Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Excellent books to read

An Impressive vision of the end of the world this book builds tension and is pretty harrowing in places. Following an unnamed father and a son through the world in the aftermath of an unexplained disaster which has laid the world to waste on their way to the coast although there is no real hope of salvation. The road is all about there relationship and the fathers struggle to come to terms with the fact that he may have to kill his own son to protect him from the horrors of this world. This sets out the purvey a sense of loneliness, fear, and desolation and succeeds. The world feels empty and even the characters encounters with the various marauding groups aid the feeling of emptiness, All their days are numbered. This book really inspired a paternal instinct which is odd as i have no children. You really feel the main characters sense of responsibility and panic at the events they experience. A cheerful book this is not! Defiantly not for those who like to be taken out of themselves. But despite the desolation and a complete lack of optimism it's a thoroughly gripping and surprisingly easy read. I devoured it in a day. When it comes down to it this book may not be enjoyable in the typical sense of the world but you will remember it and that's what makes it a truly great book in my opinion. Also with the film round the corner it's available practically every where (i picked my copy up in the in Liverpool lime street station) and £7.99 isn't half bad.

In The Road by Cormac McCarthy an anonymous father and son's travel through a post-apocalyptic, ravaged landscape, which has been subjected to an unknown devastation, burned and with everything covered in grey ash. This is a profoundly moving novel which I could not put down and was sorry to finish. Cormac McCarthy's prose is simple, yet effective, and poetic. Truly one of the best books I have ever read.

The Road

Cormac McCarthy

Knopf, Sep 2006, $24.00

ISBN 0307265439

The cities and much of the woodland have vanished in a pandemic inferno; the birds no longer fly as they all died in the catastrophe. Nothing seems to live in the oceans. Left behind is a world with few living species struggling to survive under a grey cover of ash that engulfs the planet.

A man and his son trek down the lonely road using a shopping cart to carry their possessions as they search for food to stave off starvation. The elder is armed, but running out of ammo. He vows to not allow his offspring to be captured even if it means using his last two bullets on himself and his son. He fears the cannibals who would see them as choice cut and trusts no one including seemingly harmless other survivors. He insists to his child that they are good people doing what they must as he does what it takes to keep them safe. The lad learns only the strong survive and begins to wonders if staying alive is enough as he now comprehends why his mother committed suicide just after he was born.

The Road is a tremendous allegorical futuristic thriller that has current ramifications. The nameless travelers are an interesting pairing as the father does preemptive strikes on others rationalizing it as protecting his son based on in some incidents no evidence only a presumptive belief that everyone is the enemy. The son learns the Golden Rule lesson well of killing others before they do unto you as survival is everything in this grim haunting parable.

Harriet Klausner