Good Reads: "The Road"

Occasionally, I will share about what I've been reading. For November 11-18, 2024, I read this book. If you're so moved, read on.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic

Thoughts: Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road is, quite simply a brilliant piece of writing. The late author had a way of painting vivid portraits of his characters (here, "the man" and "the boy") without being overwrought or heavy-handed. The Road is considered a modern classic by many and, on my second read, I still see why.

I first read the book when I worked at The Herald newspaper in the latter part of the 2000s. Our publisher recommended it to me and let me borrow his copy and I fell in love with it. A film adaptation was made a few years later and I watched it exactly once because it, like the novel, is what most would consider terribly bleak.

"How do you know if you were the last man on earth? He said. I don’t guess you would know it. You’d just be it." (p. 169-170)

Set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland (the reasons are very vaguely alluded to and never explained — my theory is a extinction-level asteroid strike that blocks out the sun, but I could be very wrong, and it's not really the point), a man and his son traverse the road(s) trying to make it to the sea. Food doesn't grow and animals are all dead, so the few remaining people are forced to scavenge for what little food and water left behind in an ash-filled void. Themes are very intense in The Road, and there are more than a few unsettling scenes, but McCarthy isn't shocking us for the sake of shock, but, instead, to paint a vivid portrait of a dead and dying world where these two people seek to "carry the fire" and survive without giving themselves over to base animalistic instincts. Trying to remain human in this world is just as important as survival.

If you've read the book or seen the film, you know how bleak the story seems. One of my favorite paragraphs in the book paints this picture and shows McCarthy's mastery of language:

"He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. 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." (p. 130)

If post-apocalyptic literature is your speed, I think you'll love The Road. If amazing writing is something you love, you'll love this, too. Again, it is bleak, but it also contains nuggets of hope and a theme about what it means to be alive and the lengths a father will got to for his child's survival and his own hope.

I'm glad my wife bought me my own copy of the book last Christmas. I think this is one I will return to more than a few more times in my life.