The Road By Cormac McCarthy

 

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You can buy The Road.......Here

The blurb...

In the wake of an undefined apocalyptic event, a father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

My Review...

This book was recommended to me by two friends on twitter, both authors themselves and I can see why. The writing is stripped back and accurate. A technical masterpiece in delivering two basic human emotions. Love and terror. I defy anyone who reads this book not to feel those emotions. The fact that someone can take their thoughts and, after committing them to paper, make you feel the same emotions as the author does while writing is truly amazing. This thought/emotion transfer is what good writing means to me.

I found the writing to be reminiscent of Hemmingway's "The Old Man and The Sea"

It uses staccato sentences, minimal and extremely basic dialogue, it all makes for a simple honest, supremely crafted tale. Also the books are similar in depicting what seems an unwinnable battle between the protagonist(s) and their environment and the dangers contained there in, be it shoals of sharks or bands of cannibals. With these simple tools the author creates a masterpiece. He is so good at what he does that you don't see the effort that goes into it. The only thing I can relate it to is like watching Steve Davis play snooker when he was in his pomp. Everything is executed so well it looks effortless, but you know it isn't.

While the father is world weary and fearful, the boy harbours optimism. The young lad  wants to meet and befriend others, while the father is reluctant. As they move through the landscape, the boy's approach to life becomes tempered by experience. Yet if humanity is to survive, then his sense of co-operation and kindness must survive too. After all, if that is lost, what is the point of survival. Their differences not withstanding, the love between them shines out partly because it is enveloped by the darkness of the misery that surrounds them. 

That said this book is grim and unyielding. The author is clever in that he does not use chapters so there is no respite from the terror, It is unrelenting. This is probably the closest to a real post apocalyptic world that I have ever read. No glamour of the hunger games here. (see selected quotes.)  I am a grizzly bear on the outside and a teddy bear on the inside. I can't watch The Walking Dead for fear of nightmares and have been known to cry at It's a Wonderful Life (and the occasional John Lewis Christmas advert.) That is why I have only given 4 stars. Great book but far too grim for me, this reflects on me rather than the superbly written book.

It honestly makes you think to yourself If there was an apocalypse I should shoot myself in head quickly to avoid the horror of survival. For that reason alone you will not forget this book.

Selected quotes...

" This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man's brains out of his hair. That is my job. Then he wrapped him in the blanket and carried him to the fire."

"Just remember that the things you put in your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.

You forget some things don't you?

Yes. You forget what you want to remember and remember the things you want to forget."

"he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable.... 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."

"Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn't fire. It has to fire. What if it doesn't fire? Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing? Can there be?

About the author...

Cormac McCarthy is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter, best known for his Western characters and historical settings in his novels. He served the U.S. Air Force briefly, while studying at the University of Tennessee. He wrote for the university magazine and won the Ingram-Merrill Award. After publishing his first novel, The Orchard Keeper in 1965, he set off for Ireland on a traveling scholarship. He was mostly poor throughout his early writing days but traveled a lot. He won the Rockefeller Foundation Grant, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the MacArthur Fellowship. In 2007, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for this post-apocalyptic novel The Road. Some of his other notable works are Blood Meridian and The Border Trilogy. He got married and divorced thrice and now lives in New Mexico. (from thefamouspeople.com)