The Road is the alternately gruesome and beautifully emotional story of a father and his son's struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. At times its intensity was enough to cause my feet to sweat - a telling sign of a gripping book. As a father, I could relate to both the man's commitment to his child and the utter fear and despair hidden under a veneer of steely resolve.
Cormac McCarthey offers just a few glimpses into life before whatever cataclysmic event left the Earth a scorched and brutal place. The reader is never quite certain how long the man and boy have been out on the road fighting for survival, or even of the boy's age. While it left me wanting to know more about how they came to be on the road, I'm ultimately glad the author chose not to go there as it would have diluted the story.
His portrayal of the world left behind felt all-too-real, as one can only imagine the bulk of survivors would devolve into the brutal cannibalistic marauders the man and boy encounter along their way. Yet McCarthy left a sufficient trace of hope that if the world really were to end, there were be others like the man and boy who were "good guys carrying the fire."
This was the first book I'd read by McCarthy. In perusing some of the reviews here, I see a lot is made of his disregard for punctuation, i.e. no apostrophes or quotation marks, and traditional structure. That didn't bother me in the slightest (hell, I read Saramago) nor did it particularly impress me as some sort of artistic statement. I liked the short, simple writing, and thought it complemented the story but would occasionally be put off by seemingly nonsensical lines like, "The snow fell nor did it cease to fall." Still, it would be nitpicking to say much negative here, as I thoroughly enjoyed The Road and quickly tore through it. ]]>
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Justin Cremer
read and liked
Larissa's
review of Smilla's Sense of Snow:
"It took me two months to finish this book and not until the last three weeks and 150 pages of that endeavor did I realize that it is actually quite terrible. It's been quite awhile since I've felt so cheated, nay--betrayed--by a novel. Because when y...more "
"It took me two months to finish this book and not until the last three weeks and 150 pages of that endeavor did I realize that it is actually quite terrible. It's been quite awhile since I've felt so cheated, nay--betrayed--by a novel. Because when y...more "
"not really digging it thus far"
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bookshelves: to-read
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Tortilla Flat revolves around Danny and "the Friends," a collection of often-drunk drifters who lack in ambition but seem content in life. Steinbeck provides some beautiful passages and the story made me chuckle occasionally, but it never really grabbed me and will likely be soon forgotten.
It did nothing to diminish Steinbeck in my eyes, but this is just a run of the mill story and doesn't approach the greatness of his other works. ]]>