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A review by abyissmal
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Hopelessness is inevitable in a post-apocalyptic world. So much so that it becomes the core narrative of many media that depicts a post-apocalyptic world. The story often goes like this: the world has died. You (the protagonist) are hopeless, but as your journey progresses, you discover hope again. You've built hope in a hopeless world.
But McCarthy's "The Road" is different. In fact, in his book, 'the man' refuses to succumb to hopelessness. Hope keeps the two going. Hope is the only thing that's left. Rather than to build hope, "The Road" puts hope through despair, devastation, and circumstances that would've left many hopeless. Just how long can hope endure? How long can they continue to carry the fire?
This is my re-read of the book and I'm so glad I decided to revisit this book again. This book is gritty from the beginning to the very end. There are very sparse moments where you get a moment of pause or rest from the dead world the man and his son lives in. Even in moments that are supposed to be comfort, there's always a sense of dread. Death, decay, destruction. They always follow.
The way this book is formatted made everything feel detached. I felt distant to the characters due to the lack of punctuations. The fact that they remain nameless, only referred by their roles: the man and the boy. The writing style is simple and straightforward with very little complex sentence structures. In fact, you'll encounter paragraphs where actions are endlessly woven into a series of "...and ...and ...and". Your sense of time and location gets muddled in-between paragraphs. It keeps you on your toes. It keeps your mind fixated on survival.
The world you once knew died. Here, people devour other people. A name feels like nothing but an aching reminder of what's been lost. That is very much true here.
But McCarthy's "The Road" is different. In fact, in his book, 'the man' refuses to succumb to hopelessness. Hope keeps the two going. Hope is the only thing that's left. Rather than to build hope, "The Road" puts hope through despair, devastation, and circumstances that would've left many hopeless. Just how long can hope endure? How long can they continue to carry the fire?
This is my re-read of the book and I'm so glad I decided to revisit this book again. This book is gritty from the beginning to the very end. There are very sparse moments where you get a moment of pause or rest from the dead world the man and his son lives in. Even in moments that are supposed to be comfort, there's always a sense of dread. Death, decay, destruction. They always follow.
The way this book is formatted made everything feel detached. I felt distant to the characters due to the lack of punctuations. The fact that they remain nameless, only referred by their roles: the man and the boy. The writing style is simple and straightforward with very little complex sentence structures. In fact, you'll encounter paragraphs where actions are endlessly woven into a series of "...and ...and ...and". Your sense of time and location gets muddled in-between paragraphs. It keeps you on your toes. It keeps your mind fixated on survival.
The world you once knew died. Here, people devour other people. A name feels like nothing but an aching reminder of what's been lost. That is very much true here.