Last paragraph of The Road?

[Loganthered]

I thought McCarthy's The Road was a great book. This book brought me through utter darkness and despair to give me a visceral experience of The Mystery that is usually sought only intellectually. I tried to look around online what other people thought of the last paragraph and a lot of people seem to be a little unsure about whether it even fit with the rest of the book. So I'd like to present to whoever wants to talk about it :drool5: what I understood from it and see if anyone here had similar ideas.

"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 didnt 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.

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery"

The book seems to be about passing the "fire" from the man to his son and that we live in our children, that we are a part of them. This was hinted at when man said that he could still talk to the boy though he would be passed on, and in other places throughout. The second to the last paragraph then says that it is God that is passed from man to man, basically that God is the Fire and that we live in God as He lives in us when the last woman says " God's breath is his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time". The focus is on the motion through time of the passing of Gods breath, the passing on from one man to the next and the passing of one world to the next. The eternal in the fleeting.

The focus then zooms out in the last paragraph summarizing, paradoxically, the motion through time in a moment by describing a point in time ("Once...") when the world was bountiful and brimming with life, overflowing from the seas, the origin of life and evolution symbolized by the fish, into the mountains. In this moment the future and past are painted in the backs of the trout, "of the world in its becoming". This seems to allude to the notions of the Entangled Universe and the Field Views of Time, the idea that "The Many and The All are One." Of "maps and mazes," alluding to the combination of the randomness and determinism of the universe which is woven into its fabric.

As someone interested in science, McCCarthy may be aware of these theories and of the randomness inherent in Quantum Theory, which coexists with Newtonian Determinism, and the dislike for it that led Einstien to say: "God does not play dice with the universe." (I'm a Physical Chemist myself). Both are true though. God both guides and gambles from time to time and that is also a mystery. The end of the world whatever its cause was both inevitable and an accident. Either way it cannot be "put back...made right".

But the ending is optimistic, contrary to what many people have said. As the Fire of God is eternal, so too is the life through which it flows. Somewhere, somehow, it will go on. We dont know what caused the end of the world. It could be a natural event like a meteor or comet. No mention of worry about radiation poisoning is made in the book. Extinction events like that have happened before and still life went on. That life could go on is suggested when the boy asks the father if there might be other worlds or other beaches where others might exist in some way and when the man realizes that he is from a world alien to the boy's. It's also implied by the acceptance of the boy by the woman. The Last Woman represents life itself, comfort and hope for new life, as women often do to men/boys. When the wife/mother left before it was as though Life itself had committed suicide and left a world cold and barren and this was a part of the story that was put right in the end. But it's most strongly suggested by the entwinement of God and Life. As each is in the the other and the first is eternal, so too the second.

In the deep glens where they LIVED these things "older than man" (greater than man) hummed of mystery. The Mystery is God, existence and life which cannot be communicated in words, by man's voice; it can only be hummed as the Breath of God vibrating in one's being. The humming of The Mystery is the voice of God that sustains the universe; His Life and Breath are voiced in the child.

"If he is not the word of God God never spoke."

[Auberon]

I just finished the road as well...
Thought it was good but nothing spectacular.

I didn't think the 'fire' was supposed to be something passed down from father to son.

In fact i thought the father was as bad as any other character in the book. He was just 'a man', like any other man. He was selfish and at some point (can't exactly recall which) i found him to admit that he was using his son as a purpose for his own survival. A man does such things.

I thought it was a story about desperation. About the last gasps of humanity. The 'fire' is imaginary. A childish fantasy. Just like god. Just like his dead fathers voice.

The 'fire' is carried with human life further and further into that dark and desperate cave (in which the book begins). There is no return from the cave. The ending the 'good guys' could be just as much a fantasy as a reality. What were the odds?

The fish seemed like a symbol of a time gone by. Of life lost.

I dunno. This was my take.

[dfloyd]

Blood Meridian first. I expected much more from The Road than it delivered. It's repetition gave me the feeling that McCazrthy was filling up space. If this had been the first McCarthy novel I had read, I may have stopped there. The Road had none of the suspense of the other two novels. Besides the repetitivness, I found it totally predictable.

[Loganthered]

Thanks for your responses.

The repetiveness worked to set up the light at the end of the tunnel by setting the mood of despair, reinforcing it and stressing the the depth of the ordeal. Only by the time they were leaving the beach was one starting to feel the alieness of the world they were in. Its lengthy set up contrasted with the brevity of the final parapgraph of hope. And that was part of the point of the book: duality.

Query: what do you think it means that duality is built into the universe? That there is nothing, no tangible object or force or abstract concept, that can exist without automatically evoking its opposite?

Yes, the man was imperfect. But that was part of the point: pragmatism vs. absolute morality. What would one do to *save* morality? What would have to be done? Does force have to be met with force to protect humanity? Would killing Hitler as a child have been justified given the option? Do we need Col. Nathan R. Jessup "on that wall"? Can one be moral when your children are at stake? The Greeks had a saying: *it's easy to have morals on a full stomach.* But where's the line? And what is man without morailty? Those were some of the questions posed.

A good piece on the topic, whether one is a Christian or not (and I'm not saying that I am), is CS Lewis's *The Abolition of Man.*

I don't know what the cause of your cynicism is, but I am sorry for you, Auberon.

[David Lurie]

Does The Road have a last paragraph?
This books is made of isolated scenes and dialogues, but if you want to call them paragraphs it's OK but the text you - Loganthered - have quoted here represents the last two paragraphs of the book. The woman is speaking in the first one, but who is talking in the second? most of the book is written in the third person, so what do we have here? the unidentified narrator again? I doubt it could make a difference to know it, because The Road is built on vagueness and I think this is the reason why this book has fascinated so many readers: McCarthy has left so much blank space that everyone can fill it with his/her imagination/expectations.
As for the value of the book I agree with dfloyd, if The Road had been my first McCarthy it would have been the last one too: Blood meridian, Suttree, child of god, the border trilogy are much better novels than The Road.

[Loganthered]

Uh, David, the point of quoting the last two paragraphs was to show that the second to last leads into the last.

[Virgil]

I'm not sure it ends on an optimistic note. Over riding whatever salvation the boy arrives at is this:


Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery"

The earth cannot be put back right and humanity will probably extinguish. However, the eternal "mystery" remains and the life force that is God continues. I guess whether it's optimistic or pessimistic depends on whether the remaining humans can survive. I'm not sure that is evident.

[David Lurie]

Uh, David, the point of quoting the last two paragraphs was to show that the second to last leads into the last.

yes, but how do you consider them? who is speaking? the woman in both of them or the woman in the first and the narrator in the second? it's a choice that varies the way we understand - interpretate - them.

[Loganthered]

I guess whether it's optimistic or pessimistic depends on whether the remaining humans can survive. I'm not sure that is evident.

The optimism doesn't depend on whether humans survive or not. The optimism in the ending is that something is eternal and that we are part of it.

[Auberon]

Yeh DL i like what you said

"McCarthy has left so much blank space that everyone can fill it"

Right. Too true!

I guess this is why i kinda disliked the book as well. Because of its vagueness. I often think it is the readers fault if they are unable to get something out of a book. But having said that this book to me, does not seem worthy of its acclaim. I certainly wouldn't consider it a modern classic.

As for loganthread, i guess i was just tryin to contrast with what you said in your op. Although I don't believe in god or morality so naturally my take on this book was bleak. Naturally i thought 'the man' 'the father' was no good guy and nor was there a bad guy.

To me these are childish ideas, and it was only in the child of this story that they existed.

I agree tho, the book certain aims at pushing the notion of morality.
I asks "at what point is life not worth living?"
"what does it take?" "How far would you go?"

The fathers decision to raise a child in that world was the least moral decision of the book.

[Virgil]

The optimism doesn't depend on whether humans survive or not. The optimism in the ending is that something is eternal and that we are part of it.

Except that the entire novel has been about the survival of two humans. If that is the theme, it wasn't in the entire several hundred pages until then. The story is about human survival, and so the theme has to reflect that. If humanity doesn't survive after all that struggle, then it is a pessimistic ending.

[Loganthered]

Except that the entire novel has been about the survival of two humans. If that is the theme, it wasn't in the entire several hundred pages until then. The story is about human survival, and so the theme has to reflect that. If humanity doesn't survive after all that struggle, then it is a pessimistic ending.

Yes, it was about the survival of two people and you did spend a few hundred pages involved with their struggle. And at the end that struggle was put into the perspective of the great scheme of things. If you hadn't spent that much time involved in their personal story, it wouldn't mean as much to you.

[Loganthered]

yes, but how do you consider them? who is speaking? the woman in both of them or the woman in the first and the narrator in the second? it's a choice that varies the way we understand - interpretate - them.

I thought it was pretty obvious that the narrator was speaking:

"The woman when she saw him put her arms around him and held 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 didnt 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."

That doesn't sound like the first person to me. And I don't see that it would change what was being said if someone else were talking anyway.

I do see what you mean that the book was a little vague though. I think he was trying to make it sort of dream-like and poetic, which worked for me, but of course it wouldn't work for everyone. A person usually has to be on a certain wavelength to get a piece of poetry or art or it just comes off as meaningless babble. Of course, some poetry is just crap but I don't think that was the case here. At least not for me. I liked it. :)

[Loganthered]

And in regards to the idea that McCarthy was talking about Eternity in the fleeting when the woman said that the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time it could be pointed that the same thing is said in the Bhagavad Gita:

"When one see Eternity in things that pass away and Infinity in finite things,
then one has pure knowledge."

[David Lurie]

I thought it was pretty obvious that the narrator was speaking:

"The woman when she saw him put her arms around him and held 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 didnt 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."

That doesn't sound like the first person to me. And I don't see that it would change what was being said if someone else were talking anyway.

yes! but in the first case our omniscient narrator is telling us the things the woman told the boy - sorry, my previous post was confusing - while in the last paragraph the narrator is expressing his point of view, this is the way I read these two final paragraphs and that's why I think you can't mix them, because they reflect two different point of view, uniting them the way you have done is an interpretation not what McCarthy has written: the woman talks about God, the narrator about a mystery, you are free to consider them the same thing, but it's not what's in the book, it's your point of view ... and this is mine :thumbsup:

[Loganthered]

uniting them the way you have done is an interpretation not what McCarthy has written: the woman talks about God, the narrator about a mystery, you are free to consider them the same thing, but it's not what's in the book, it's your point of view ... and this is mine :thumbsup:

I do think that that is what in the book, that they are the same by the way the two paragraphs are linked by the subject of time and the imagery of the words breath and hum. The woman talks about the breath of God in men, the narrator talks about the humming of mystery in nature and the man talks about the word of God in the boy.

And from the fact that God is often called "The Mystery" in various different religions.

I like to study different religions so the relationship between God and Mystery sort of stuck out to me, so yeah, I do sort of bring my own perspective to it but given the book as a whole I do think that that is what's in the book. No offense, but it's right there on paper. :)

[David Lurie]

And from the fact that God is often called "The Mystery" in various different religions.

This is a novel of an American Writer, so what religions are you talking about and what they got to do with America and The Road?
McCarthy is not known for his religious themes, sometimes his style of writing is often defined "biblical" but this description refers to his mighty descriptions of the physical world not to a mystic feeling.
You seem to suffer the Saint Augustine syndrome "faith is to believe what you do not see, the reward of this faith is to see what you believe" I hope you will not be offended by this ironic use of the Hippoman I have made here :aureola:

[Loganthered]

This is a novel of an American Writer, so what religions are you talking about and what they got to do with America and The Road?
McCarthy is not known for his religious themes, sometimes his style of writing is often defined "biblical" but this description refers to his mighty descriptions of the physical world not to a mystic feeling.
You seem to suffer the Saint Augustine syndrome "faith is to believe what you do not see, the reward of this faith is to see what you believe" I hope you will not be offended by this ironic use of the Hippoman I have made here :aureola:

Jewish Kabbalah, various sects of Hindusim, Taosit philosophy, Sufism (Islam), Sikhism, Catholic Christianity, various "pagan" philosophies such as the greek, roman and ptolemaic, which are summed up in the hermetic teachings that were responsible for much of the Renaissance (in support of the last, note the books The Occult Philosophy of the Elizabethan Age and The Rosicrucian Enlightenment by Francis Yates who was not some crank but a professor of history at the University of London and who was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1972, and raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 1977), all recognized a "universal mystery" which was the connection between God and existence/life and was also "God".

Whether McCarthy is aware of these religions and philosophies doesn't really matter (though he may well be, as well as some of the scientific theories I mentioned in the first post. He's said himself that he likes to hang out with scientists and his brother has a doctorate in biology who he likes to talk to quite a bit. Good introductions for non-scientists such as yourself are Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos and Machio Kaku's Parallel Worlds). He could have come upon the same truth himself and expressed it in a similar way. That's one of the things about art, it often expresses universal truths. But you often need to have well rounded background to pick up some of the allusions in a work to either science or religion. It would be hard to get much out of many classical pieces of literature if you had no clue about classical mythology or the bible (in fact that was why Bulfinch wrote his book about mythology).

And to accuse me of suffering from the blind faith espoused by St. Augustine is a straw man fallacy isnt it?

[David Lurie]

But you often need to have well rounded background to pick up some of the allusions in a work to either science or religion. It would be hard to get much out of many classical pieces of literature if you had no clue about classical mythology or the bible

yes, but you need to read carefully the text before jumping to misleading conclusions due to what I call over-reading, you talk about "allusions" but how do we tell an author's allusion from our over-reading? We look at the book as a whole and then to the ideas the author has expressed in his previous works, having done that my understanding is that you are over-reading here because your interpretation of this quick and open ending doesn't fit with the 200 previous pages nor with McCarthy's usual themes.


The book seems to be about passing the "fire" from the man to his son and that we live in our children, that we are a part of them. This was hinted at when man said that he could still talk to the boy though he would be passed on, and in other places throughout. The second to the last paragraph then says that it is God that is passed from man to man, basically that God is the Fire and that we live in God as He lives in us when the last woman says "

for me this is a lightning example of over-reading: you take one of the themes of the book - passing the fire - you make it the main theme and ignoring the rest of the book you link it to the ending, the fire is the more discussed part of The Road, from what I have seen everyone who has read the book wonders about it, for me it's the promethean fire, the symbolic spark of human knowledge and civilization that is in danger in the apocalyptic scenario of the book and it needs to be protected - when you consider that this is a novel by a man who was 73 when he wrote it and that he has a little child I think it's logical to see The Road as the book of a man who ignores - and maybe this ignorance scares him - the world where his son will have to live in.

@ Scheherazade: is it better now?

[Scheherazade]

R e m i n d e r

Please do not personalise your arguments.

~

[Loganthered]

for me this is a lightning example of over-reading: you take one of the themes of the book - passing the fire - you make it the main theme and ignoring the rest of the book you link it to the ending, the fire is the more discussed part of The Road, from what I have seen everyone who has read the book wonders about it, for me it's the promethean fire, the symbolic spark of human knowledge and civilization that is in danger in the apocalyptic scenario of the book and it needs to be protected - when you consider that this is a novel by a man who was 73 when he wrote it and that he has a little child I think it's logical to see The Road as the book of a man who ignores - and maybe this ignorance scares him - the world where his son will have to live in.

So what if McCarthy hasn't written about these sorts of things before? Do we have to ignore it if he does something different? ;)

Yes, the interpretation of the ending does fit with the rest of the book. The "fire" does allude to the divine spark stolen from the Gods by Prometheus. The Promethean Fire is the divine spark in man that is manifested in many ways, especially in civilization and morality which has to be passed through generations. The similarity of the of the divine spark in man to the "breath of God" in man and the passing of the breath from man to man at the end is obvious, I think. The fire and breath relate to the same thing but with different connotations as different aspects of the same thing. So then if one of the main themes of the book is a man trying to save his son, and all that that stands for, and which is symbolized by the fire, then one of the main themes of the book is a man passing the fire to his son, passing the torch in the darkness, the breath of God flowing through man from man to man, and all that normally symbolizes in literature, religion, mythology, the context of the rest of the book and the passage at the end where the main theme is emphasized.

There were many themes and subthemes in the book. I was talking about what appeared to be the dominant theme and how it related to the ending. Please also remember that a symbol can stand for many things at the same time and that a complete analysis of the book would take a good while, which was not my intention.

I'm sorry but I don't think it can get any plainer than that, so I don't think I can help you any further. It has been nice talking to you. :thumbsup: