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The Road

by: Cormac McCarthy
en

9780307387899  0307387895  0330447548  9780330447546 

The Road
By Cormac McCarthy






Amazon.com:

Best known for his Border Trilogy, hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century," Cormac McCarthy has written ten rich and often brutal novels, including the bestselling No Country for Old Men, and The Road. Profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose, The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, one of the best books we've read this year, but in case you need a second (and expert) opinion, we asked Dennis Lehane, author of equally rich, occasionally bleak and brutal novels, to read it and give us his take. Read his glowing review below. --Daphne Durham

Guest Reviewer: Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane, master of the hard-boiled thriller, generated a cult following with his series about private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, wowed readers with the intense and gut-wrenching Mystic River, blew fans all away with the mind-bending Shutter Island, and switches gears with Coronado, his new collection of gritty short stories (and one play).

Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds opive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic imions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith. --Dennis Lehane




Book Description:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER
National Book Critic's Circle Award Finalist

A New York Times Notable Book
One of the Best Books of the Year
The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Denver Post, The Kansas City Star, Los Angeles Times, New York, People, Rocky Mountain News, Time, The Village Voice, The Washington Post

The searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food-—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.





Date: 2007-05-18   Rating: 4
Review:

No One Knows....

No one knows what the trappings of a post-apocalyptic world will truly be, but the blighted state of humanity imagined in Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD seems horrifically real. This is not a pleasant book. It is, in fact, quite the opposite - relentlessly deing. But it's underpinnings of hope, regardless of the seemingly hopeless monochromatic landscape navigated by a father and son, is what makes it worthwhile. I caution you, though, to prepare yourself for an extremely sad story - one that will stay with you long after you finish the book.



Date: 2007-05-18   Rating: 5
Review:

Why not travel The Road and Bequest together?

Another reviewer suggested Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Ian Thomas' Bequest make a great pair for sheer reading enjoyment. I took that advice, picked up both books, and could not agree with the reviewer more.

First, my own thoughts on The Road: This is a highly unusual, captivating novel with often Spartan prose driving a bleak story that travels a road through devastation, the end of life as we know it. Amidst great loss and uncertainty, a father tries to do what is best for his son, even as he travels the road to the end of his own life. This is a moral story steeped in metaphors and hidden meanings. It is unique, disturbing, engaging, thought-provoking... and wonderful.

Now, my thoughts on Bequest: This novel also follows the unfolding relationship between a father and son, but in an entirely different way. In this case the son is mourning the death of his father after years of miscommunication and little contact. The son receives a number of frightening visions (a family curse) and comes to believe his father was murdered. Unlike the Road, Bequest has numerous touches of humour and insightful observations on the human condition. But like The Road, Bequest is a journey of self-discovery and finding moral ground and faith in oneself and one's ability to rise above tragedy.

Both novels are truly exceptional and well worth reading together (or one right after the other, as I did). Amazon has also paired both novels on the Bequest page at a special package rate, allowing more people to discover two very different, very remarkable novels. Needless to say, I highly recommend both The Road and Bequest



Date: 2007-05-18   Rating: 3
Review:

The Road Revisited

The book is a story of a father and son as they struggle to survive and travel after what appears to be a world wide devastation of some sort. I read every word and "traveled" with the pair as they came to grips with the reality. How did I enjoy the book? I don't think I did. It was a play by play of death,stark realism, and a numbness in their souls that I am sure would be prevalent in such a situation. But, what I found to be unrealistic was the lack of hope or spiritual recognition of any sort. None. I do not think that this void would be so pronounced in a real life situation. In this type of tragedy or any tragedy that I have witnessed, people supercede the hopelessness and reach out for answers. The book was flat.



Date: 2007-05-18   Rating: 4
Review:

A Different Kind of Read

This book is a bit like ordering a dish you know well in a new restaurant; it may come served an entirely different way than you're used to.

As a fan of post-apocalyptic books, I couldn't wait to read another adventure story, but this is anything but. Some readers have been critical of the apparent redundancy of the book, as every page seems to be about a man and his son trudging across a gray, skeleton earth. But this isn't a story of events and plotlines. It's a character study, not of the characters themselves but of the relationshiip between a father and son. In such a scorched, gray and dead world where a squeaky grocery cart wheel commands full attention and we hide from our fellow brethren, why go on? For hope. For love even when the hope is gone.

I was surprised by McCarthy's writing style, which seems as devoid of punctuation as the earth he writes about is devoid of life. Having read only this novel by the author, I can only assume it was a tool to convey the simplicity and sparseness of the story. The stripped-down conversation bewteen the characters speaks volumes in its directness. They mete out their thoughts and feelings the way the mete out their rations.

There are no arch-villians in this story, no explosions or magic or ultimate revelations. In the post-apocalyptic hell, there is only a father who loves his son. I found it to be moving and thought-provoking.



Date: 2007-05-17   Rating: 5
Review:

Life As A Journey

Cormac McCarthy tells a story so beautiful, yet so overshadowed by such desolation and deprivation. From the very first pages the reader is left wanting to know from whence came this awful calamity? Slowly, almost imperceptively at first, McCarthy shows us that light can be found in the darkness, that good exists in the midst of evil, and that ultimately our existence consists and thrives in the relationships we nurture in love.

This novel is an easy, quick read that will reward you with a sense of hope.
Recommended highly.