In The Road
The Road takes place in a world devastated by a nuclear holocaust. Most of the world’s population appears to be dead, and all animal life is presumed extinct. Nuclear winter is gradually setting in; the sun is barely visible through the permanent cloud of ash and dush, and the temperatures are dropping. The story itself involves a man and his son moving south on The Road to try to get to a warmer climate, struggling to survive along the way, needing food and water while also avoiding the derelicts, bandits, and cannibals – yes, cannibals – who also travel The Road.
If you focus almost entirely on the interactions between the man and his son – identified, in true McCarthy fashion, as the Man and the Boy – you find a powerful and tender portrait of filial love. The Man is motivated to press on in hopeless circumstances because of his love for his son, who was born on the night of the first bombing. The other people remaining in the world are separated in the eyes of the Boy into “the good guys” and “the bad guys,” and while the latter appear to far outnumber the former, there are hints of goodness here and there in their limited encounters with the good guys, and of course, in the sacrifices the Man makes to give the Boy a chance at some kind of life.
It was hard for me to glean those glimpses of goodness or faith in the human spirit among the sheer desolation of the setting and the stark brutality of McCarthy’s view of humanity, which borders on misanthropy, muted only slightly by the glimpses of empathy he slips into the text at the bleakest moments. Yet the most powerful moments in the book are the most depraved and the most disturbing, not the few moments of tenderness of the Man towards the Boy or the one meeting with “the good guys” on the Road. The prose, as it was in Blood Meridian, was amazing, and McCarthy knows how to weave little mysteries into his writing with talk about “the fire,” but again, beautiful writing that looks into the abyss is still, at the end of the day, about the abyss. It’s a brilliant work, and I can see why it won the Pulitzer, but it was an arduous read and one I can’t say I enjoyed.
Next up: I’ve already finished Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto
Interesting time to post this review. It’s probably a slow period in your primary occupation, right?
I’ve always found Cormac McCarthy rather difficult and not particularly enjoyable although compelling on some level. Thanks for the reivew.
I rather enjoyed the book and found the prose, as is the case with McCarthy work, breezy. Depressing, yes. But so are some of the greatest movies and books of all time.
“Tender is the Night” — one of your favorites and mine, Keith — isn’t exactly a bowl of sunshine.
I especially liked the father-son relationship. The Coke scene early in the book was heartbreaking to me …
Did you see Viggo Mortensen is signed on to play The Man in the movie? Itlooks like the role of The Man’s wife will be beefed up some to give Charlize Theron something to do. I normally wouldn’t mind seeing more of Charlize, but I wonder if it will ruin the film.
In some ways, I thought it was McCarthy’s best novel. Yes, the starkness is undeniable, but the “carrying the fire” element became really tangible, to me, as the novel progressed. The world being dark and cold and bleak, and this one hope as a torch, and so on. I feel like, often McCarthy likes the ambiguity of language so much that it muddles up the narrative–that is, it’s just damn hard to tell what’s going on sometimes. Not so in The Road. The story is so simple and compelling, that while it’s not pleasant, I am left with the minor sense of hope that McCarthy left there.
I didn’t mention “carrying the fire” for fear of spoiling it, but I thought that was one of the best threads of the book, all the more for the way the “good guy” at the book’s end answers the question about it.
The Wife was as unsympathetic as they come in the book. She gave up and we’re only given tiny hints of why.
Yay for you reading Sándor Márai’s Embers, Keith! When I mentioned it in the four-letter chat a few weeks ago I was happy to hear it was on your to-read list. I hope you’re enjoying it. I’ve read it a couple of times, and enjoyed what I took away from it each time.
I love McCarthy, especially Blood Meridian and Suttree, both for his incredible craft and his view of humanity, but I’ve lost touch with newer fiction and had no idea he had another book out. I’ll be hitting the library tomorrow as I just got the notice “Just how stupid are we” is on hold for me so hopefully I can pull both in for this weekends long drive to the Radiohead show. Keith it appears your mostly a fiction lover but you might want to take a look at “The virtue of ignorance” edited by Wes Jackson. Kind of a reminder about to look at the world…
I don’t know why, but for some reason I couldn’t get into this as much as Suttree or Blood Meridian. Definitely not McCarthy’s worst, but at times the language just seemed overdone even for McCarthy.
Keith, I’m curious what you thought about “No Country For Old Men?” The book and/or the movie.
I had no issue with the bleakness but by the end I wish one of the bad guys had snatched the Boy. He was tedious.
Rick: I haven’t read it or seen it. I try to read the book before seeing the movie, since nearly every time I prefer the book. (The one exception I can think of is Chocolat.)
Mark, you say the boy is tedious, but wouldn’t most children in that position act similarly? I think the story would lose much of its realism if McCarthy created a child unaffected by that environment. After losing his mother, his father was all he had left and I felt that the prose reflected that. Sure he could be annoying at times, but what child isn’t?
I would say I agree with everything except that I thought it was the very opposite of an arduous read. I could barely put it down. And also, I know that Vanity Fair review of Lolita bothers you too (TItN is a far superior love story), and The Road, in my opinion, should assure that no one ever says any other book is the “only convincing love story” of this century.
This was my first McCarthy, and I’ve immediately picked up All the Pretty Horses, which I so far think is better in every way (and I loved The Road). I’ve heard a complaint that McCarthy’s characters don’t really change, and that seems to be a fair complaint, but it seems to me they don’t change so much as become revealed, and I think that’s just as hard a task.
Jimmy, I agree that a child wouldn’t be in the best of moods in that situation but it was all he knew. He didn’t get dragged from a life of X-box, cable TV and Burger King; this was his life. He would be more atune to life as he knew it, not as children of today know it.
Just finished this book tonight. Absolutely haunting and beautiful all at once.
Keith-
Just stumbled on this site after reading you on the worldwide leader. Love the diversity of the site.
As for The Road, I found the final two paragraphs to be some of the most startling beautiful ever written, mostly due to their coming on the heels of such desolate prose. I find myself, in times of despair (and as a high school English teacher such times are sadly frequent) rereading those words and feeling a bit more hopeful.
Great site Keith. Like Joe, I just found this site.
I agree with most of your thoughts on The Road, but I found the ending an incredibly fast and tidy wrap-up, and it almost undermined the entire book for me. It felt as though McArthy got tired of typing and finished up the book so he could go outside and play with his son. Am I alone in feeling that?
Keith,
I’ve recently rediscoverd my love for reading and have looked to your list for some recommendations since I have been so fond of your baseball work. I read this book the weekend of my son’s first birthday and was driven to get through it due in most part to that crazy love a man shares with his son (and I’m sure daughter.) I thought it was beautifully written and look forward to reading another work by McCarthy. Thanks for your reviews and your work. I truly appreciate your genius.
Dan
I read “The Road” while my sitting with my father at the hospital while he was getting a stem cell transplant this winter. Such a powerful book, particularly given the situation…