The Road (Oprah's Book Club) | Cormac McCarthy

The Road (Oprah's Book Club) | Cormac McCarthy | Savage and Beautiful

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The Road (Oprah's ...

	The Road (Oprah's Book Club) Cormac McCarthy Vintage Books, 2007 - 287 pages average customer review:based on 1588 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Excellent

A sparse and heartbreaking journey into desperation and fear. This is a searing novel about the symbols, by-ways and inherent sadness of survival. I'm reminded of the old cliche in music -- in so far that this book is genius for all the notes the author _didn't_ play.

Savage and Beautiful

The Road is one of the best works of fiction I have read in many years. It is a story of raw physical survival. While the catastrophe which occurred is never named, the description fits perfectly that of the "nuclear winter" predicted by scientists to follow a nuclear war. This is not however, a postapocalyptic vision in the tradition of "Mad Max" and a hundred other B movies. It is a realistic view of a father's love for his young son, and the things he must do to try to protect him and keep him alive in this nightmare landscape. At once stark, disturbing, heartbreaking, beautiful, and thought provoking, it is a story which has lingered in my mind long after finishing it.

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This Book Will Break Your Heart in All the Right Ways

I read this book on a reccomendation by a friend who knew I love well thought out, not action-type post-apocalyptic literature. I was surprised it was by this author, knowing of his past works, and was skeptical going in. I was very wrong! We begin in the middle of a desolate life in a desolate world with two characters struggling every day of their miserable lives to survive and continue on. The decisions and confrontations they face literally made me put the book down a few times to simple let the information process and resound within me. Maybe many of us feel that, in the event of war such as this, that in the aftermath we could survive but this book takes into account the reality of what that world would look like - no food, slow death by radiation, and what becomes of a society that is forced to live in a future without said food and the constant reality of fighting for the last resources, the unreplacable canned food stashes, and the choice of cannibalism.

As a tale of father and son, it is also quite remarkable - the choices a parent would be forced to make, while trying to shield ones children from the horrific reality that exists all around.

If I have one criticism, it is in how the book is wrapped up - I won't give anything away, but it just seemed a little contrived and not very realistic - in fact, it was almost as if the author himself couldn't face the reality of the situation.

Good, haunting, thought provoking work.

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A Briliant Trek Into Desolation

Being a lover of all things post-apocalyptic, be they movies (Children of Men, Handmaid's Tale) or books (Oryx and Crake) and also of McCarthy's spare but rich writing, this book did not disappoint. Told in short, lush sentences--like a parched throat overwhelmed by a single draught of water--the book journeys across the seared and destroyed country with one man and his son, both holding up and questioning moral absolutism in various forms (killing people for the purpose of eating them is wrong, killing people to protect yourself is acceptable.)

It explores the nature of love and how it appears from various perspectives. What can appear as selfishness or cruelty to one person is love to another. What could lead to death or endangerment is love for yet another. As with the main characters and their journey, there is no map or compass given to the reader with which to navigate human nature.

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