- The Road
- Knopf, 241 pp.
- CLR Rating:
The Road – Through a Shattered Looking Glass Darkly
Post apocalyptic novels are a dark, bleak and often illuminating genre that are highlighted by titles that include The Day of the Triffids, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Eternity Road, On The Beach and Galapagos. J.G. Ballard carved out a large section of this wasted landscape with The Crystal World, The Drowning World, The Burning World and The Wind From Nowhere. But among all of these fine works and dozens more I’ve read, none compares, holds a candle to or rings such gloomy, bleak chords as does Cormac McCarthy’s The Road; all accomplished with an economy of words that is beautiful in its execution.
The story follows a father and son as the they wander, stagger, and grope their way through a burned over, scarred America. Little moves within this incinerated landscape that is smothered in ash driven by a cold wind. The snow is grey. Rivers run thickly clogged with ash and soot. The trees are black skeletons. The pair is heading for the Eastern coast with little hope of finding anything. Anything. Period. They have nothing save a pistol and a handful of bullets to defend themselves against the bands of ravenous ghouls who maraud the roads and heat-buckled Interstates like bizarre, merciless highwaymen. And they have the ragged clothes they’re wearing and a cart of scavenged food. And they have themselves.
I read this book in one take late at night and immediately headed downstairs to kick up the fire and drink some bourbon. I was cold, chilled emotionally, stunned, awe-struck by McCarthy’s words. I mentioned The Road to a singer/songwriter friend and all he could say was “That one put me off my feed for a few days.” Knowing the guy as I do, despite his lyrical, beautiful and often humorous music, I took the comment as high praise for McCarthy’s effort. Dark is dark and some of us have arcane addictions.
The first book I ever read by McCarthy was Blood Meridian. That one knocked me cold with the stark and brutal portrayal of the Southwest with its wicked crew of bizarrely violent Apaches, twisted thieves, derelict cowboys and assorted other human forms of depravity. The language used by McCarthy was without excess, sufficient for its purpose:
He rode back to the camp at the fore of his small column with the chief’s head hanging by its hair from his belt. The men were stringing up scalps on strips of leather whang and some of the dead lay with broad slices of hide cut from their backs to be used for the making of belts and harness. The dead Mexican McGill had been scalped and the bloody skulls were already blackening in the sun…Glanton cursed them on, taking up a lance and mounting the head upon it where it bobbed and leered like a carnival head…
This is the way of it throughout the narrative and clearly Blood Meridian is not everyone’s cup of tea. Nor is the book like his others, like All The Pretty Horses, a book violent in parts like McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, but also like McMurtry’s novel romantic, heroic and a wide-ranging saga. Blood Meridian is not any of this. The tale is brutal to the point of barbarism, a cautionary story written with mordancy by a man who understands language. In The Road McCarthy has cut away even the scarcely visible fat in Blood Meridian, paired his language to harsh basics, to create a landscape that is so awesome in its depraved starkness, so relentless in its totally blasted horizons that he leaves the reader no room to wander, to escape the horror.
He’d tried to think of something to say but he could not. He’d had this feeling before, beyond the numbness and dull despair. The world shrinking down around a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds. Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought. How much was gone already? The sacred idiom shorn of its referents and so of its reality. Drawing down like something trying to preserve heat. In time to wink out forever.
Certainly an existence without hope or redemption quite similar to that of Blood Meridian Though in a highly refined fashion.
McCarthy is one of this country’s best writers authoring nine novels including Suttree, Cities of the Plain and No Country for Old Men. From what I can see, the country in all of his books is no place for old men or those lacking a mad sense of courage. He’s won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Award. His author photo depicts an individual of stern background who’s perhaps seen more than he wanted. The ever-popular eternity stare is in evidence.
But there seems to be a slight glimmer of hope or optimism shining faintly in the wind-blown grimness. All along the journey to the coast, despite the horrors and deprivations the father and son encounter, the two happen upon caches of abundance – canned meats, fruits, vegetables, clean water in a cistern, decent clothing. This may not seem like much, but the finds shimmer like gold in the stygian atmosphere. It is remarkable that McCarthy pulls this off, a testament to his skill, while never ceasing in his relentless portrayal of hopelessness.
An example is near the end (and this is giving nothing away) when the boy is taken in by a family living near the road along the oceanfront after the death of his father:
The woman when she saw him put her arms around him. Oh, she said, I am so glad to see you. She would talk to him sometimes about God. He tried to talk to God but the best thing was to talk to his father and he did talk to him and he didn’t forget. The woman said that was all right. She said that the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time.
I’ve read The Road twice now and marvel at how McCarthy ties all of his story together. The book could easily be read from back to front and around again. I look forward to reading this another time, perhaps when I’m in the middle of a canoe trip on the Yellowstone. Timeless is timeless. McCarthy knows this truth well.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
McCarthy writes powerful stuff.
He makes us realize that we only have each other.
He is one of the best. Phew.
I too read it in one sitting, and I never do that with a book.
Bravissimo.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
I loved the quote in the review, “This one put me off my feed for a few days.” What an understatement. Once started, one cannot stop reading it but one cannot fail to be deeply affected by it. It takes a while to get over.
Good review.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Very good review; not many people know Blood Meridien. The Road hits much closer to home, at least for a father of a son, and yet it is, as you say, more hopeful. McCarthy is unparalleled in modern fiction, or American fiction in my view.
September 29th, 2007 at 1:45 am
Totally awesome book. I’ve recommended it to everyone. It shows the very best of humanity, and the very worst… McCarthy portrays so much depth of feeling with so very few words - it is amazing.
November 25th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Best Fiction of the New Millennium.
(7 years. does ‘00 count?)
all else is commentary.
November 28th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
This was one of the deepest books I have ever read, McCarthy is truly one of the greatest writers of this time. I felt so connected with these two characters and you never even get to know their names!
December 8th, 2007 at 6:21 am
I seriously hated this pointless and poorly written book. I guess I just will never understand the Cult of Cormac. (Which is not to say I didn’t understand the book. I did. It just felt repetitive and ridiculous.)
January 8th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
I was glad to read the comment by Corby Says as they all had been so glowing until his. I agreed completely with him. I have never seen a book filled with so many incomplete sentences. I kept reading hoping I would get answers to the questions, who, when, where, why, and what was going on. I assume that was all left to the reader’s imagination. I can’t believe people say that this is great literature. Diane Cox
February 16th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Just finished reading The Road. I thought “No Country…” was bleak. Although I kind of like his spare writing style, it sometimes is so spare as to be barely an outline of what’s going on. I’m left with the impression that the final book is more like a first-draft manuscript and he never got back to filling in the details. But it does present a terrifying view of what nuclear winter would be like following a war.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Ok… just finished reading this one. Truthfully it is an interesting concept, but it seemed to me at least, that the world collapsed into cannibalism a bit quickly… However, it is Mr. mcCarthy’s story and if he wishes to take such a grim, simplistic, view of people then that is his right (I guess). His style is direct and distinct, but by the end you feel you know the characters (always a good sign). Unlike a few of the critics I reviewed, I did not find any hope in the novel at all… just an endless series of beatings. It is the type of book my Mother liked (I think it made her feel like her life wasn’t so bad). I wouldn’t read it again, or volunteer to read anyhting else the man has written, but if you like morose stories McCarthy is you man!
March 24th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I have read the book twice, being a parent my help to understand the understated unconditional love. people who don’t like it seem to be unable to imagine this link. McCarthy leaves spaces that one can fill with your own images. This is much more enjoyable than graphic descriptions of emotions.He gave me the enviroment and I just walked along with them and let my emotions fill in the blanks.
April 1st, 2008 at 9:22 am
Nana — there is understatement and then there is lack of detail that is necessary to easily follow the story. In several places I had to re-read several paragraphs just to figure out what had transpired. It’s sometimes difficult to tell who is speaking in the dialogues, and his avoidance of quotation marks is just annoying. I think he’s a good storyteller, but when writing style gets in the way of narration, there’s a problem.
May 12th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Honesty…this has got to be one of the worst books I have ever read. The story is depressing, not heart-warming. There is no hope for these people page after page after page you turn. The story, truly, is well written (though grammar and punctuation would be great!) but just isn’t the kind of book that I find enjoyable or interesting to read. I became apathetic and disconnected from the story within the first few pages. I’m sad to see so many people loved such a horrid book but they’re welcome to their own opinions.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Corby,
Poorly written? I guess that was overlooked when it won the Pulitzer prize for literature in 2006.Gee, Maybe they should have checked with you and Diane Cox before giving the award to such a “poorly written” book (eyes rolling). Trust me, you did not understand the book.
Diane..are you there? try being a leader not such a follower.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Tarzan read one page, Tarzan say “this not happy book, Tarzan like happy book” “me big authority on books, me throw book in fire” Tarzan has spoken.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
This is one of the best books i have ever read. These two people are “carrying the fire” also “each the other’s world entire” they both show love, hope, and companion. This reflects McCarthy’s view on family, here is a father and his son, both know they are going to die, but their love for each other keeps them alive. Throughout the book the father contemplated killing the both of them if the “bad guys” ever caught up to them, but as soon as the boy got sick and the father really had to care for him every second of everyday he realized that he could never kill his son; this is one of the most moving parts of this book.