The Road
Bout of Books Day 4 (Thursday)
So, I’ve been doing alright with my Bout of Books 10.0 Challenge.
When I started, I set out to read:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Let Me In by John Ajvide Linqgvist
and
Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card
I was able to finish up The Assassin King by Elizabeth Haydon. I wanted to make sure I read it to give me some context for the ARC I have for her upcoming book. I was finished with it by the end of day one.
I then started in on McCarthy’s The Road and have really enjoyed it. That same day, I read a novelette by R.J. Palacio, The Julian Chapter: A Wonder Story.
Day three, though, was a slow one.
Work was hard and I wasn’t able to get anything read. I came home exhausted and read a total of 30 pages. I was pretty uninspired to read.
I did pull out a graphic novel, though. I finished the first half of Manifest Destiny Vol 1. It’s a pretty campy story about Lewis and Clarke. It features buffallo headed men and plants that turn humans into zombies.
Today, I’m getting into Let Me In . I’m almost a hundred pages in and it’s starting to roll. It’s a better feeling.
Let me know what’s up with you. What’s going on in your Bout of Books challenge?
Review: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Title: The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: 2006
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
This book hit a lot of powerful notes. It focuses solely on the journey of an unnamed father and son. They’re travelling south in an attempt to escape the harsh, post-apocalyptic winters. The world has fallen apart, murderers are everywhere and food is extremely scarce. They scavenge together along the road during their journey and the father is waning both in health and spirit.
One of the things that McCarthy does very well is show the desperation that the father is feeling. He’s desperate to protect his son, to keep moving, to find shelter and food. The father is especially desperate to keep his son hopeful and good, despite his own negative influence on his son.
The son is consistently empathetic. He’s never known a world other than the deathly end-of-the-world one in which they now live. However, he’s a good soul. He has no real tolerance for force or violence and seeks the good in others. His father consistently reminds him to be vigilant, less trusting than he is. The son can’t seem to stop searching for good people.
The contrast between the two characters is striking.
There is some gore, but I didn’t find it overwhelming. That’s probably just me, though. McCarthy’s world is so barren that people resort in some cases to some very violent and disturbingly intentional cannibalism. In some cases, humans have been trapped or hunted by others. If this isn’t something you can deal with, be warned, but it isn’t overly graphic or detailed.
McCarthy does show: sometimes life is so bad that you wish you weren’t alive.
The only part I was disappointed in was the end. I enjoyed the end up until the last bit where others become involved. It wasn’t a bad ending, but I thought it was too easy and I couldn’t help but think that none of the danger posed by others seemed prevalent or to stay in the characters’ minds.
McCarthy’s narrative style is presented in short paragraphs detailing the events as they happen. The dialogue is unmarked and there is a serious, though intentional, lack of punctuation. I thought this lent quite a bit to his story. It allowed him to transition between scenes and the present and past easily. The lack of punctuation may have been distracting if it weren’t so understated. It read more like you were listening in to the conversation than like you were reading it. I liked that aspect in particular.
Rating: 4
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Road-Cormac-McCarthy/dp/0307387895/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400114781&sr=8-1&keywords=the+road
Book Depository: http://www.bookdepository.com/Road-Cormac-McCarthy/9780330447546
lowteabooks.com 