"The Road" is unlike any novel I have ever read.
Hell, the punctuation - or lack thereof - alone makes it most unique.
But there is more.
A nameless father and son team as main-characters known only as "the man" and "the boy". A journey down a road in a post-apopolyptic world that exists for an unknown/unnamed reason leaving these two pushing a cart with scavenged supplies while hiding from man-eaters and the elements of nature.
Not really something I can say I have read about.
And I liked it. A lot.
I am not sure why exactly. But I did.
Yes it is depressing and bleak, but I found myself enthralled in their journey once I decided to simply sit down and finish the book.
There are sentences I found simply beautiful, darn near poetic.
"It's snowing, the boy said. He looked at the sky. A single-gray flake sifting down. He caught it in his hand and watched it expire there like the last host of christendom."
There were also those I had to read several times, sometimes still not grasping their full breadth of meaning and storytelling.
"At a crossroads a ground set with dolmen stones where the spoken bones of oracles lay moldering. No sound but the wind. What will you say? A living man spoke these lines? He sharpened a quill with his small pen knife to scribe these things in sloe or lampblack? At some reckonable and entabled moment. He is coming to steal my eyes. To seal my mouth with dirt."
In fact, I think I can see myself reading it again one of these days.
After I give Mr. McCarthy's other works a shot, courtesy of the Davidson Public Library.
Oh ya, they just made a movie about it too. Dunno if it is any good though.
2 comments:
I love reading your blog, but I feel like you should write more on "The Road." Like investigate why you like it, instead of just pondering. I do like the use of quotes, but I'd also like to see you breaking them down and interpreting them.
If you should ever want to read another book from an author who also forgot his punctuation, check out James Joyce's "Ulysses." Then, hop on over to Dublin and take part in his walking tour, hitting the Guinness Storehouse in the process.
But I digress... What spoke to me most about "The Road" was what a father was willing to do to protect his son. I'm not a parent, but I can certainly identify with the moral responsibility one feels in putting a child's need(s) in front of his/her own for the sake of survival.
Plus, I can't say that I minded Viggo Mortensen starring in the movie version. Ever since his role as Aragorn, it's hard not to expect him to be the archetypal hero.
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