kenjari: (govans)
kenjari ([personal profile] kenjari) wrote2009-01-21 08:35 pm
Entry tags:

Book Review

The Road
by Cormac McCarthy

This laconic novel is set in post-apocalyptic America, a dead, desolate, and doomed land. The two main characters are an unnamed man and his young son who are journeying to the south coast, even though they don't know what they will find there. They live on scavenged food and must avoid the very few people they see for fear of bandits and cannibals.
The Road is the bleakest book I've ever read, and I found the first half very wearying to the soul. Yet it is a good book. McCarthy's sparse prose style is extremely well-suited to the setting and story. There is a kind of profound beauty in the man and the child carrying on for the sake of their bond with each other and out of their love for each other. There is something compelling about the stubbornness of survival and living even in the absence of hope or a future. The crux of the book is that the bonds between people are at the core of humanity and civilization. Even when we have nothing else, when there is nothing else to be had, we can have that.

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