The novel 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy, published in 2006, is the story of a father and his son trying to survive in a hostile environment.
The world they live in is hostile in terms of nature and society. Nature has been destroyed completely, and because of that society is in pieces, everybody fights for survival, marauding bands of looters, robbers and man-eaters make the main characters' trip a nightmare.
It would be wrong, however, to read this book as a dystopia as the cause of the disaster is not mentioned. It may have been man-made (nuclear war) or natural (meteorite). A dystopia would not have kept the reader in the dark about that. In dystopian novels the author extrapolates from current trends that worry him or her; usually a warning is issued what the world may come to if these trends should continue. Totalitarianism, uncritical belief in science, human hubris, religious fundamentalism, the destruction of the environment are frequent topics.
There is nothing of that kind of warning in 'The Road'. True, the world has become bleak and hostile but this scenario is only needed as a setting, maybe a metaphor of the society the characters (we?) live in. In this setting of extremes McCarthy can develop his (partly) heart-warming story of father and son on the road towards survival, perhaps salvation.
The earth is dark, cold and rainy, nothing grows any more, there is starvation, people are sick and the hearts of many have hardened. A world like this does not seem to have any more room for ethic, let alone altruistic behaviour. Yet father and son refuse to behave unethically, they want to be 'the good ones', most of all the son, whose insistence on altruism may seem a bit romanticized, especially in the face of the dangers compassion with one's fellow-sufferers entails in such a destabilized society where you can trust no one. At the end of their journey both father and son have learned valuable lessons from each other, and love, which seems to have died out elsewhere, is the motivating force that keeps them going.
As bleak as the earth is McCarthy's style. Short, simple sentences prevail, reflecting the barren environment. But instead of reading 'It was very cold' about three dozen times I should have liked a bit more description of just how cold it was.
Then there is a great deal of dialogue but quotation marks are missing. That makes it sometimes hard to understand who is speaking, which is a nuisance, in my opinion. I like to reread certain passages of the book for their content or the beauty of the language, not because I need to make sure who said what. Adding to this problem are the pronouns. There are no names given, the main characters are called 'father' and 'son', but often not even that, but just 'he'. That may become confusing, especially when the two meet other (male) people. Isn't the first thing you teach a writing class to mind their pronouns?
These flaws may bother some people more than others, I was somewhat put off by them. But there was compensation: beautiful, even poetic, passages that show McCormac's mastery of language.
On the whole, reading 'The Road' was not a waste of time. It may not be the author's masterpiece but if you do not read it as a dystopia and once you get used to punctuation and pronouns, it is well worth reading.
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I meant to do that and then forgot because I had some problem posting the review.
It was so sad (although he's been sick all the story through). It's a great read!
Originally Posted by John Goodman
