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Hawk
The Road Review
It's the end of the world as we know it, in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. McCarthy gives you the ability to make the book your own in his writings. He also gives a strong loving bond between the father and the son. McCarthy does all this while keeping this book a fairly simple read. This book could easily be a classic one day; it is that amazing.
The Road is a quest/survival book. It is about the journey of a father and a son to the south to escape the winter and hopes of survival in the post-apocalyptic world. Along the way, the bond of love between to the two is put to the test in this harsh, cold world that they are forced to survive in. The Road that they travel is symbolic and literal at the exact same time. The Road they travel on is symbolic for a journey of the growing of the child to be an adult and the father's road to the end of his life slowly day by day. The Road is literal because they are traveling on the road to escape the winter in the south.
This is one of the greatest books I have read in a long time. Personally, I think it has the qualities to one day become a classic book. The book could be one day considered a classic because of many reasons. McCarthy's unique style of writing, and his ability to let you fill the roles of the characters, and making the characters personal to you as the reader. And, McCarthy's descriptions of the areas and scenes depicted in the book the road, which are very vivid, dark, and desolate. And, McCarthy's ending also adds to the quality of the book because it is something you will never expect and may think about for a while. The Road shows many themes but two follow through-out the entire book. No matter where the boy and his father go, death is always close and creeping closer and closer to them as the winter approaches them. Nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too. (pg.173) Darkness is another reoccurring theme. The dark is like a barrier to the boy and his father always consuming them. The blackness he woke to on those nights was sightless and impenetrable. A blackness to hurt your ears with listening.(pg.15) Nights beyond darkness.
The Road is a fairly simple book to read. McCarthys writing paints a very good picture of this dying world. The dialogue can be tough to figure out at times because no names are given and no quote marks are used. So you have to pay very good attention when the characters are talking. So, times you may have to go back and reread, but its worth it. And, McCarthy often throws in a trouble word, but this makes the book all the more fun to read and helps give a feeling for what he is talking about.Love is an amazing thing. It can create such a strong bond especially between a father and a son that one would go through all odds to see the other survive. The Road's basis is the love for the son from the father and his will to survive. Once you pick up this book you wont want to put it down till you're done.
Barb Gee
A Bleak but Buautiful Book
This is a compelling novel - hardly surprising given its prize winning status. It is both bleak (VERY bleak) and beautiful, the story of the love between a father and son who are on a journey of survival (the Road of the title) in a post apocalyptic world. We are left to draw our own conclusions about the cause of the apocalypse, this is an existential piece in which cause and history is irrelevant, nothing that was, is any longer, other than the few survivors - and they are not what they once were. The father and son, however, hold onto a remnant of hope - "the fire". Through his profound talent with words, McCarthy takes us on the journey with the two protagonists,in language that like the landscape,is sparse but overwhelming in its descriptive power. It is ultimately a triumph of the power of a father's love and a little boy's trust that somewhere, in some of the few of the world's survivors, there is still good to be found in the prevailing horror and evil that is the struggle to survive. Or indeed, is the triumph that humanity itself survives in a world that is post civilization as we know it? A book of many layers. More than, "Very Good", this book is a masterpiece.
Sue Keehnen
Wow!
This was a very powerful story. I think that McCarthy gets a bit edgier with every story that he writes.
A face-to-face group I belong to read this, the group is all women. I think I was the only one who really, really liked it.
kim.kovacs
5+
I absolutely loved this book. It has haunted my imagination since I read it more than six months ago. It's beautifully written, spare, stark. I have recommended it to two reading friends to date, both of whom love it.
Now, I have to say, this book isn't for everyone. The style is very bare-bones, and I can see how it would be a problem for some people. Nevertheless, I highly recommend it.
AJ Haag
The Road
In a post-apocalyptic world, a man and his son walk across a country covered in gray ash and rubble. The novel, The Road, offers a compelling story of love and hope. Winning a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Cormac McCarthy has written a masterpiece. That is pretty well done, considering McCarthy never graduated college. In fact, the novel was considered exceptional by so many readers, that it was made into a film, directed by John Hillcoat.
The Road starts out as a slow novel, full of very descriptive words that in the end make the novel more confusing. This means that the book is a higher level reading novel. This should not discourage people from reading this truly impressive story.
McCarthy, known for writing darker stories, continues this writing style throughout the book. The novel keeps the reader guessing with many twists and unexpected turns. The Road was written in a style in which characters were given no names. One will find that this style allows for a connection between characters unlike any novel they have read.
I felt like the ending was the only part that could have been changed throughout the novel. However, McCarthy again continued to feed off the reader’s imagination. The ending offers hope for the entire ash covered world. Overall, this was a good novel. The only negative about the novel is that it starts out slow. I would recommend this to a friend that loves to use their imagination.
Cooper Conrad
The Road Review
The Road is a compelling book with a great plot theme and story line is memorable.
James Murray
The road book review
The road, by cormac mcarthy in my opinion is one of the greatest books ever written. Although its ending is a little offset and crappy it is to be expected when reading the book and noticing all the hints that the author throws out to you.
Cormac McCarthy’s book, “The Road”, is a mystery/horror. The setting was a post apocalyptic, burned to ashes world where billions have been either burned or murdered and a select few left to eat or be eaten. A father and a son are part of the few left on the earth and they are on a journey to the coast for a chance of better survival.
I believe that the book’s tone and setting all helped create the overall feeling that Cormac Mcarthy was shooting for. He got his point across with his bloody imagery and his grotesque way of putting things. “What is it? He said. What is it? The boy shook his head. O papa, he said. He turned and looked again. What the boy had seen was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit.”(page 167).
There are two main characters in this book. One is the father, stress ridden and worried about his child’s survival. And then there is the son, a young boy with a lot on his chest and a sick father to care for. Both of which I feel are honorable. I feel that I mostly connected with the father character in a sense. The boy is not careless and is intelligent and I admire that.
I liked the book all the way up until the ending. The writing style was like nothing I had ever seen before, kind of like poetry, it flowed and went well together. Not having chapters was a good way to keep the reader, me, flipping pages. The voice was third person and was like someone telling a story of a father and a son.
Cormac Mcarthy is a great writer and I hope he will continue to make books.
Dan Humphrey
Life's journey through hell
Trying to imagine a post-apocalyptic world where the only survivors left are bands of cannibals, their captives, and a few stragglers fighting for survival is not something that one can easily ask the imagination to partake in. Somehow though, Cormac McCarthy is able to lure you into his horrific nightmare in his novel The Road.
The book takes place quite some time after an unexplained catastrophe has wiped out most of the human race and America has become an ash-covered and barren landscape. Although it is not specifically said there are many hints throughout the book that suggests that this destruction is worldwide.
What really enticed me was the relationship between the father and his son and McCarthy tried very hard to emphasize this to the reader. With nothing left in this charred world but each other the two lean on one another as their fight for survival never ceases. They are each other’s conscience during this time and their love and compassion for each other is what makes this book so tantalizing. The father is the well traveled one who has seen the good and bad of mankind and acts as the voice of reason. The boy is the compassionate one who does not let his own needs get in the way of those who he wants to help. I must admit that I have never read a book that kept me on the edge like this book did and I could never put the book down, no matter how hard I tried.
The title comes from that of the road that they are journeying on. However, I believe that the title also refers to life’s journey across a road with many twists and turns and no one ever knows what is coming around that next corner.
When reading this book I noticed that there are many reoccurring events that unfold. This is not an action packed book where gunfire is an often occurrence, but rather it is a book about a constant fight of survival where one’s intuition and intellect are often their greatest allies. The man and the boy are continually battling the harsh weather conditions, starvation, and trying to avoid the cannibals that stalk the land. They are traveling towards the coast in the hopes of finding friendlier climate conditions, some sort of civilization, and maybe just maybe their salvation.
Another battle that transpires in McCarthy’s book is the battle that mankind has been fighting since the beginning and that is the battle of good vs. evil. In the book the man constantly reminds the boy that they are the “good guys” and the people that try to kill them and eat other people are the “bad guys.” In the end it seems that there can be no victor as the world that they used to know crumbles around them.
Although I struggled with it at first I grew to love McCarthy’s writing style. I love how he lets your imagination run free and explore its own possibilities. He allows the reader to create his own image of the world and what it has been reduced to and he forces you to wonder what sort of event could have occurred that left the world in such a mess.
There are a few quotes that really speak volumes to what the book is about. The father’s best advice to his son is “you must carry the fire.” He tells his son that this fire is inside him and it is my belief that the man is referring to the boy and his will to live. He must remain motivated in order to survive and that as long as he keeps that fire inside of him he cannot succumb to the darkness that the rest of mankind has fallen to.
McCarthy grew up during the Cold War and it is my feeling that the war was incorporated into his book. Everyone’s worst fear during the time was that nuclear warfare would destroy the world and mankind itself would cease to exist. It was definitely evident in the book. Although it is never said what catastrophe led to the annihilation of all life on earth it is my belief that it was a manmade disaster, possibly a nuclear war.
McCarthy’s message in this book is blurry at first but eventually it becomes very evident and the reader will definitely get something out of it. This book is a must for all readers who cherish the constant fight against evil and against one’s self.
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