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The Road

Author: Cormac Mccarthy
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book

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Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

132 reviews
Sales Rank: 251

Media: Paperback
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9

ISBN: 0330447548
EAN: 9780330447546
ASIN: 0330447548

Publication Date: June 1, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new, in stock. Shipped from the UK by First Class Royal Mail service in eco-friendly packaging.

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Customer Reviews: Read 127 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

McCarthy at his finest! July 31, 2008
Every once and a while a book comes along and hits me squarely across the head. Now it doesn't happen often, but when it does it leaves me in a daze for a bit. The Road by Cormac McCarthy did this to me, and it was great. Now I have read Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men, which is quite a different read, but what impressed me about the Road was the quiet tone of the voice and yet the anxiety and terror of death that permeated from the pages. While the structure is at times fragmented, with sentences suddenly ending unannounced, there is great suspense with this. If you are looking for a book as an example of good grammatical writing this is not the book for you! Also the amount of great descriptions and imagery is wonderful to read. Just the description alone of daily trivial tasks seems to add to the tension.

Ok, so you know what I am talking about and without spoiling it too much for those of you who haven't read it The Road, is a post-apocalyptic novel about some unknown nuclear disaster that leaves everything burnt and covered in ash. The few survivors that are left are plagued by a struggle of life and death. It is about a journey of a father and son who only have three bullets left in their gun, a shoddy cart with supplies and a long terrifying road.

Without saying too much I have to say that McCarthy uses tension to the utmost to create a panic with the reader. Suspense and terror exists as each page is turned you anxiously expect the worst for the father and son. This is great! While a heightened sense of fear exists it also asks some powerful questions, such as man's morality addressing issues of real faith, and that in utter bleakness ethics can be found in humanity. The meaning throughout is relevant for a world that is fraught by soaring energy prices and a concern for the future both environmentally, financially, and morally.

Highly recommended!

5 out of 5 stars

Makes you think July 30, 2008
This is a great book and really makes you think about what you would do in that situation. One for a good long sitting and no interruptions. Deep.Meaningful. Just how I like them!

1 out of 5 stars

Diabolical July 30, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful

Just to add my own one star review.
I was looking forward to this after the positive reviews, but it is unremittingly awful.
Badly written and vague. This is not modern writing, it is just poor writing, and too many people like to imagine they can see some great future in it.
If this is the future of novels, then I'll have to get a new hobby.

5 out of 5 stars

Haunting July 29, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I read this yesterday in a day - I just found it impossible to put down. Although it's bleak I found it to be written in a gentle, almost dream-like way which I loved.

The story is of a man and his son (whose names we never learn) who are travelling south during the harsh winter. They set off along the road with their cart and all their worldly belongings in it. We never find out the reason that the road and the fields and whole cities are burnt and abandoned; we are left to imagine for ourselves if it is due to war, asteroid etc.

I didn't feel that the reason they were there was important - whatever had happened was years ago and clearly they had got past the "why?" etc and were just focused on survival. The book was like a snapshot in time which is why we never really find out anything other than what is going on right then.

The relationship between the man and boy is beautiful and so tender. It's one of the most touching and important relationships I can remember reading about.

I really loved this book and hope you will too.

4 out of 5 stars

The way we shall live? (and they already live) July 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I've just finished this chilling (because all too believable) tale of a father and son's struggle for survival in some post-holocaust (post global warming, post-nuclear, or post-other-as-yet-unknown-peril?) future.

As other reviewers have noted, the sparse style can be off-putting and sometimes it's unclear who is speaking in the dialogues. McCarthy also uses many rare words and coins more than a few neologisms - usually with success - which can make the going a little difficult. There is also a fair amount of situational repetition, which no doubt is intended to create the impression of the relentlessness of the daily battle against death, but can get a little tedious: there they are getting off the road and sheltering from the rain under the tarp again. The unconventional punctuation is also a little surprising, and one wonders how necessary it is.

On the other hand, the style does have a certain beauty, as if we were being presented with the essentials, the bleached bones like those the protagonists frequently encounter along the road. But what is most beautiful and powerful in this story is the relationship between the father and the son, the way they sustain and protect each other through the various challenges - indeed trauma, against which it is impossible to protect - which they experience during their long journey. The strength and reality of their respective paternal and filial love against the backdrop of a barbaric world of predators and prey. The novel is also a timely reminder of what we have to lose, of how we might live in a not-too-distant future unless we take action in the present. Something we do not like to think about too much, yet must. As we read it, we might also reflect, that in certain parts of the world today some father and son already wander through a world not unlike that of the novel, though speaking a language which we would not recognize, as they seek enough food to survive just a little longer, and endeavour to avoid murderous bandits along the road.