quotes. Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain) uses a similar approach in his novels. I think it's become fashionable to write dialog without quotes, but I don't feel compelled to follow suit.
The characters often make mention of, "carrying the fire." I took this as another way of saying "We're the good guys, and we must survive, because surely some good guys have to come out of this disaster alive. It can't be all bad guys in the end. Can it?" Plus, we must not forget that "fire" and "light" are oft employed metaphorically for hope.
Yes, it's a chilling, strange world McCarthy has painted into existence here, but it is one that we could someday find ourselves in. The lesson here, if there is one to learn, seems to be that love, and the sacrifices one will make for love and family, are the essence of what is truly valuable on this cold, blue planet. For in McCarthy's stripped-down gray world of the The Road, we can see the distant past and our possible future.
Book Review: A Warning, A Prophesy, An Indictment
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the most horrifying books I have ever read. Is this a picture of the world in ten, fifteen, fifty, one hundred years? Just this morning, I heard that over 80% of Americans think that the country is headed in the wrong direction. What does one do to amend one's ways, after reading such a prophesy? And of course, that was the aim of the Elijahs, Jeremiahs and Isaiahs of the Old Testament: to show us what we need to do in this life, to gain salvation in the next. But in the blasted and God-forsaken world of The Road, eternal salvation is not even remotely considered; the damned denizens of this hell are concerned with one thing: survival. Survival means finding things to eat, and the wretched beings are not too particular about what it is they eat.
One thinks of the big existential and spiritual questions, such as: is there no God? And if there is, how can God allow such horrible things to happen? Many--myself included--subscribe to the belief that God has given us choice, and that many of the problems we face, the catastrophes which befall us, are primarily a result of bad choices we, as imperfect beings, have made, of misplaced priorities, greed, jealousy, apathy, avarice. Yes, children get cancer and die; no one would choose such a thing. But it's an imperfect world, and bad things happen. A proper response to such troubling events would be to try to figure out why they happen, so that we can keep them from happening again. And of course, to ask for God's help and strength to endure these hardships.
Sorry if this sounds like preaching, but perhaps we need to be one of the "good people", as the man and boy see themselves, while we are on this earth. I'd be real wary about trying to make my earthly life such a fabulous success, with the trappings of wealth, security, and bounty. I don't think that God wants us to do that.
Our present world is filled with people who, at this very moment, live just a few degrees away from the way the people live in The Road. For example, my wife just returned from Nicaragua, where in Managua, the capital city, over 1000 men, women, and children make their home in a huge garbage dump. They spend their days scavenging through the burning waste for scraps of food. This is reality! How can you not feel guilty about your comfortable existence and all your bountful possessions when such a situation exists?
For all of our wealth and possessions, our stores brimming with food and goods, our bank accounts and 401K's, our churches and homes, are we really so far removed from the horrors put forth in The Road? All it would take would be a nuclear catastrophe and we could be right there. We see ourselves as civilized beings, yet, if, suddenly, there was no food or water or power, how quickly would we shed these trappings, and become uncaring, murdering, savage predators?
I am not suggesting that the author was mindful of any of these things; I don't really even care. But those are the thoughts that haunted me upon reading this incredible book. For that alone, if I can act upon some of my thoughts, resolve to make myself a more globally responsible, frugal, humble, and more altruistic person, and then do things to make this actually happen, perhaps I can look upon my brief walk upon The Road as the first step in my journey toward salvation.