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Hi,
I am reading 'The Road' and there are many things that I don't understand.
first of all, what does the title signifies?
It's the journey to somewhere, isn't it?
secondly, what is a characteristic of the boy?
why he always say "ok" with his father?
by the way, I like the book but I don't know how to interpret it...
I recenty bought the book but have not had the chance to read it yet. Hopefully soon. ;)
His father was teaching him how to survive on his own...you know, how to survive until he found other people that would make him ok...Its a message of hope... The father was going to die, or at least worried that it might happen before they found any others... The boy says ok to show that he knows this. I was mixed on the book.
You've read the book, B-M. What did you thnk?Quote:
Originally Posted by B-Mental
I was so puzzled after reading the book. Everything about it was just awesome, I mean, I completely forgot about the post-apocalyptic part because the relationship between the father and son was so entrancing. BUT, the ending just threw me off; it partly ruined the book for me (I don't want to spoil it, so I'm gonna be vague). I thought there was something bigger brewing up (through all that foreshadowing)...
This was my first reading anything of McCarthy, so it might be that this is his style of writing and I maybe didn't get it.
The book reads well, but I wasn't onboard for the story. I guess he just leaves everything so vague that I kept thinking why are they doing this...Oh, I'd never do that... It is slightly overrated in my opinion.
Exactly, I thought he was being vague to show that something, overall, ties all those events (you can't call them events) together. Bits and pieces that the narrator said was very good, but I thought those were pointing to something in the future (or past)...
I'm reading it next month hopefully. The friend that I'm borrowing the book from said the same remark as B-Mental's. She told me that the book is vague, and makes you think hard in order to understand what the author means. I read a few parts of it, and to tell you the truth I didn't quite understand what was written...but I'm gonna give it a shot next month. Hopefully it's not as difficult as I heard.
It's not too hard, I hope you understand it more than I did...
good luck!
I had to read this book for school and it's really dark but it was good. Yes, the title signifies a journey, also because if I remember correctly the boy and his father would follow the road south.
The boy says 'okay' a lot to show acceptance. He knows that there's not much he can do. This world is all he knows - the father lived before things turned apocalyptic but the son hasn't.
Let me know if you have more questions. It wasn't my favorite book by any means but we did spend a couple weeks on it and I had to write an essay on it (though it wasn't my best work lol) so I may be able to help you with some preliminary questions to jump start your thinking. Just let me know!
I won't have time next month. But shortly thereafter I intend to read it. You know the book club forum is doing books by nationalities this year, and I believe the US is one of the months. Perhaps we can vote for The Road when the US comes around in the book club this year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nossa
Great idea!!! I can postpone reading the book till we get to vote for it in the book club, or at least till you get the time to read it and we can have a discussion thread! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Hopefully we'll have a discussion on the book, either in the book club, or in a separate thread. Maybe you can participate with us and share your thoughts on the book with us :)Quote:
Originally Posted by livelaughlove
Great! I don't know the order of the countries, so we'll either do it on our own or be part of the book forum. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Nossa
I read the book, finally after reading about 10 pages and then setting it aside for a few months. By the end of the book, I was just in awe. I absolutely loved the book. However, the ending nearly ruined the book for me as well.
Well then, please don't tell us the ending. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by hearmeoutx
Readin it later also sounds good for me.
I have just finished it and am also in awe, the 'vaugeness' which some posters alluded to, in my opinion adds to the atmosphere of the book and fits the context of the setting. Though in saying that the book can be vauge it must be also said that McCarthy so poetically and fully realises the characters of the Man and boy and their relationship, you can almost see them. Really its a great read.
The narration of the story was definetely unique. It was a first for me, that type of layout...so it was difficult to get ahold of what was going on. I didnt particularly care for that ending either, I thought it could have been so much more.
I'm a recent convert to Cormac McCarthy having started with No Country for Old Men before moving on to The Road. At the moment I'm about half-way through Blood Meridian and plan to read all his work.
I have to say, based on my limited experience, I feel that The Road is the weakest book so far. Don't get me wrong, it's still of a high standard and beautifully written, but it just isn't as good as the other two books I've read.
McCarthy seems to enjoy creating vague characters. The protagonist in Blood Meridian for instance is only known as 'the kid' and even after 130 pages I still feel as though I know nothing about him. I had the same problem with the characters in The Road. The man and his son don't really come alive for me the way I would expect from an author who is, according to critics such as Harold Bloom, one of the four best authors writing today. The exception so far is No Country for Old Men. Perhaps it's because it's set in the modern era, but this had the most sympathetic characters for me.
However, McCarthy's work doesn't seem to be about characters but landscapes. There's a tremendous sense of being lost in the landscape in all the books I've read so far. The land seems to swallow the characters whole and they're powerless to prevent it.
Zippy.
Totally agree with you, The Road is not his best book.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zippy
I believe that McCarthy allows the reader to build the characters in their own minds by deliberately not going into lengthy descriptions of them or explanations for their actions, and for me, that works.
I still think the Border Trilogy constitutes his finest work
Like most modern Americans, McCarthy's work suffers from excess, it seems to me: excessive violence in BM, excessive landscaped desolation and crossings (The Border trilogy), too much incident and plot (various); and too much floridity in his prose. For me, Suttree is the real masterwork, in which the autobiographical under-pinning restrains that need to carve tattoos on every part of the body..and Suttree himself is a real character rather than a cipher or concept.
I loved ' the road' , I haven't read any of his other works so I can't compare. I do wonder why he omitted the punctuation marks.
I just read The Road and found the description of a post apocalyptic world frightningly descriptive. I found the relationship between the boy and his father very engaging. This book was a page turner. I finished it in one day. And I'm glad that McCarthy didnt go into too much description as to how things got to be the way that they were. You start out already in this living hell and that is the way it is. Not much explanation just pure narrative genius. A great modern book in my opinion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crazefest456
I have to agree I loved the book up until that point. My impression was that it was written with a Hollywood ending in mind. I also thought the ending was rushed it was almost like he thought to himself gee I need to wrap this up now. That all being said I still loved the book.
I think it is a very basic allegory, maybe even a Christian tale of goodness and charity (the Son and Father). It has a very traditional ending. In another thread I called it the "American Pilgrim's Progress."
....is being made into a movie....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbLgszfXTAY
I've known this for quite a while and I've been waiting for it to come out. I wish it would. No movie out there now really appeals to me.
True, this has been the only thing on my list lately... with Burton's Alice in Wonderland....:banana:
what are some good topics of discussion for this book?-thank you in advance
The Road seemed a little too simplistic to me. I understood what he was trying to do with the vagueness and the simple language but at times it felt like a sham. I prefer his earlier, Faulknerian work, especially Suttree and Blood Meridian. The Border Trilogy was great as well.
I think you are all overanalyzing the title of the book and the boy's "ok's". In my opinion the book is a simple story about a father and son trying to survive in a dark post apocalyptic time. The real idea behind the story is a father's love for his child, and his concern that the boy would not be able to survive if something were to happen to him. This builds the interest in the story b/c we are always wondering what would happen if the father dies.
I'm somewhat perplexed why everyone has a hard time with the title, 'The Road'. The entire story is based on the father and son following the road. So what's the problem with saying, "Oh I get, the road symbolizes the actual road." ???
the boy's Ok's. I think it's just because the kid is young and naive and that's how he answers. It's simple and it works.
I don't think youth and naivity account for it. By rights the boy is probably less naive than children of the same age in current society. But the boy was born post-apocalypse and in the post-apocalyptic world economy, sparsity is everything. The boy's answers are sparse and economical because that's all he knows and all he will ever know. There's no room for fancy talk, everything is stripped bare including language. It's all about survival, living by the bare minimum.Quote:
Originally Posted by Indian Boy
It's one of the things I especially like about The Road compared to the other McCarthy novels I've read. The language is less lyrical, more repetitive, more sparse but so is the world he describes, I think that's the point. The language reflects the theme.
I agree. The Road is the most accessible of any of McCarthy's novels. The prose is sparse and economical just like the landscape. Some say the novel is depressing, but the metaphor of the father and boy "carrying the fire" is one of the most beautiful themes I've ever encountered. In addition, I love the scene where the man discovers the sextant in the wrecked sailboat. He describes it as a thing of beauty. It's a relic, perfectly preserved from the world of man.
That novel is filled with unspeakable violence and depravity but peppered with moments of sheer beauty.
"No Country For Old Men" is the most "accessible" of his books having been obviously written with the aim of being taken up by the film makers, which it was.
Is there violence in McCarthy's novels? Well obviously, yes but his vision of the world includes acceptance both of the violence inherent in the human condition and in American history. Outsiders looking into America are very aware of a divided and incredibly violent society in a way that many Americans living in peaceful communities in a continental-sized nation are probably completely oblivious of. The frontier life of 17th to 19th century America has left its mark on the modern American psyche. McCarthy is an intelligent and I'd say awestruck observer of that. Does he overwrite? To some extent but the later books are very paired down in terms of language. He takes ordinary people seriously. That's one thing I like about him.
I have heard a great deal about McCarthy, and heard it speculated that he will become a modern classic, I have also heard that his books tend to be quite bleak and dark which had stirred my intrigue. Than I saw the previews for the movie The Road, and was able to borrow a copy of the book from my sister, and so I set myself to reading the book before seeing the movie.
I have to say it really is quite an easy and fast read, as well as being rather engaging. I really enjoy the narrative style of the book, there is a minimalist quality to it, that works quite well with the story. Considering the nature of the story, he does quite well in keeping it from really seeming to drag. To write a story wear really nothing actually happens, and still keep it interesting would be quite the task.
One of the things I find most interesting about the story is the way in which the main characters a man and his son, are never named and throughout the story are referred to simply as "the man" and "the boy" I think doing this serves two different purposes. For one thing it speaks of the loss of identity, in a world that itself has been erased of its identity, and is cast in nothing but the constant grayness, the things of which a person uses to define themselves have disappeared and the importance of some idea of individual self no longer truly matters.
This idea of "who is anybody" anymore is one that does recur through the story. There is one rather interesting scene in which the man fails to recognize his own reflection in a mirror.
The other reason for this lack of assigning a specific identity upon the characters is the way in which it becomes than, that it could be any man, any boy, anyone. The reader can attach their own personal identities upon the characters.
Another interesting facet of the story is the way in which it is not explained just how what happened came to happen (at least not from the point in which I am at) The reason why is rendered insignificant, all the matters is that it did happen. I think this is another way of trying to make the story more personalized. By refusing to propose any particular ideology or theories in what led up to this bleak state of the world, no one can than feel isolated from the event. Each individual can interpret their own personal causes or reasons for why it happened, so no one is removed from the story by being given a scenario that is in contrast to what they believe.
Nuclear war is the most likely cause.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
Brilliant flash of light, and a burst of electromagnetic radiation from nuclear explosions damaging electrical systems. Severely cold weather and reduced sunlight from large amounts of smoke and soot ejected into the stratosphere. Another possibility is a comet or asteroid ("impact winter") but when asked about this McCarthy said that we'd probably destroy ourselves before that happens.Quote:
The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions.
What a book. Bleak, sometimes horrifying, but mostly bleak with lots of suspense, and then the ending... I don't want to say anything to give it away, but I was very moved.
Yes, there are perhaps clues about what happened, but still I think it is significant that it is not plainly spelled out, and the suggestions offered within could be interpreted in various different ways depending upon what an individual believes.
I must break the tide of applause that this book has received and say that I didn't like it. It is true that I did not devote enough time to it (which seems to be the thing recently) but I just disliked his narrative style so much that it turned me off almost immediately.
I don't like his eccentric punctuation, dialogue, the sparse Hemingwayesque prose with Thomas Wolfe flourishes. Other than that I loved it. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
I've read No Country for Old Men and now this, and I might be done with McCarthy now. But I have to say that The Road was one vivid and affecting piece of storytelling, for me.