writing style

[Jane]

I thought the writing reflected the way the world had been reduced to bare bones. They were in a deadened state and without good expectations. Yet, what I was left with at the end was that even so, the father was hopeful for his son.

[Richard]

really? SPOILERS - or was the father leaving his son with hope whereas his son is immediately picked up by cannibals?

do the family at the end take the boy in or kill him and eat him?

[Drew]

Wow. Nice twist. I read it the hopeful way.

[Deb Obrien]

hmmmm....never thought of it that way, Sandyboy.

[Richard]

SPOILERS AGAINS - most of the folk i know read it that the son was taken by a family of cannibals at the end. i didn't as it was such a relief to have hope at the end, but in retrospect it would be an astonishing leap to suddenly find a nice noble family after meeting cannibals and desperate people all the way through

[Rodney]

I didn't get the impression that it was a family of cannibals at all. I saw that scene as a fitting end in that it was sort of "the light at the end of the tunnel". Proabably the longest, darkest tunnel we've encountered in a book. The odds of the boy's survival were still slim to none, however.

[Ignacio]

Jane wrote: "I thought the writing reflected the way the world had been reduced to bare bones. They were in a deadened state and without good expectations. Yet, what I was left with at the end was that even s..."

Well, I think something like that: McCarthy has a rough prose in wich he reveals a poetic coldness. It's too clear, too direct, as if the writing had died with the desolation of the novel.

[Zirk]

McCarthy has style. Few do.

[Andor]

SPOILER
I don't think the stranger and his family at the end were cannibals. There are a few lines suggesting that.

"There was some discussion about whether to even come after you at all"
"If you stay you need to keep out of the road. I dont know how you made it this far."

And one simple line that I think suggest that they got along at least for a while, and that they probably weren't cannibals:

"She would talk to him sometimes about God. He tried to talk to God but the best thing was to talk to his father and he did talk to him and he didnt forget."

[Cam]

There's that statement about God but there's also the scene in which the strange man promises the boy that he'll leave the boy's father covered with one blanket and the boy goes back to check and that's what the father of the family has done. He also refuses to take the boy's gun when he offers it to him. I think those are ways for McCarthy to indicate that the family could be trusted. BTW, McCarthy gave his approval to the movie after seeing it with the director in a private screening. In the movie, they indicated the reliability of the family by showing them with a dog, because it was easier and quicker for the audience and indicated that they didn't even eat their pets. If McCarthy thought that was OK, I doubt that he thought the couple at end were cannibals. That doesn't mean, however, that the boy and the family survived, only that a few other decent people have survived so far.

[May]

Very lyrical like poetry.
I like how there are no speech marks: it reflects the state of the country itself; like without life/energy.

[Alonzo]

Well said, Andor and Zoe. Sandyboy, if you read it closely throughout, *SPOILERS* you'll notice that the boy always has hope for human contact(he even runs off once when he sees a little boy in a town). It's the father who is negative and refuses to believe that anyone is good anymore. This, I believe reflects cynicism that often comes with age. There is the fear (which almost wins in the boy) that they could be cannibals, but if so, why didn't they just kill him and eat him right there? Why did they allow him to talk to god and to his father? Andor mentioned that last bit, "and he didnt forget." The boy had to live, to carry the fire. A recurring theme in McCarthy's work.

McCarthy's lean prose does reflect, as well as convey, the bleakness of the situation. I have often noticed the idea of Fate in McCarthy's writings, and it is not missing here. This book looks at life in all of its ugliness and its beauty, in its abundance and its lack. And McCarthy's writing style nails it in each of these contrasts. The style allows the reader to feel the fear, the anger at the situation, the rejoicing in the serendipitous discovery, and also, only slightly, the hope that the boy carries throughout the entire work.

It is truly an ugly, beautiful, powerful book.

[[deleted user]]

I thought the work was simply a masterpiece. The writing captured precisely the man's fear and his love for his son and the prose with which McCarthy wrote of their story stripped down the language to the barest of essentials, which through it all was all these two had to carry with them to survive. Perfect story. Perfect testament to a father's love and a child's lost innocence and found courage. Brutally wonderful book.

[May]

Yes, I don't believe the boy was led into a trap either.
The mention of the trout at the end was lovely.

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not to be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.

I think this quote is a hint that all ended well. What do you all think?

[John]

Reminds me of Hemmingway's Nick Adams stories.

[Georg]

i like the dry voice of mccarthy. offish, skimpy, and yet so full of goodness - at times.

for me the boy is safe. i never ever, not in my harshest fantasies had the idea it might be a family of cannibals. the book is not about desolation and the end of all but about hope.

[Richard]

i'd like to believe the boy is safe, but given the atrocity he has come through it seems almost a bit Disney to assume that the family he meets once his father has died are well intentioned.

of the 20 odd folk i have foisted the book on a good 10 of them immediately assumed that the boy is eaten come the end. i leant the other way, i wanted him safe and sheltered

it's a shattering book. one i wouldn't revisit

[Dustin]

IF the family were cannibals why the theatrics? Why not pop the kid, take the father's corpse to eat and be done with it? Even if they took him to eat later there wouldn't be any purpose in lying to him. He was just a kid. The father could easily have subdued him.

[May]

John wrote: "Reminds me of Hemmingway's Nick Adams stories."

yes!! definitely

[Beth]

"In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery." as May says I take this last segment as pointing towards a new way of living, into which the boy is born after his father dies.

The language is so beautifully lyrical, but I will admit that I got about 1/3 in and had to read the ending first because it was going to be too much for me to continue if I thought they were both to be sacrificed.

[AndrewJL]

I love the way that McCarthy's prose reflects the desolate state of the post-apocalyptic world. Quotation marks and chapters are institutions developed by a highly evolved culture; thus by removing these extraneous literary conventions, McCarthy impresses upon the reader the loss of connection to refined society.

[Vanessa]

Very interesting comments. McCarthy's style in this novel is cold and harsh, but I found painted a perfect portrait of that place. The imagery was horrifying and yet I had to keep reading. I disagree that the family at the end was luring the boy to an evil fate, as I felt that I was supposed to trust in the boy at that moment who was always rooting for goodness, insisting on the being the good guy even when it went against his father's better judgement, however, the great thing about literature is that it is open for the audience to interpret it through his own eyes.

[Lucy]

The entire book was so bleak and hopeless that it was rather strange to try and interpret the ending as anything but that.

However, after mulling over it for a few days, I do think that the boy was accepted into a 'good guy' family. The woman who spoke of God, the man who was uncharacteristically kind (yet still cautious) to the boy, the children and the pet all indicate a family that has not succumbed like the 'bad guys'.

However, the last paragraph indicated to me of the far future where all humans have died, but leaving a core history of the world and a spark of new life and a new beginning. Still rather bleak.

[Steve]

The moms attitude towards the father. Does she think he is strong, weak or both?

[marquie]

'The Road' is like a conglomeration of Edgar Allen Poe's ethereal haunting prose (like in 'The House of The Usher) and Ernest Hemingway's spare minimalism. Nevertheless, I feel as though the prose would have fared better if there were less descriptions of the trees and whatnot, and the focus shifted to the emotions of the protagonists. I understand that whilst some people may argue that their emotions may have been reflected and rendered within the description of their surroundings, sometimes - this wasn't clearly conveyed. The writing was beautiful however, and although I wouldn't say that it was the best book I've ever read - it did have a haunting, somewhat ethereal effect on the reader