Got this book for Christmas, which is funny because I had picked it up in a bookstore and thought it looked interested but ended up not buying it. So I lucked out and ended up having it anyway. Just finished reading it, really interesting book. Its about a father and son, neither of which are named at anypoint in the book, wandering through the world after what seems to have been global thermonuclear war. The world is completely destroyed. The inside flap of the dust jacket says that they are walking through "burnt America", which says it all. Everything everywhere is completely burned out. There event happened in the man's lifetime, when his wife was pregnant, and the books starts years later with just him and the kid. The descriptions in the book push the sensations of the charred out world where the only thing that seems to move is a permanent cover of ashes. There's no sun anymore, or at least you can assume it still exists beyond the never ending overcast of the sky. Only a diffuse light exists during the day. McCarthy describes mornings as 'palings', and night is absolute blind blackness. The only things that are alive in the book are humans for the most part. We once hear a dog parking, but that stops before long. Hell, people are capturing and eating other humans, so of course they've done away with dogs, cats, etc. Pets, I suppose, are pretty superfluous in the apocalypse. The only other time any animals are mentioned is during a nightmare of two with hideous monstrous animals, and then one scene where there are snake. A group of men pull open a peice of hill to get at a mass of hibernating snakes within it and just set them on fire. McCarthy describes it as little more than them wanting to destroy something that represents evil.
I don't think it necessary to view the book as a science fiction novel. It doesn't make sense that way. Nuclear war would be destructive, but here, its like every square inch of the planet was hit with a flame thrower. And every animal is dead, there's never any insects, birds, worms, nothing. But humans are still alive. The coasts at some points are completely littered with millions of tiny fishbones, and the oceans are just churning gray masses. The description of rivers are great, they're just these dead, whirling black slicks with greasy froth and scum all over them. The only food that they come across are tinned goods, and it seems to be what everyone survives on, either that or other people. The man and the boy are like concentration camp victims, but they seemed to have walked from Virginia, or even further north, to the southern tip of Florida. So no its not a science fiction book. Its almost more poem than prose. McCarthy also doesn't use much punctuation, which can be annoying, especially with dialog. Its easy to forget who's talking or thinking any particular line, or if its even being narrated when you start reading the sentence, which, I suppose, must be the point.
Its almost funny to even think of it as a "post apocalypse" story. Just compare it to the TV show Jerhico or Mad Max or anything from the 'after the end of the world' genre and you can see that its just completely different. There are hints of the post-annihilation history, but its muddled and infrequent. "Blood Cults" and "bull drums" are completely used as props to reinforce the mood of the book. Its like when a horror movie never gives you a good look at the monster. You know its hideous, and therefore it is, you don't need an accurate and detailed description, its as horrendous as anything you know, because you've more or less made it up.
Its the descriptions that I think come out most stronly in the book. Even though the whole world is nothing by gray dust, black ash, and scorched soot, where even the snow is gray, you still manage to get a 'vivid' impression of it. You can feel how freezing cold it is, with minimal sunlight during the day, and nothing but scavenge wood or gas to burn for a fire.
The story ends oddly, but I guess that McCarthy figured he couldn't have an unhappy ending. You definitely feel completely hopeless for these two completely pitiful people through most of the book. Half the time you just hope that the man snuffs out the kid before some one roasts him over a spit or wears his skin for a hat. If the narrator said "but in reality, this wasn't earth, the man and boy had died in the attack and now they were wandering through hell while everyone else was alive', you'd beleive it. They're traveling down the road, because its the only thing around. Its all asphalt and oil, and the novel appropriately ends with someone telling the boy to get out of the middle of the road. The other thing that I noticed about the novel is the physical book itself. At first I thought it was just poorly cut, but after a little while I realized that the pages must've been made uneven on purpose, gives you a feel for it being something to be left during the apocalypse.
Here's a page about the author, from the looks of his other titles, he doesn't seem like the most jovial guy around:
CormacMcCarthy.com
From his page I see he apparently is the author of "All the Pretty Horses", which was made into a movie. Never saw it.
Random House has a pretty nice looking page for the book, but from the looks of the url it will change with his publication history, so it might not allways be for "The Road".
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