Summary: Violence, in McCarthy's postapocalyptic tour de force, has been visited worldwide in the form of a "long shear of light and then a series of low concussions" that leaves cities and forests burned, birds and fish dead and the earth shrouded in gray clouds of ash. In this landscape, an unnamed man and his young son journey down a road to get to the sea. (The man's wife, who gave birth to the boy after calamity struck, has killed herself.) They carry blankets and scavenged food in a shopping cart, and the man is armed with a revolver loaded with his last two bullets. Beyond the ever-present possibility of starvation lies the threat of roving bands of cannibalistic thugs. The man assures the boy that the two of them are "good guys," but from the way his father treats other stray survivors the boy sees that his father has turned into an amoral survivalist, tenuously attached to the morality of the past by his fierce love for his son. McCarthy establishes himself here as the closest thing in American literature to an Old Testament prophet, trolling the blackest registers of human emotion to create a haunting and grim novel about civilization's slow death after the power goes out.My Review: This book received a lot of hype, especially for being on Oprah's Book Club, however I did not see it. The book was okay, it just did not live up to the expectations. I liked the relationship that the father and son had, but besides that the book did not explain to me why it was the end of civilization...that question just bothered me the whole time I read the book. But, overall, it was an okay read, and to be honest the movie trailer below looks better than the book lol...that rarely happens right? Usually the book is better than the movie...
My Rating: 3 out of 5
Author's Website: http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/
Purchase it at: Amazon.com
The movie 'The Road' comes out October 2009 -- below is the trailer..
3 comments:
Thanks for the honest review. I probaby won't read this book. I had never heard of it before.
I didn't like it much either, and I'm a big fan of McCarthy. If an unkown would have written it, I wonder if it ever would have seen the light of publication.
Have you ever read John Montfort Gist? His newest novel, "A Clearing of the Way" is fantastic. He deserves more attention, so I'm plugging it for him. I think he lives in New Mexico somewhere.
Alice
No I haven't heard of it, I'll look into it, I can tell from 'The Road' that he's a good writer it just was lacking substance for me...but I'll def. look into Gist's novel..thanks for recommending it! ;D
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