July / USA Reading: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

[Hira]

Had to re-read certain parts too Nossa.

Just finished reading it. It was a very harrowing read to be honest.

Loved the last paragraph:

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.

[lugdunum]

Hello everyone,

First time here and must say that I'm very excited about this new experience.
I'll be running to the English bookstore tomorrow to get my copy of "The Road".

A Friday evening is always a good time to start a new book... :P

[thelastmelon]

I especially enjoyed the dialogues between the man and the boy. I posted the same quote in another thread during my read, but I'll post one of them here as well. I like how simple, honest and at the same time bold but realistic the dialogues can be, for example the one below.

"They're going to kill those people, arent they?
Yes.
Why do they have to do that?
I dont know.
Are they going to eat them?
I dont know.
They're going to eat them, arent they?
Yes.
And we couldn't help them because then they'd eat us too.
Yes.
And that's why we couldn't help them.
Yes.
Okay."

[Virgil]

Hello everyone,

First time here and must say that I'm very excited about this new experience.
I'll be running to the English bookstore tomorrow to get my copy of "The Road".

A Friday evening is always a good time to start a new book... :P

Welcome Lug. I hope you can join us.

[motherhubbard]

I got my copy today and i hope to get a start on it tonight. Actually doing the homework first is one of the crappy parts about being grown up. This is my first time to get to take part- I'm so excited!

[Tersely]

although I find myself lost sometimes and forced to re-read certain parts more than once (it's probably my problem though). I'm still in the beginning of the book, so I'll probably have more comments when I've read more. But so far it's good.

I feel the same way. I started a bit way through it (pausing to comment now) and it feels like I'm glazing over every once and awhile. I think it's probably the structure. It's not broken up with quotations everywhere so I do get lost between them speaking,the landscape being explained, or actions happening around them. Guess I better slow down

[HerGuardian]

I finished reading it. I'll post my comments soon. Waiting for the discussion.

[Virgil]

I haven't finished. I'm about half way, and I must say at this point I can't put the book down. I'm glued in.

Just to get some discussion rolling, I typed up a passage I thought interesting to highlight. I'm sure there are others, but here's this one.

They backtracked and camped in the actual road and when they went on in the morning the macadam had cooled. Bye and bye they came to a set of tracks cooked into the tar. They just suddenly appeared. He squatted and studied them. Someone had come out of the woods in the night and continued down the melted roadway.
Who is it? said the boy.
I don’t know. Who is anybody?


They came upon him shuffling along the road before them, dragging one leg slightly and stopping from time to time to stand stooped and uncertain before setting out again.
What should we do, Papa?
We’re all right. Let’s just follow and watch.
Take a look, the boy said.
Yes. Take a look.


They followed him a good ways but at his pace they were losing the day and finally he just sat in the road and did not get up again. The boy hung on to his father’s coat. No one spoke. He was as burntlooking as the country, his clothing scorched an black. One of his ees were burnt shut and his hair was but a nitty wig of ash upon his blackened skull. As they passed he looked down. As if he had done something wrong. His shoes were bound up with wire and coated with roadtar and he sat there in silence, bent over in his rags. The boy kept looking back. Papa? he whispered. What is wrong with the man?
He’s been struck by lightening.
Cant we help him? Papa?
No. We cant help him.
The boy kept pulling at his coat. Papa? he said.
Stop it.
Cant we help him Papa?
No. We cant help him. There’s nothing to be done for him.


They went on. The boy was crying. He kept looking back. When they got to the bottom of the hill the man stopped and looked at him and looked up the road. The burnt man had fallen over and that distance you couldnt even tell what it was. I’m sorry, he said. But we have nothing to give him. We have no way to help him. I’m sorry for what happened to him but we cant fix it. You know that, don’t you? The boy stood looking down. He nodded his head. Then they went on and he didn’t look back again.

Two thoughts I would like to bring up. First, the situation is of another world, so I keep havinng all sorts of recalls of other literary works. One work is Defoe's []Robinson Crusoe[/I]. The man and the boy are sort of trapped in a new world, and this burnt fellow is almost like Crusoe coming across Friday. But this work is really a dystopia, an imaginary world of a possible horrific future. Crusoe is more utopian than not. Another work this seems to recall is Becket's "Waiting For Godot." But depite the dark themes there, that work is a comedy. There is no comedy in The Road, though the landscape appears similar. To some degree the dystopian vision of this novel recalls Lord of the Flies or A Clockwork Orange. You don't really see it in this passage, but humanity comes down to its most savage in other parts of the novel. And finally I see this work in the tradition of naturalism. It brings man down to its most elemental animal self, where survival is at its most fundemental essence.

Second thing I wish to point out is the style, especially the short clumps of paragraphs. I was going to say that the paragraphs are fragmented, but fragmented tends to imply a disconnect in some fashion, say like William Faulkner does in many places. I don't find that there is a disconnect from one passage to the next, they are just chopped apart. So instead of fragmented style, I'll call this a chopped style. I find it curious and I'm trying to understand what it implies. It certainly makes it rhythmic. And the more one reads, the more suspence one feels. In the more intense parts that come after this, I couldn't stop. I had to get to the next chopped off section. Any thoughts?

[HerGuardian]

I felt the same way about connecting it to the Lord of the Flies, especially that I read it two months ago. It's interesting how you sense the descending of humans into animalism and how you feel the horror and darkness throughout the novel. Cormac's style is very beautiful in setting the conditions and directing you towards what he wants without stating that directly.
It's true. His short paragraphs with run-on sentences, short phrases and within-paragraph dialogues are very notable. You fell the poetic style in many passages.
I mostly liked the dialogues. I keep reading fast till I come across a dialogue and slow down. Without words of love or respect, you can feel how the man and the boy love and respect each others strongly. Also, it's obvious that towards the end, the dialogues became longer, in a sense, and more emotional.

[Tersely]

(About 1/2 way at this point..)

You could also say the way it's written is because of the conditions that the father and son are exposed to. Short, precise, and to the point. If they are walking around in a post-apocalyptic world, would the father give winding details and stories about times past or what it means to be engaged in survival of the fittest? Why it's good to want to help everyone but that's all in the past now and we must focus on our futures, which generally means keeping away from everyone in sight? How could a young child after being sheltered absorb that change?
I think the style of writing is a good way to tie in events and feelings from the story. The father ultimately most of the time gives him short, blunt answers, only answering as vague as he possibly can sometimes. He's more worried about preserving the sons life, not stopping to explain why it's now too dangerous to do what most would have done before the mass destruction.
It's different, and I'm completely engaged.

[Hira]

Agree with everyone above.

I felt a thudding, clanging quality in the sentences when I read them. Perhaps they are meant to convey the utter finality, the hopelessness of the disaster. Of the situation they were in.

I love also the father-son relationship in the book. How the man reserved all his energies into saving his son and how it became his only hope, his only mission, so to speak, in that desolate world.

And it is curious they are always referred to by ‘man’ and ‘boy’.

I find it very haunting, humankind returning to its basest instincts. How far can we go for survival? And why was it that ‘the man’ or the other ‘good guys’ never felt it inside themselves to go that cannibalistic way, coz they ‘had the fire in them’ as the father said to his son? It was heart-wrenching to read the boy begging his father to help the man (and at another point about helping another boy he saw), and his father explaining about not being able to do anything. Its all very interesting, the question of whether in the most desperate of circumstances, is it still possible to help others in a selfless, altruistic way.

When I first finished it, it felt very terrifying, seemed so imminent, all of it. For a moment, I was glad to see the blue sky outside. McCarthy made it seem so real.

Anyway, I am going to try re-reading a bit again after I am done with my exam on Saturday.

[Virgil]

I felt a thudding, clanging quality in the sentences when I read them. Perhaps they are meant to convey the utter finality, the hopelessness of the disaster. Of the situation they were in.

That is exactly how I felt about the sentences. McCarthy can be so lyrical at times, but it's very sparing in this novel. "Thudding," "clanging" are perfect ways to describe it. It kind of echoes the paragraph style that I called choppy above. I'll give some more examples tonight when I get home.

I love also the father-son relationship in the book. How the man reserved all his energies into saving his son and how it became his only hope, his only mission, so to speak, in that desolate world.

That is marvelous, and it's what makes the novel. McCarthy could have written a novel about a solo guy and that might have been interesting, but I think it would not have been as powerful.

Two other literary allusions I think come to mind with this novel, both famous American novels. One is Huckleberry Finn, where Jim and Huck travel down the Mississippi river. The other is Jack Kerourac's On The Road. This novel i think stands in contra-distinction to those works. Huck Finn relates to this novel in the sense that a boy and a man travel alone and are faced with moral choices. McCarthy's work I think is a more pessimistic work (though I've only read two thirds of the book so far and have no idea how it ends at this point) than Huck Finn. At least nature in Huck Finn is something that can find sustenance and morality. Not sure there is any in The Road. Kerouac's work is an interesting contrast. It too has the road as the central defining feature of the novel and there is also a pair of friends on a journey. But with Kerouac the adventure is of self fullment, a journey to the heart of one's self, while here the journey is shear survival.

And it is curious they are always referred to by ‘man’ and ‘boy’.

Yes, the only name I've encountered so far was that of that old man, and then he tells us it's not his real name.

I find it very haunting, humankind returning to its basest instincts. How far can we go for survival? And why was it that ‘the man’ or the other ‘good guys’ never felt it inside themselves to go that cannibalistic way, coz they ‘had the fire in them’ as the father said to his son? It was heart-wrenching to read the boy begging his father to help the man (and at another point about helping another boy he saw), and his father explaining about not being able to do anything. Its all very interesting, the question of whether in the most desperate of circumstances, is it still possible to help others in a selfless, altruistic way.

When I first finished it, it felt very terrifying, seemed so imminent, all of it. For a moment, I was glad to see the blue sky outside. McCarthy made it seem so real.

Anyway, I am going to try re-reading a bit again after I am done with my exam on Saturday.

I can't wait to finish it. Normally I'm a slow reader, but i'm flying through this one. I may re-read it again too afterwards.

[motherhubbard]

I finished the book this afternoon. I cried. I hope I have time to talk about it tomorrow.

[Virgil]

Here's another passage I find fascinating. It's the flash back passage of the last day with his wife. And that's when he and the boy start down the road, and he has another fashback to the boy's birth.

We’re survivors he told her across the flame of the lamp.
Survivors? she said.
Yes.
What in God’s name are you talking about? We’re not survivors. We’re the walking dead in a horror film.
I’m begging you.
I don’t care. I don’t care if you cry. It doesn’t mean anything to me.
Please.
Stop it.
I’m begging you. I’ll do anything.
Such as what? I should have done it a long time ago. When there were three bullets in the gun instead of two. I was stupid. We’ve been all over this. I didn’t bring myself to this. I was brought. And now I’m done. I thought about not even telling you. That would probably been best. You have two bullets and then what? You cant protect us. You say you would die for us but what good is that? I’d take him with me if it weren’t for you. You know I would. It’s the right thing to do.
You’re talking crazy.
No, I’m speaking the truth. Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you wont face it. You’d rather wait for it to happen. But I cant. I cant. She sat there smoking a slender length of dried grapevine as if it were some rare cheroot. Holding it with a certain elegance, her other hand across her knees where she’d drawn them up. She watched him across the small flame. We used to talk about death, she said. We don’t anymore. Why is that?
I don’t know.
It’s because it’s here. There’s nothing left to talk about.
I wouldn’t leave you.
I don’t care. It’s meaningless. You can think of me as a faithless slut if you like. I’ve taken a new lover. He can give me what you cannot.
Death is not a lover.
Oh yes he is.
Please don’t do this.
I’m sorry.
I cant do it alone.
Then don’t. I cant help you. They say that women dream of danger to those in their care and men of danger to themselves. But I don’t dream at all. You say you cant? Then don’t do it. That’s all. Because I’m done with my own whorish heart and I have been for a long time. You talk about taking a stand but there is no stand to take. My heart was ripped out of me the night he was born so don’t ask for sorrow now. There is none. Maybe you’ll be good at this. I doubt it, but who knows. The one thing I can tell you is you wont survive for yourself. I know because I would never have come this far. A person who had no one would be wel advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each fathom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.
He didn’t answer.
You have no argument because there is none.
Will you tell him goodbye.
No I will not.
Just wait till morning. Please.
I have to go.
She had already stood up.
For the love of God, woman. What am I to tell him?
I cant help you.
Where are you going to go? You cant even see.
I don’t have to.
He stood up. I’m begging you, he said.
No. I will not. I cannot.


She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift. She would do it with a flake of obsidian. He’d taught her himself. Sharper than steel. The edge an atom thick. And she was right. There was no argument. The hundred nights they’d sat up debating the pros and cons of self destruction with the earnestness of philosophers chained to a madhouse wall. In the morning the boy said nothing at all and when they were packed and ready to set out upon the road he turned and looked back at their campsite and he said: She’s gone isn’t she? And he said: Yes, she is.


Always so deliberate, hardly surprised by the most outlandish advents. A creation perfectly evolved to meet its own end. They sat at the window and ate in their robes by candlelight a midnight supper and watched distant cities burn. A few nights later she gave birth in their bed by the light of a drycell lamp. Gloves meant for dishwashing. The improbable appearance of the small crown of the head. Streaked with blood and lank black hair. The rank meconium. Her cries meant nothing to him. Beyond the window just the gathering cold, the fires on the horizon. He held aloft the scrawny red body so raw and naked and cut the cord with kitchen shears and wrapped his son in a towel.

There's a lot here that's relevant to the novel. This is probably (I still have about a quarter of the book to finish, so I could be proven wrong) the only passage with a woman character, and McCarthy clearly makes her a defeatist. Of course she may be proven a realist. How we interpret this passage depends a lot on the conclusion of the novel. But what's striking is that man and woman seem to be delineated as archetypical. It seems to be saying that this is a woman's point of view and that is a man's point of view and that there is something innate about it. Like most of the novel there is no individuality. What individuality exists is simple, man, woman, old man, boy, good guys, bad guys. Another motif that comes up is that of dreams. At a number of places in the novel both the boy and the man experience dreams. Notice what the woman says at one point: "They say that women dream of danger to those in their care and men of danger to themselves. But I don’t dream at all." Now I'm not sure what to make of that rght now, but dreams do figure prominantly. Another motif that comes up is the child. Chldren come up in a few places, besides of course the boy. What does the child signify? Innocence? Continuity? Family bonds?

[motherhubbard]

We hear stories of shipwreck or other extreme situations where people have to make a choice. To survive they must become cannibals. It is very hard to think of. I know that it is a common practice among some cultures to eat their dead. It’s not part of my culture and so it certainly sounds horrific.

Some of the people in this story lost all humanity. They lived to satisfy their own needs or wants if possible. In that respect the world may be more like the book than the landscape suggest. I feel that it would be better to be dead than to loose one‘s humanity. I suppose that either way it is really death. Is humanity something that can be regained once it has been lost? I don’t think so. I think it would be hard to live with the monsters of one’s past if humanity returned.

I admired the man. He did his best. I think the flame they kept was their humanity.

Another motif that comes up is the child. Chldren come up in a few places, besides of course the boy. What does the child signify? Innocence? Continuity? Family bonds?

children are the future. To the man this child held the universe; he was deity. Every hope not just for this man but also for the world was bound up in this boy. If the child survives so does he, so does the past, so does the future. The boy was everything good found in mankind.