From the very first page, "The Road" rendered me helpless and gasping under its surprising power. This book is something special. It's superbly thought out, painfully controlled, emotionally exhausting, it challenges, it stuns with beauty, and you will never have read anything like it. The book has a sense of eternity to it; it makes you feel as if it has always been out there, and you knew it, and by reading it you are just now fully realizing it. Possibly because the story is so fundamental, so archetypal, and simultaneously so shocking and out-there that, though you suspected it, you are still flabbergasted by its absurd voltage.
Okeedoke. That's enough of that. Let's venture some specifics:
"The Road" is the story of a father and son journeying across a desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape with an uncertain destination. Whatever horrific catastrophe that scorched the Earth and all its cities occurred some many years ago, and now, the burnt, sterile land grows cold under the thick layer of ubiquitous smog. The only survivors wander the land starving and scared, save for the roaming gangs of desperate cannibals. We watch as the unnamed father and son live out their hopeless lives and endure twisted incident after twisted incident. In the face of horror, their human spirit pushes them on. This is the story of their wandering.
An analogy -
Cormac McCarthy : authors :: the guy with a natural skill for smartly fitting a huge quantity of luggage into a small trunk : luggage packers
On both the macro and the micro levels, Cormac McCarthy is an author with the oft-underestimated skill of efficiency. He's not like yours truly who fritters away the readers time with obfuscating pleonasm. Oh, no! He's actually good. On the macro scale, the (relatively short) book as a whole works on a number of different levels: we have a travel tale, an apocalypse story, a book of existential philosophy, sci-fi, a grail myth, a warning, a discussion of man's moral foundations, post-modernism, and a unique twist on the meaning of love. On the micro level, I cannot think of another author short of Hemingway that so capably and elegantly wrings so much out of every single sentence. There isn't a wasted word in the book. With a deceptively detached and slow cadence, every phrase is masterfully manipulated for maximum impact. Like a surgeon who uses tiny, specific tools to work miracles.
I think this book would rightfully fall into the "Horror" section of a book store. Above all else that impressed me about this book, never in my life have I ever read a book that gave me the heebiejeebies like "The Road". Terrifying imagery, ungodly incidents, a sense of worldly dread, and the darkest possible perspective on our collective fate (save the ending) all combine in this work of pure horror. I made the mistake of starting this book at 12:30 am, and did not calm myself to sleep until the sun came up... and I'm not easily scared. There are scenes from "The Road" I will never forget.
And, like most of my favorite books, "The Road" is capable of juxtaposing a sense of startling beauty against the darkness. Above all, the relationship between the boy and the father is particularly awesome. Their love is founded on simple interdependence, the fusion of their two worlds into a single shared experience, and absolute trust. The interplay between their characters is truly touching. In the face of total loss and complete devastation, they persist together. Also, through the murk of desolation and wrath, "The Road" shines a beacon. There is something vaguely alluded to about the boy and what he represents that sparks possibility in the mind of the reader. I believe McCarthy purposefully left this aspect of the book open and inconclusive, but there is certainly something with potential in this boy that has yet to manifest. And finally, there exists a nuanced beauty in the simple grace with which the author describes his fallen world. Mesmerizing.
All in all, this was one of the most inventive, impressive, and moving books I have had the pleasure to read in quite some time. From the very beginning, I felt compelled by this book. A twisted, smart ride along the edges of humanity.
Now that I have made you salivate like the dogs you are, I will reward you with the meat: my selection of quotes from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road".
"The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void." pg 8
"Creedless shells of men tottering down the causeways like migrants in a feverland. The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night." 28
"Where you've nothing else construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them." 74
"Where men cant live gods fare no better. You'll see. It's better to be alone." 172
"Perhaps in the world's destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. The silence." 274
Scared yet? You should be.
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