The Road in Reading with Style

Apr 16, 2009 Bucket rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: experimental, literary, life-and-death, reviewed, dystopia, good-v-evil, pulitzer-winners, fate-chance

While the descriptive style here is very poetic (sometimes successfully and sometimes overblown) the story itself, along with the dialogue, is quiet and spare with the occasional terrifying moment that passes quickly, but is made even scarier by the quickness of its passing and the long pages of slow scavenging, walking, freezing, and starving in between.

The characters are relatively undeveloped, but considering the situation they are in I actually think this was a good choice on the author's p While the descriptive style here is very poetic (sometimes successfully and sometimes overblown) the story itself, along with the dialogue, is quiet and spare with the occasional terrifying moment that passes quickly, but is made even scarier by the quickness of its passing and the long pages of slow scavenging, walking, freezing, and starving in between.

The characters are relatively undeveloped, but considering the situation they are in I actually think this was a good choice on the author's part. The two are virtually the only characters in the book, and having spent every moment together for many years (and, in the son's case, basically never knowing any other person besides his father) the two are naturally very similar, in manner and personality allowing the little development there is to encompasses them both.

That said, one difference stands out: the boy's kindness and love for other people despite his all-encompassing fear. He is ready and willing to sacrifice for others, while his father is only ready to sacrifice for his son.

As I said, some of the style works well. I loved the description of father and son as "each other's world entire." I also loved this thought of the father's as he thumbs through a pile of wet, bloated books in a house:

"He'd not have thought the value of the smallest thing predicated on a world to come."

This struck me as something I'd never really thought about in quite this way - that something like a book only matters because there is a future.

Other lines border on cliche ("We forget what we want to remember and remember what we want to forget") and the occasional metaphor is jarring considering the context (one that comes to mind is when the pair are walking through a house like nervous potential buyers, or something like that).

I also felt that the father and son got a little too lucky sometimes, with what they need appearing in the nick of time, particularly at the very end. The author knows he takes advantage of this too - there is occasional mention of their luck and I was a little disappointed that the author didn't toss away the crutch instead of acknowledging it.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed the book. It was a quick read, hard to put down, and hauntingly quiet.

Themes: dystopia, journey, parent/child relationship, survival, fear, good vs. evil ...more

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Nov 27, 2010 Tien rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, usa

I thought how boring could it be, when I first read the description, it's only about a man and his son trudging along 'The Road' post-apocalyptic... Err, nothing really happens and there ain't really anybody else. But how did such a book get such a fantastic reception from the world?

Well, I couldn't be totally completely wrong, nothing really happened and there really isn't anybody else out there BUT... descriptions of the post-apocalyptic world and one's feelings and of the relationship of fath ...more

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Jan 10, 2010 Jules rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, 2010, postmodernism

How do you say anything about this book? It definitely packs a punch - or several, for that matter. I found the bare prose, with its use of incomplete sentences and the lack of punctuation, intense and haunting, perfectly complementing the post-apocalyptic setting. The fragmented nature of the scenes and the disconnectedness the reader encounters throughout the story just adds to this feeling of an intimate connection, as unlikely as it may sound. The humanity in these inhuman surroundings visib ...more

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