Post by Profilerreid on Sept 23, 2010 20:31:05 GMT -5
“The Road” is a novel that will captive anyone willing to pick it up. The haunting picture of the post-apocalyptic world Cormac McCarthy paints stays with the reader long after the last past has finished. Though the story of a father and son traveling south just to survive through another harsh winter is filled with sorrow and mourning one finds an odd sense of hope as the story goes on. The father tells the son that they are “carrying the fire”. What this phrase actually means is left up to the reader to decide as well as many other loosely described things throughout the novel.
The nightmares that the father and son are forced to live through are unimaginable; the threat of starvation at their feet, the “bad guys” almost always on their tails, and no good guys or help in sight. “The Road” would be very difficult to get through if it wasn’t for the stunning beauty McCarthy writes within each page. The colorful diction of the piece makes the pure misery of the plot into a beautiful work of art. Even though no one in this world has had to live through the situation that the characters in the book do, everyone is able to empathies with what they are going through. The simple similes that can be found on just about every page help the reader picture just how horrible the lives of the father and son really are. “By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.”
The novel is very ambiguous and many things the reader has to figure out by themselves. Most prominent is the question of what actually happened to the world to place it int eh state that the reader sees. McCarthy gives more and more clues as the novel progresses through his wonderful description of the ash and fire ridden land that the pair see as they travel alone the titled road. The ambiguity pulls the reader further into the work forcing them to try and find the answers even after the book has come to and end.
As the father and son continue on down the road they run into other survivors. Many of which have choosen to be the bad guys hiding group \s of people as is they were their food supply. Apart from the few living peers they encounter along the road they pass by thousands of people that had died in the catastrophe or the events afterward. These gruesome sights continually haunt the two as they fight from being one of the lone bodies decaying on the side of the road. Sometimes they even prompt the father to recall “a dull rose glow in the windowglass” at 1:17 in the morning, the moment all the clocks in the world stopped forever.
“The road” offers nothing in the way of comfort and will instead send shivers down the reader’s spine. At the same time the fearless wisdom of the words McCarthy writes not only speaks of something that could very well become reality but gives the reader hope and strength for events that touch their lives.
The nightmares that the father and son are forced to live through are unimaginable; the threat of starvation at their feet, the “bad guys” almost always on their tails, and no good guys or help in sight. “The Road” would be very difficult to get through if it wasn’t for the stunning beauty McCarthy writes within each page. The colorful diction of the piece makes the pure misery of the plot into a beautiful work of art. Even though no one in this world has had to live through the situation that the characters in the book do, everyone is able to empathies with what they are going through. The simple similes that can be found on just about every page help the reader picture just how horrible the lives of the father and son really are. “By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.”
The novel is very ambiguous and many things the reader has to figure out by themselves. Most prominent is the question of what actually happened to the world to place it int eh state that the reader sees. McCarthy gives more and more clues as the novel progresses through his wonderful description of the ash and fire ridden land that the pair see as they travel alone the titled road. The ambiguity pulls the reader further into the work forcing them to try and find the answers even after the book has come to and end.
As the father and son continue on down the road they run into other survivors. Many of which have choosen to be the bad guys hiding group \s of people as is they were their food supply. Apart from the few living peers they encounter along the road they pass by thousands of people that had died in the catastrophe or the events afterward. These gruesome sights continually haunt the two as they fight from being one of the lone bodies decaying on the side of the road. Sometimes they even prompt the father to recall “a dull rose glow in the windowglass” at 1:17 in the morning, the moment all the clocks in the world stopped forever.
“The road” offers nothing in the way of comfort and will instead send shivers down the reader’s spine. At the same time the fearless wisdom of the words McCarthy writes not only speaks of something that could very well become reality but gives the reader hope and strength for events that touch their lives.