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A review by selenajournal
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
5.0
Perhaps when the end of the world comes, you will survive to see it. When you do, the world before you will drive any hope from your soul. In every direction, ashes will cover the ground draining color from the world. The familiar green of the trees and the bright red of the roofing will adopt the same homogeneous bleak gray. Knowing that you have a son to protect, little food to speak of, danger at every turn and winter steadily approaching, what would you do?
The narrator of The Road, with his son in tow, goes on a journey toward the South in an attempt to evade the harsh winter weather and to “carry the fire.” With only a shopping cart of food and supplies and the clothes on their back, the father and the son are forced to constantly be on the look-out for food, blankets and other people. More so than the environment and harsh conditions, people are the danger. It is appalling the measures that humans resort to when they lose all hope.
Cormac McCarthy’s descriptions of the desolate wasteland broke my heart. The sparse conversation between father and son seemed fitting. What was there to talk about? Even the words that I have to speak of this book are few. The language was prosaic - McCarthy speaks plainly of a plain world. And in one fell swoop redefines what you can do with ordinary language, stripped of its fancy words. Much like his No Country For Old Men, there is no traditional storyline. Expecting one will diminish your experience. That is what this novel is: an experience.
When humanity is stripped down to its barest of bones, we are left with pure honesty and human nature.
The narrator of The Road, with his son in tow, goes on a journey toward the South in an attempt to evade the harsh winter weather and to “carry the fire.” With only a shopping cart of food and supplies and the clothes on their back, the father and the son are forced to constantly be on the look-out for food, blankets and other people. More so than the environment and harsh conditions, people are the danger. It is appalling the measures that humans resort to when they lose all hope.
Cormac McCarthy’s descriptions of the desolate wasteland broke my heart. The sparse conversation between father and son seemed fitting. What was there to talk about? Even the words that I have to speak of this book are few. The language was prosaic - McCarthy speaks plainly of a plain world. And in one fell swoop redefines what you can do with ordinary language, stripped of its fancy words. Much like his No Country For Old Men, there is no traditional storyline. Expecting one will diminish your experience. That is what this novel is: an experience.
When humanity is stripped down to its barest of bones, we are left with pure honesty and human nature.