"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy Review

        "The Road" Review

Basic Info:

Originally Published: September 26, 2006

Genres: Post-Apocalyptic fiction

Page Count: 287

The Road is a 2006 novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. It is a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed most of civilization and, in the intervening years, almost all life on Earth. The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006. The book was adapted to a film by the same name in 2009, directed by John Hillcoat. (Source :Wikipedia)

Review:

"The Road" is without doubt one of the best, saddest, and most symbolic books I've ever read, rivalled only by "The Lord of the Rings". Its power is nearly indescribable, but I'll do my best.

Cormac McCarthy has already written pretty many books, the most famous being "Blood Meridian", which has been called the moby dick of our age, "The Road", which is probably his most famous, and "No Country for Old Men", which got its most prestige from the movie.

I'm a hardened reader, but this brought tears to my eyes. The sheer hopelessness, and the titanic scale of the world is overwhelming. 

Unnamed man and his son walk through a burnt and ravaged landscape, where anything of everything is scarce, and it is always perpetually cold. Not even theocean is blue, its grey. Every minute in this world is suffering, and most people have either died or commited suicide. Most of the people who survive have turned to cannibalism, eating and robbing people who are on the road, so not even your fellow human is to be trusted; on the contrary, they are the most dangerous thing on the road.

Let's examine some of the symbolism found in plenty in this gem of a book. For example,the road: Highways and interstates (and some minor roads) comprise the setting of this novel. (The characters do stop at a few houses, but these function as pauses in their journey.) The characters spend so much time on the road – and McCarthy describes the road so well – that it hovers over the novel as a major image. The road is a desolate, transient thing, full of danger. In fact, it's probably useful to think of the road as both an actual, physical setting and a mental state.

Before I conclue let me just say that this book is NOT for kids: It's way too dark, scary, intense, and also heavily brutal. If "Blood Meridian" is one of the most brutal books ever written, then you can imagine the brutality here: Its not too often but when it comes its HEAVY! (I'll try to post the Parents Guide of "The Road" as soon as I can, so stay tuned!)