Die Straße

by Cormac McCarthy

book data

29031 ratings, 4.04 average rating, 8312 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		40%
4		34%
3		16%
2		5%
1		2%

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published

March 2007 (first published 2006) by Rowohlt, Reinbek

binding

Gebundene Ausgabe, 252 pages

isbn

3498045075 (isbn13: 9783498045074)

description

Was ist da bloß aus Amerika auf unsere Büchertische niedergegangen? Drüben bemühte man bereits alttestamentarische Vergleiche. McCarthys frühere,...more

[close] Was ist da bloß aus Amerika auf unsere Büchertische niedergegangen? Drüben bemühte man bereits alttestamentarische Vergleiche. McCarthys frühere, düstere Werke kündigten einen solchen Wurf schon länger an. Nun aber, angesichts dieses finsteren Kreuzweges eines Vaters und seines Jungen durch ein schwarz verregnetes Endzeitamerika, wirken sie wie harmlose Fingerübungen. McCarthys Vision der letzten Menschheitstage nimmt sich aus, als wären Die Nacht der lebenden Toten in einem wahnwitzigen Remix wiederauferstanden. Ein verstörendes Stück Literatur. Man erschauert! Und erwacht!

Die Wand, von Marlen Haushofer. Thomas Glavinics Die Arbeit der Nacht. Letzter Überlebender in einer menschenleeren Welt zu sein, dies Thema hat Autoren seit jeher fasziniert. Doch keiner hat diesen Zustand derart existenzialistisch eingedampft wie McCarthy. Kein Baum, kein Strauch, keine Kreatur. Übrig ist nichts als das nackte Dasein. Wir kennen nicht den Anlass der Katastrophe, die Amerika in den nuklearen Winter gestürzt hat. Bleiben ohne Orientierung. Nur dieses erbarmungswürdige Bild wird uns eingebrannt: Der namenlose Vater und sein kleiner Sohn, ihren Einkaufswagen mit den wenigen Habseligkeiten über menschenleere Highways unter ewigem Ascheregen südwärts schiebend, in der Hoffnung auf ein wenig Wärme. Die, man ahnt es, nicht mehr zu finden sein wird!

Aus diesen frostigen Zutaten meiselt McCarthy Bilder von schauerlicher Gültigkeit. Die ständige Gefahr umherirrender Marodeure, die, grausigen Jenseitsgestalten gleich, auf der Suche nach Essbarem alles menschliche Verhalten abgelegt haben. Der Revolver des Vaters. Die verbliebenen zwei Patronen. Unmerklich jongliert McCarthy mit der Frage, ob in dieser apokalyptischen Kälte noch irgendein gütiger Gott am Wachen sei. Und bietet ebenso unmerklich eine Antwort an. Den Vater, der seinen kleinen Sohn in eiskalter Nacht unter der Plane wärmend an sich drückt. Ihn beschützend bis zum Ende. Seine letzte große Aufgabe. Spätestens jetzt wissen wir, was wir vor uns haben. Keinen Bruce Willis, keine Science fiction (was manche Mainstream-gewohnten Leser enttäuschte), -- sondern die zarte Geschichte einer großen Liebe in einer unwirtlichen Welt. Und dies fast ohne Worte! -- Ravi Unger [close]

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Chris added it (review of isbn 0307265439)

09/22/07

Read in September, 2007

recommends it for: grown-ups

Once during the reading, toward the end, The Road made me sob in that dry way where no tears come but your body chokes spasmodically. By way of recommendation.

This is not a vast catalog of human lives, it is a thin line of experience traced by a man and a boy through a landscape as desolate as one of Anselm Kiefer's paintings for Paul Celan. Much is left out, and those blanks are The Road's strength. Voids in our knowledge of both past and present that bring us down in the skin of the tra...more Once during the reading, toward the end, The Road made me sob in that dry way where no tears come but your body chokes spasmodically. By way of recommendation.

This is not a vast catalog of human lives, it is a thin line of experience traced by a man and a boy through a landscape as desolate as one of Anselm Kiefer's paintings for Paul Celan. Much is left out, and those blanks are The Road's strength. Voids in our knowledge of both past and present that bring us down in the skin of the travelers, huddling with them near what's known.

Most of McCarthy's work takes place at the margins, depicting transient or dying worlds. This one like the rest, only the whole world is dying and not just a part. His huge effects, the depth and span of feeling, are helped by the distance in time, past or future, and the extreme circumstance that he renders, which allows his characters to act in antisocial ways. He prefers the antisocial to the social, and few bonds to many. Thus his stories are about small bands of folk. Those bands of men have manly conversations because McCarthy cannot or is not interested in writing females. And in general his prose leaks into his dialog and elevates it so much that we are left incredulous.

Most of the dialog between the man and the boy are fitting, but there are passages with other characters that stand out as hiatuses in taste that slipped by the editors: the conversation with the wife; the meal with the old blind man, a stock prophet full of imperfection and wisdom similar to the hermit in Blood Meridian; certain moments between man and boy: e.g. "There is no prophet in this earth's long chronicle who is not honored here today."

McCarthy has written a novel of suspense -- the reader hopes and fears almost unceasing with the pair; but those hopes and fears are often deceived, the heroes blindsided by events beyond their ken. The man spends the book worrying about his son -- that's the big driver, the son's innocence a foil to the world’s horrors. But even as the son is protected, he is growing up and away from the man into adulthood, when he will not be pure, just as the man no longer is. There is a goodness between men and their children, which smacks of nostalgia, that can disappear as those children break away. The man is saved here because McCarthy makes him die towards the end. The second, secret fear, then, which McCarthy saves his man from facing, is that of the son grown up.

The novel is not tightly coupled. One thing leads to another in a meandering way, and small mistakes do not result in huge catastrophes. The man and boy journey between disparate scenes like anyone on a long voyage, allowing McCarthy to introduce and drop elements as he does a kind of post-apocalyptic review of human nature.

There is a logic and language to basic objects useful for killing and repair that McCarthy employs as the tiny gears that move the novel forward. The wheels on the shopping cart they push break sometimes or do not. Implements are used in novel ways -- a spade becomes a crow bar; a flare gun becomes a weapon. Thus we are among things more than people, because the things lasted longer and McCarthy presumably likes them better.

One of the most horrifying aspects of this novel, aside from the cannibalism and baby-killing, was the font that Vintage chose for the paperback's page headers and numbers, some runelike monstrosity meant to evoke apocalypses. Another is the ending, which seems tacked on for the benefit of John Francis McCarthy, son of the author, and to whom the book is dedicated. In the last six pages of a 287-page book the boy is saved by a kind of mountain man ex machina belonging to a band of good guys of whom we've had no indication hitherto. Luckily, because those pages are at the end, it is a relatively simple affair to cut them out, and voila a much better book which one might sell on e-bay, fan fiction in reverse.
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Crystal marked it as to-read (review of isbn 0307265439)

08/19/08

bookshelves: to-read

Is it a sign of a good book when you can't stop thinking about it? When you can't get it out of your head...day and night? I spent about an hour reading this book over the course of two evenings and each night afterwards I had nightmares. And when I was up feeding my baby, I couldn't get one particular horrific scene out of my head. I had to go check on my kids in their beds. The following days after reading it, I felt hopeless, kind of despair and a little depressed. I promise I'm not a dr...more

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Yulia added it (review of isbn 0307387895)

05/09/08

bookshelves: repelled-by

Read in January, 2006

When I first heard about this book, I thought here's McCarthy's go at a cult-following, so his Oprah endorsement was no surprise. What better way to get mass interest than having a book about the apocalypse, human nature tested to the extreme, and more catastrophic wreckage than a summer blockbuster can offer. Yes, this book's success was no surprise. What did disappoint me was that the Pulitzer judges took it seriously, that they saw this as a work of significant writing as opposed to a prod...more

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Jason added it (review of isbn 0307265439)

11/09/07

Read in November, 2007

The Road is by far the darkest, bleakest book I have ever read. I don't recall ever reading a novel before that could darken my mood like this one. Now, that is not to say that it is not worthy. In fact, it's somewhat of a masterpiece, something they will read in school some day (though probably college, given the harsh subject matter and horrible situations). I have never read anything by Cormac McCarthy before. I thought (perhaps erroneously) he was something of a latter day Louis Lamour ... a...more

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Eric added it (review of isbn 0307387895)

09/01/08

Gave a voice to perseverance. The darkest thing I've ever read.I've thought about The Road for a couple of days now and I want to make it clear that I found nothing wrong with the book in style or substance. But I find I can't use words like, like or enjoyed. It was a good book, exotic in emotional scope and larger in meaning than I think words could do justice to. I looked at Mcarthys website to read his write up on "The Road" and gleanned nothing except that this was his most persona...more

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Lois added it (review of isbn 0307265439)

06/13/08

A Pulitzer Prize winner is almost a guaranteed yawn but this one won't let you go to bed. So how does the world end? You still won't know after you've stayed up all night reading the book, plus you're going to lose some more sleep-- worrying. Just worrying.

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Noreen added it (review of isbn 1585478938)

02/15/08

Read in January, 2008

Found it difficult to get into - style of writing unusual but once used to it, hard to put book down. Very thought provoking as it describes father and young son striving to survive as they make their way to the "coast" in post apocalyptic chaos

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Charles added it (review of isbn 0307265439)

09/03/08

depressingly compelling read. I can't wait to see how they fuck it up in the movie.

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Kristina added it (review of isbn 0307265439)

06/29/08

Read in June, 2008

recommended to Kristina by: Adam, Meg, Justin

I have decided not to rate this novel, because my appreciation for the book's merit and my own personal response to the novel do not correspond.

I can see that this book is well-written. There are certainly some startling, horrifying images. I can see why many people find the novel compelling and tense, as danger lurks everywhere for our two main characters. I also see why people find the relationship between the father and son touching. I know it is a good book.

But dare I admit in this p...more I have decided not to rate this novel, because my appreciation for the book's merit and my own personal response to the novel do not correspond.

I can see that this book is well-written. There are certainly some startling, horrifying images. I can see why many people find the novel compelling and tense, as danger lurks everywhere for our two main characters. I also see why people find the relationship between the father and son touching. I know it is a good book.

But dare I admit in this public forum that I was somewhat... bored? That the only reason I kept reading it, besides the fact that so many of my friends like it, is that it's short? My head may recognize its worth, but my heart just wasn't in it.

I felt there was a depth missing somehow. This could partially be do to the (appropriately) stark writing style. (This is the first McCarthy book I've ever read, and, interestingly, a professional review comments on the contrast in style between this and Blood Meridian, calling the latter "baroque" -- which I would probably prefer. I did, for the record, *love* the movie adaptation of No Country For Old Men.) I've never been a fan of sparse prose; it took me a long time to appreciate Hemingway, for example, and even now that I love some of his short stories, I don't imagine I'll pick up one of his novels anytime soon. My idea of good concise writing is Edith Wharton, for heaven's sake. I am the opposite of most modern readers: I like unwieldy books and lengthy sentences. It is a sickness, I grant you, but it's me. I just never felt sucked in by these characters, never felt like I could sink my teeth into the prose. (By the way, these vampiric references are somewhat appropriate; the novel has vampiric characters in a sense, though the novel itself is quite different from a vampire novel, which is itself typically unweildy and arguably overwritten, baroque.)

I feel like a bad person for not liking this book more. But what can you do? If anyone wants to take up the novel's cause, feel free to comment....less

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Gareth is currently reading it (review of isbn 0307265439)

02/28/08

bookshelves: currently-reading

Read in February, 2008

An Evening Redness in the West..

THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy

“I decline to accept the end of man,” stated William Faulkner.
Long after he himself has passed to dust, a writer often seen as Faulkner’s literary descendant now re-examines that unthinkable scenario - with somewhat less braggadocio.

A retching, sickly man and his fearful young son walk an empty freeway from a broken past to an unknowable future. Burnt out cars, skeletal trees and the smoke-enshrouded ruins of citie...more An Evening Redness in the West..

THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy

“I decline to accept the end of man,” stated William Faulkner.
Long after he himself has passed to dust, a writer often seen as Faulkner’s literary descendant now re-examines that unthinkable scenario - with somewhat less braggadocio.

A retching, sickly man and his fearful young son walk an empty freeway from a broken past to an unknowable future. Burnt out cars, skeletal trees and the smoke-enshrouded ruins of cities form their scenery. This is the underworld brought to life and father and son have become "each the other's world entire."
For those unfamiliar with Cormac McCarthy’s sparse style, archaic phrasing (he revives words long dead and buried, like ‘roofingtin’; ‘illcarved’) and backroads America landscapes, The Road might prove frustratingly inconclusive – you can’t classify it. It’s not a sci-fi, although it is a future-set tale of survival – two refugees following a road through the post-apocalyptic wastes.
You aren’t told how things came to be this way; only that one night there was a "long shear of light and then a series of low concussions.” That’s as much as you’re going to get by way of explanation. Plot is less important; the characters’ reactions to their circumstances are what matter. In fact, the unknowability of it all might unsettle the reader as much as it does the characters.
As father and son make their way, for no apparent reason, to the coast, they must scrounge for every morsel and fight off characters more desperate than themselves.
This theme of characters often as lost as the reader might feel, began in 1985 with Blood Meridian, a violent retelling of the Davy Crockett legend; it continued in the nightmarish The Orchard Keeper, then traveled on into McCarthy’s breakthrough Border Trilogy – which led to a film version of All The Pretty Horses. After that, this underground author gained notoriety and his next release, In the Country of Old Men, was snapped up for movie rights before it hit the shelves. A more accessible thriller of sorts, it disappointed some who had followed McCarthy’s slow, non-conformist journey from cult author to Oprah guest.
In The Road (also soon to film, with Viggo Mortensen), he reverts to form, with a slower, more introspective pace. The Road has a sense of timelessness – mythological, almost – grounded firmly in the landscapes his characters traverse.
In a story that might as easily have been set in the Dark Ages, events unfold with a directness and honesty that moves - without relying on sentimentality. McCarthy still shows how to communicate volumes in one sparse sentence. He remains, and covets, the loner character – a figure so isolated in his fictional world that only the reader is looking out for him. In The Road, it is this empathic force that could leave you with a catch in your throat and more surprisingly, given the bleakness of the author’s general outlook – a small sense of hope for humanity. – Gareth Pike

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Jo Ann marked it as to-read (review of isbn 0307265439)

11/15/07

bookshelves: to-read

Best known for his Border Trilogy, hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century," Cormac McCarthy has written ten rich and often brutal novels, including last year's bestselling No Country for Old Men, and this year's The Road. Profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose, The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, one of the best books we've read this year, but in case you need a second (and expert) opini...more Best known for his Border Trilogy, hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century," Cormac McCarthy has written ten rich and often brutal novels, including last year's bestselling No Country for Old Men, and this year's The Road. Profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose, The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, one of the best books we've read this year, but in case you need a second (and expert) opinion, we asked Dennis Lehane, author of equally rich, occasionally bleak and brutal novels, to read it and give us his take. Read his glowing review below. --Daphne Durham

<hr size="1"><span class="h1">Guest Reviewer: Dennis Lehane</span>

<span class="small">Dennis Lehane, master of the hard-boiled thriller, generated a cult following with his series about private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, wowed readers with the intense and gut-wrenching Mystic River, blew fans away with the mind-bending Shutter Island, and switches gears with Coronado, his new collection of gritty short stories (and one play). </span>

Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith. --Dennis Lehane

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michael spencer marked it as to-read (review of isbn 0307387895)

09/25/07

bookshelves: owned-to-reads, to-read

9/25: I'm sorry, but I have to put this down. It's too close. I can't handle it in my mind with everything else that's going on in my life right now. I am officially stopping on page 73 (there are no chapter breaks). I will let people know when I can come back to it. That might not be for a while.

9/23: The style is gritty and needs your full concentration. However, already I see shades of past genetic influence - only an Irishman could write, 'You forget what you want to remember, and you ...more

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Maria is currently reading it (review of isbn 0307265439)

08/13/07

bookshelves: currently-reading

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in July, 2007

This book haunted me--I keep coming back to it. Some of the visual images conjured up, in particular, the one of the dream-creature, with white spider-egg eyes, will stay with me permanently. I wonder what Cormac McCarthy's nightmares are like....Not an easy read, but powerful. Like sitting at the bedside of a terminally ill beloved. I thought it was rather amazing that McCarthy managed to create such a compelling narrative without very much actually happening. I couldn't stop reading it, even t...more

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Joan is currently reading it (review of isbn 0307265439)

11/30/08

bookshelves: currently-reading

Whew. I started this yesterday and am 20 pages to the end. What a journey. It's so engaging, yet not close to as dark as I expected. And McCarthy's simple style becomes poetic often; his language his own. It's all very real. And the father-son relationship strong and clear. It also leaves you with a huge desire to make sure the world doesn't come to that kind of end. I recommend it highly...even without knowing the ending.

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Michael added it (review of isbn 0307265439)

10/01/07

What happened? A nuclear disaster maybe? Then I saw a documentary about the volcano under Wyoming that is due to end the world either tomorrow or in 100K years. Or it could be a meteor strike.
I can see how anyone could say I am missing the point, that it does not matter. I disagree. What is wrong with the story making some minimal sense? If your premise is that the world is over and everything is covered with ash, why not use one sentence to say, "We think a big meteor hit Clevela...more

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Claire is currently reading it (review of isbn 0307265439)

12/02/08

bookshelves: currently-reading

I actually had to put this book down. Post-apocalyptic isn't for me, especially when reading about the world as a wasteland when you're riding the subways of NYC. Maybe I'll pick it up again later in life, but it's going to hang out on my bookshelf until then. Although, the connection between the father/son is a good element of the book.

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Christy added it (review of isbn 0307265439)

09/17/07

Read in September, 2007

I delayed reading this book - it sounded so bleak. I had read All the Pretty Horses and loved McCarthy's writing - stark, violent and great storytelling.

I read this in two sittings and was overwhelmed by the story, the writing, the care of getting all those details just right. Bleak, yes. Hopeless, no. The man's devotion to his son, the fierce gentleness and protection is just so real.

I truly appreciated more the convenience and gift of having food to eat - who knew canned peaches c...more

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Bob added it (review of isbn 0307265439)

11/24/08

I've written already about how great a writer McCarthy is. This book is even better than No Country. He paints a picture of a post-apocalyptic world and uses it to comment on human nature and good versus evil. Not for the faint of heart, but highly recommended.

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Katie added it (review of isbn 0307265439)

11/22/08

This book is CHILLING! I had nightmares reading this book...McCarthy is an amazing author. This book will stick with me for a long time. Don't want to give anything away with this review, but if you can stomach futuristic world-view of the Apocalypse then read on!

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Joslyn added it (review of isbn 0307265439)

02/07/08

Read in February, 2008

I don't usually like books that are depressing and can't possibly have a happy ending. This one kind of did though, in a weird way, even though it is about a father and son trying to survive in a brutal, heartless world in the aftermath of what I guess was a nuclear holocaust. This is the kind of book they will be reading in high school English classes in 50 years and calling it a "classic". It is so well written. It reminds me of the title of another book that I want to read called &q...more

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