So what did you think of Cormac McCarthy's The Road? Share your opinions in the comments.
This is a potentially spoiler-filled discussion thread, so use discretion if you don't want to learn key details of the novel (like, say, how it ends). I'll kick it off below...
[SPOILERS] "The Road" open thread
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by Cormac McCarthy. Posts about this book:
5 comments:
All in all, I don't mind that we're not told what happened or why; it's probably better that way, for this particular story.
One nagging question, though, is how did the man and his family (his son and his wife, until she offed herself) survive the initial nuclear blasts? I think we're given a clue in a flashback, but I'm not smart enough to understand it. On page 52 of my copy, the trade paperback, we read the following:
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The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a low series of concussions. He got up and went to the window. What is it? she said. He didn't answer. He went into the bathroom and threw the lightswitch but the power was already gone. A dull rose glow in the windowglass. He dropped to one knee and raised the lever to stop the tub and then turned on both taps as far as they would go. She was standing in the door in her nightwear, clutching the jam, cradling her belly in one hand. What is it? she said. What is happening?
I don't know.
Why are you taking a bath?
I'm not.
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So, what am I missing here? Is there some survivalist lore that I don't know about, involving full bathtubs in the event of nuclear holocaust? That's the only thing I can figure, unless we simply aren't told how they survived.
Much obliged to anyone who can shed some light on this...
As a separate matter, I enjoyed the book greatly. Let's talk about the ending!
We knew that it was going to somehow end not-very-happily, so I wasn't too surprised when the father died. The boy's ultimate fate struck me as slightly obvious in retrospect, in that way that I often feel: if I had just paid a little more attention, I probably would have seen it coming. (The sighting of the other little boy, "I think we're being followed," etc.) It should be noted that I am probably wrong about my retroactive powers of almost-prognostication, but the feeling is nonetheless a pretty good indication that an ending probably made sense to me.
There's probably some textual analysis to be done on the ending, and the nature of hope amid despair and blah blah etc other ontological ramblings. But instead I'll just say, I liked the ending. It didn't feel like it came out of nowhere, and it was a glimmer of not-quite-bleakness without undermining the tone of the rest of the book.
Any thoughts?
"Is there some survivalist lore that I don't know about, involving full bathtubs in the event of nuclear holocaust?"
Clean drinking water?
That... sounds extremely plausible. S-M-R-T!!
On the other hand, I would rather die an agonizing, wasting-away radiation death rather than drink a sip of anything from my own bathtub.
I'm only about halfway through and it is definitely well written. The only thing that annoys me is that they always get to an almost-starving state and then find some magical cache of food at the last minute- I think it would have been better if the Man just knew ways to scrounge food that weren't obvious to normal people, or perhaps if they subsisted on insects or something. How many times can they get lucky right when they're about to starve and find a hidden cache? By my count its been three times so far- the bomb shelter, the random farmhouse, and the beached boat (which is the point I just came to.)
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