The Road

The Road

by Cormac McCarthy

Personal Review/Comments

I never heard of the book "The Road" nor would I likely have read it but for the "fortunate" circumstance of having a partner who is an avid reader and follower of reviews (in newspapers). Whoever the reviewer was, he/she too should win some kind of prize because after reading it, my partner "pursued" me with relentless recommendations that that was one book I absolutely had to read. And so strong was his conviction that unlike his normal mode of behaviour, he remembered it every time we went out and went so far as looking out for bookshops we could go into in search of "The Road".

Having now read the book, neither of us have any regrets that we did so. However it is not a book that we would recommend to anyone we like. Because despite it breaking the mould of "normal" sci-fi/post-apocalyptic novels and expanding this genre in admirable, new angles and perspectives, I felt that the ending was poorly thought of and worse, improbable.

in 2006, 75 year old Cormac McCarthy wrote the now highly acclaimed book "The Road". It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007. And in 2009, it was made into a major cinematic movie, directed by John Hillcoat.

(Movie Review of The Road).

Rating: 6.5/10

Synopsis

The story is about the survival journey along an endlessly bleak and dangerous road after an unspecified world-wide apocalypse that has left the world barren of fauna and flora and left in its wake, a diminishing handful of straggling, starving survivors and ruthless, hungry gangs of cannibals. "The Road" focuses on an anonymous father and son team and their unimaginable but believable plight in a post-apocalyptical world - filled with bleak hopelessness and unremitting funereal landscapes, and truly horrifying "human" behaviours.

This is not the only post-apocalyptic novel that has found its way onto our bookshelves and into our consciousness. What distinguishes this book is that it is the leader in throwing a unique slant on an unfortunate but believable possible world future. It deliberately does not choose to explain the cause of the apocalypse nor give its main characters names. The cause is amply supplied by the numerous real-life scenarios we see as possible in our turbulent times. The names are not necessary for us to be able to identify with the awful plight of the father and son. And there is no doubt that McCarthy is a master at the language of painting the story, scenes, and images that both mesmerize and horrify us.

That the ending is so improbable and "Hollywood"-like is unfortunate.