Book Review: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Title: The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Release date: September 26, 2006
I’m one of those annoying book snobs where I typically try my best to read the book before seeing the movie. There’s been a few slips over the years (The Ritual by Adam Nevill being one – but I love both the book and the movie and tonally, the book and movie are not far off from this book/movie here), but back in 2008 when I saw the first trailer for the movie The Road, and saw that it was based on McCarthy’s book, I snagged it and dove in. I was, frankly, afraid to read this one. Not because I knew it was going to destroy me – which it did – but because it was McCarthy and it was so lauded as this phenomenal piece of literature. I’ve talked previously of not considering myself a ‘smart reader.’ If the prose is too purple and the phrases too thesaurus-y for me, I’m typically going to zone out and not tune back in.
But, McCarthy’s story of a father and son at the end of the world doesn’t suffer from that. Instead it’s a delicate tale of losing hope and struggling to survive.
I’ve been wanting to re-read this for some time, but remembering how much the book and movie crushed me, I didn’t know if I could handle it. Things in my life have changed considerably. Back then, it was just me, my wife and our dog. We didn’t have much in the way of stress (other than student loan payments) and we tried our best to enjoy life as much as we could.
Now, it’s me, my wife, a new dog and our son. A boy who we were never supposed to have and who, for six minutes at his arrival, didn’t have. No vitals, no response, no signs of life. I won’t get more into it, other than they miraculously brought him back and he’s here with us today.
Going in, I wondered if I could emotionally handle this. I’ve gone through therapy and counselling and have tools in place to deal with the PTSD associated with what happened to him and my wife (she was also gone for almost ten minutes), but I remembered some of what McCarthy accomplishes, and that alone was enough to petrify me once again.
What I liked: As mentioned, the story follows a father and son, as they walk towards the coast in the hopes of finding somewhere safe and stable. The world as we know it has ended, the surface scorched, the oceans boiled and a steady downfall of ash, rain and snow greet each day. Food is scarce, humans scarcer and all the while the father desperately tries to hold onto hope that he will find somewhere for his son.
I’m in no position to comment on McCarthy’s writing ability, other than to say, as the story goes on he does such a phenomenal job of slowly and methodically making things darker and bleaker. From descriptive words, to the descriptions of the characters to the way the environment around them is treated. It’s masterful and shows the beauty and brutality of words.
The ending of this one is just heartbreaking. I bawled like I the source of water for Niagara Falls. To make it even worse, I finished this while my son was gently snoring away beside me in bed. I gave him a squeeze – not enough to wake him – but enough that I could subtlety tell him that I would do whatever it took to make sure he was safe if we were ever in that position.
What I didn’t like: I’m a bit of a hypocrite here saying what I didn’t like, as I’m frequently guilty of this in my own work, but I do wish we would’ve learned more about the extra stuff. More about the mom and her ultimate reasons for disappearing. More about the end of the world events and how things go to where it is. Ultimately, it does work really well because it makes everything feel bleaker and hopeless, but even a few snippets would’ve been great.
Why you should buy this: If you’ve not read this yet, I would highly recommend you give it a go. The prose is powerful and accessible, while the characters – even the random secondary scavenger characters – feel real and fill the spaces they occupy with considerable tension.
This one is a book that I don’t believe I could ever revisit again, but one that’ll remain with me for the rest of my days.
5/5
