Let's Discuss The Road by Cormac McCarthy

As recommended by a fellow LTer, this thread is for any and all who wish to weigh in on the merits (or otherwise), the beauties (or otherwise) and general importance (or otherwise) of The Road by Cormac McCarthy. This thread will be LOADED with spoilers, so read on at your own risk. No one here should hold back from revealing and/or analyzing plot points from anywhere in The Road.

Since the thread is dedicated to the book, there is no percentage in touchstoning the book in any future posts. It actually just slows down the loading process!

Let the games begin.
edited/correcting touchstone

I am glad that you started this thread! I am just starting The Road and hope to curl up with it for a few hours tonight. I am looking forward to joining the discussion...but won't look at this thread again 'til I'm finished!

Thanks Richard. I'll come back after I finish.

I like The Road, but oddly not as much as McCarthy's other books.

What boggles my mind at the moment is how they are going to turn TR into a movie. I fear they are going to 'write in' some buxom blond to spice things up. Arrgh :(

The most striking thing about this book to me, among many striking things, is that we never learn the name of the man or the boy. Or any of the other bad guys or good guys, for that matter.

It emphasizes the loss of civilization and continuity and realness of their lives to me.

We also never learn what set of circumstances brought about the apolcalypse. By the time we catch up with the man and boy it is clear that it doesn't matter - they are in desperate survival mode. I don't recall one rumination by the man about why or what or even much anger about the destruction of earth.

I found the description of the "fallout" very interesting - fires hot enough to melt steel, the constant ash fall, the total destruction of all living flora and most fauna.

I'll be adding posts as I have time and think about things more - this book was powerful and scary and yet had hope. I loved this book.

I think the power of the book was a result of the lack of information about what caused the apocalypse and who the people are. The reader fills in the blanks thereby making the story all the more personal. It is any man or woman, any precipitating act.

I loved the book and the final glimpse of hope and human kindness emerging.

Sometimes I found it fascinating that we knew nothing about anything yet still felt compelled to continue to read about these characters, other times I found it a little annoying.

The book it seemed to start mid story, and have no real ending. It was like we entered and got to see just a small section of their life. I tried forever to figure out where in the US they were, but couldn't.

I wonder if McCarthy has answers as to what, why, and how this happened or was he just writing a what if? book where the why doesn't matter.

I had previously read No Country for Old Men which I really loved and everyone here said wait till you read The Road, it was an amazing book, but I think I still liked Old Country better.

I really liked this book, even while it brought a depressive, scary feeling.

6 I agree that the lack of information could be the power of this book.

@ 7 Nice to hear that No country for old men also is good, as it's waiting on my shelf.

I always wonder about these "end of world" books or books where humans are torn down to our "basic" or animalistic natures. Is it civilization that makes kindness possible? It seems that folks who open homeless shelters or those that work in low paying jobs that serve the public would be just as kind if there was some great catastrophe, those folks would do their bests to help others. Then again maybe those would be the ones murdered first. I like that kindness was brought in as a kind of ray of hope for the human race. The idea is that niceness or kindness is not an innate quality, but rather a taught one. What is innate is self-preservation and “every man for himself.” I am not sure I agree. Humans are social creatures and it seems that there must be some drive for kindness… isn’t there?

#4 ThePam--they certainly didn't do that in No Country for Old Men. They kept that one dark.

Thank you JanuaryW. Your point is well made and gives me some hope.

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Did anyone have a change of heart about shopping carts?

I loved this book, but found it profoundly scarry. I read it a year ago, but every time we have long, gray days I makes me think of what they suffered.

I loved the fact that the man would not give in/give up.

#5 I thought the reason why the man wasn't raging about the "why" was because he'd already gone through that stage before we got to the story. I felt that it was like dealing with death, which has stages one must go through before one comes out on the other side.

#7 Nice to hear you like No Country, because I just picked it up to start tonight.

I just finished The Road today and thought that it was fantastic. The feelings I had reading it - the horror, sadness and hope - reminded me of the feelings that I had when reading Blindness.

JanuaryW - I thought that one of the most wonderful parts of the book was the innate goodness/compassion in the boy. I am sure that he learned some of it from his father, but often his compassion eclipsed that of his father.

It was especially interesting that the boy was born into the destruction and that he, even more than his father who had memories of society, yearned to be with others.

I loved this book because it elicited such an emotional response from me. I was immediately pulled into the story and then couldn't get away. I found it like a serious car wreck, awful but yet you can't look away. Did anyone else think the child represented a Christ like figure who will redeem humanity?

I really did not like this one. Dark is one thing, but utter hopelessness is too much for me.

I was glad it was so short, because I wanted to finish, and not miss any signs of hope or goodness. None to be found.

It was dark, but every so often there would be a ray of hope shining through that darkness. I too thought the boy represented salvation or maybe an evolved human being of the highest order ~ and the father seemed to me to represent the perfect parent (God the Father?).

Unlike some, I didn't mind not knowing where they were and what had happened before. This was, ultimately, a story of survival, and it really didn't matter how they had gotten into that situation (although I have imagined a scenario or three about the how).

I read The Road earlier this year and haven't stopped thinking about it since. Not that it haunts me, but it continues to resonate within me when I think of it. After that, I read No Country for Old Men, which did not impress me as much. Talk about dark endings! Not even a glimmer of a ray of hope there. And, since it was set in contemporary times, it was almost more scary than The Road. I mean, the drug cartels and the violence and the psychotic killers are with us NOW, not in some possible future. That bothers me more.

I sometimes thought that there was a ray of hope... but I always ended up being disappointed.

But! I freely say that I most often read to be entertained or to learn something.
I want to find ways to feel good.. not more sad.. so that has a lot to do with my preferences . But that is what makes the world work, we all have different tastes.

This is a really nice thread, great posts. I finished late last night and then couldn't sleep. So I read some of a parenting book, and felt much better. See, parenting problems I can deal with, a nuclear winter not so much.

I found the Road really powerful, although I'm not exactly sure what did it. Part of it was the father-son bit, and the questions of what-would-you-do. I mean the whole book the man is talking hope, but he doesn't see a single sign of it. Everything is dead, and there isn't even a hint of any renewable food to be found, only spoils of still undiscovered canned food (and human flesh, but that's not to his ... um... taste). Was he delusional? I kind of wondered whether his wife didn't have the most reasonable response.

But then The Man does go through some amazing survival skills, and they do lead a life of sorts. And the end justifies the man (and I really liked the end). But the book didn't have to end that way. It could easily of been either rather gruesome, or something else.

Some responses to above:
#almost everyone: Hope.
I think the book brings up interesting questions hope. But, I’m not complete sure it was hopeful. Maybe it was about false hope. I’m still thinking about this.

#6 CEP: the literary power of the lack of information
Yeah, I agree. We never know anything. I was craving info, every tiny bit was sacred.

#7 sydamy: where in the US were they
The lower Appalachian mountians. I thought about this a lot, then I looked in up in Wikipedia which spoiled the fun. At one point they pass a sign on roof that says “See Rock City”. Later they cross some mountains, and a long time later see the coast. I checked Rock City on Google and found four locations. One is upstate Illinois; the other three are somewhat close together, in the vicinity of Nashville, TN and Huntsville, AL. So, my guess was the book started in Tennessee somewhere and that they crossed a pass in the southern Appalachian Mountains and eventually reached the coast in South Carolina or Georgia. That McCarthy grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee is maybe significant. (I had this idea that perhaps the house The Man grew up in was a description McCarthy’s childhood home.)

They were headed south - away from the nuclear winter & east, towards the sea. At one point the traveled through the Cumberland Gap which is where Daniel Boone lead the first pioneers into the land beyond the Appalachian mountains. In the story, they cross the Gap going the other way -- and they may be the last left to do so. The "See Rock City" signs & the shopping carts evoke a past that is not too far away. Going to the sea is significant because the sea is where all life came from. If life is to be renewed, it will come from the sea. The story still haunts me & I read it a year ago.

I think it's interesting that so many people think it was a nuclear event. There is no indication that that was the case. Certainly no talk about radiation.

As far as hope is concerned, I didn't gather that "ray" that other people saw. The world was dead and they were doomed.

I thought the beauty was in their maintaining a standard regardless of conditions. That and McCarthy's beautiful prose.

Btw, I think it was in an Oprah interview that he said the story came to him in a flash. He was in a hotel room with his 7 yo son in west Texas.

Those "See Rock City" signs used to be all through the lower Midwest, still some out there but not so many. Used to be a lot on barn roofs. One thing I really like about McCarthy (and this is particularly true of No Country for Old Men) is that he does not glorify violence, yes his stories are often very violent but in no way is that violence "good". The guy in the white hat does not ride up and shoot all the bad guys and ride off into the sunset. Violence is bad, period. This really comes across in the movie version of No Country for Old Men but also in The Road. Wonder how the movie version will go, wish the Cohen brothers were doing it.

At first, being from California and thinking that all things lead west I thought they were headed west, but eventually figured out that they were headed east, towards the NC-SC-GA coast.

I agree with you, janeherr, that the boy represented redemption, but I'm not Christian and didn't think of the child as Christ-like. His being found by a family at the end, that included a girl, made me think that there was the possibility of future generations.

Twice the man and the boy found caches of food and supplies. I kept wondering why the man didn't stop at either place, especially the one underground that was a bomb shelter and had everything they needed for a long time. His drive to the sea was a bit of a puzzlement to me. Did he think that the sea would be blue?

I assumed a nuclear holocaust although the lack of radiation was a puzzle. There were many descriptions of dessicated bodies sitting in chairs or in cars - as though whatever happened happened so suddenly that there was no time to react.

I just finished reading this a few days ago (my review should be up later today). I really wasn't that impressed with it--mostly a stylistic thing, I think. The story was a good one, the presentation just didn't work for me. That, and the very ending (the bit with the veteren and his family) didn't seem right. Where the heck did that come from? Unless they end up eating the boy--that would make more sense. :-)

The story in it's entirety also seemed a bit predictable to me. I wasn't shocked, or really surprised, with anything that happened. A generally pattern of "We're doing okay, now we're starving, oh look! we found an undisturbed cache of food and goods, etc." developed which detracted from the whole story.

I did like that over time the father slowly changed from keeping them both alive to teaching his son how to survive on his own after he would die (without explicitly telling him so). McCarthy's prose was evocative, and often poetic, but I'm not sure it was always comprehensible English. Overall, the book just didn't seem to have much of a point. For me anyways--I know lots of people who really like this book. And it won a Pultizer, so it must have some merit.

A response to #19 ThePam
"I think it's interesting that so many people think it was a nuclear event. There is no indication that that was the case."
I agree, I find that interesting as well! I did not get the impression that the devastation was nuclear.

A response in general:
The lack of names is intersting. Like in Blindness, it makes the assumption that without a society or civilizations our names and therefore all sense of manners flies out the window. I don't think this is a fair assessment of humans. I am still not convinced that the child in this book represents hope, empathy and kindness when all other humans in the book until the very end are creul, savage and brutal.
I am not like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, I don;t beleive that man left alone in nature is a noble savage, but I don't think that the opposite is true either.

I really don't have anything to add; everything has been said. I absolutely loved this book. It was very simple, but at the same time had depth. This is definitely one that I will read again.

I just finished reading the The Road . The story really touched me, it reminded me of the time when I was 8 years old, and my father was very sick and it was during our vacation, far away from our house and from my mom. I thought my father was going to die.

Anyway, I liked the way the story ended, it was like passing on the torch and hope to the next generation. The author really poured out his heart ... of being a father, how a father will give up his dreams and let his son continue it for him. The book is more like a poetry dedicated to a son.

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I enjoyed T

I enjoyed T

I have no idea what happened in the above two posts- I enjoyed The Road so much more than his other books- his style does take awhile to get used to but this one was worth the read

The reason why I thought it was a nuclear holocaust was because of the nuclear winter which they were living through. No sun, everything dying because the sun couldn't get through, etc.

Knowing that McCarthy had lived in Wyoming I thought that was where their journey had begun, but obviously at the beginning of the book they had been on the Road for some time.

One thing that I thought he didn't explain or "got wrong" was the clothing for the boy. Since the wife was pregnant at the time of the event (whatever it was), she would have had, at most, baby clothes for him. How did they get clothes and shoes for him as he grew? On the Road, the Man finds a few things that fit him, but what came before. This made me more confused that in The Road society had not banded together in a common survival tactic.

I was reading another book this morning and it mentioned the Yellowstone Caldera. It made me think that it might have been an eruption of that magnitude, especially with all the ash.

I read it a year or more ago, so I don't remember all the details. I did find it almost unbearable to read, but every time I almost gave up the beauty of the writing pulled me back in. However, by the end of the book I felt very manipulated by the author, and that more or less ruined the experience for me. By the way, it didn't matter to me that the nature of the disaster was unclear, because I felt the book was about the response to disaster, not the disaster itself.

I'm not sure that even the characters knew what exactly the nature of the disaster was. The father tries to get the old man to say something about it, if I remember correctly, which made me consider that maybe the father didn't know. Another clue is (in addition to the ash and what appears to be evidence that it happened very quickly) is the massive fires that resulted and continue throughout the book.

We do get this:

"The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions." (page 52, my trade paperback copy)

I'm not sure that helps any, it may kill the volcano theory.

I agree with the power of limited revelation in this book, particularly concerning names. The humanity that created the United States of American has been obliterated and it can no longer be called what it once was. The utter uselessness of having a name for places and people and things tells us just how bad the devastation is. But I think that The Road is salvation for the man and the boy, so the desolation has an alternative side as well, which is hope. It took me a while to see any hope in this story, though!

They must stick to the road which isn't a single road, but many, so it needs no name, it is just their Way Out. Or maybe their Way On...which will never end except when they die. (fairly depressing, but then it reminds me of how Jesus is called The Messiah or The Christ and that's what hits me about the title as I read the book.)

Karenmarie, that is exactly what I thought had happened when I read the book. It was the only other explanation I could conjure up.

And Dkaikin... no those attributes do not exclude the caldera.

Isn't the Science Channel wonderful :--}

Well.....don't misunderstood me...... I really love the book ...but let's talk science.

What about the idea that the dinosaur extinction was caused by the asteroid hitting earth? Is it possible that same thing happened here?

And also, the situation looks like the "disaster event" happened a few months before the story in the book occured. How would you explain all those food in the processed cans still edible? Doesn't all those processed canned goods have expiration dates of not more than one year? And the book says the disaster happened before the son was born? How old is the boy? eight years old? Are the processed canned goods edible after 8 years? Eating insects would have been more acceptable. I read somewhere that insects can survive any holocaust.

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>36 Erick_Tubil: As someone who cans some of her own food, I know that the expiration dates they put on commercially sold food is probably more about liability than edibility.

Canned food will last a long time - it's just "recommended" that it be eaten in a year. Now, I wouldn't necessarily eat 30 year old canned peaches, but if I were desperate - who knows, I'd probably give them a try.

In France canned sardines in oil are an institution. The older, the better. You can even find vintage canned sardines (five years old or more) in some grocery shops (mighty expensive). I actually don't know how it is about other canned goods, but expiration dates on French cans can be two or three years ahead, and major accidents hardly ever happen.

I myself wondered about the absence of insects and such creatures as scorpions, but McCarthy's purpose is obviously not to deliver a scientifically plausible account, but to focus symbolically on the utter misery of a lifeless world. Not counting human beings and a hypothetic dog, the only living thing I rememeber meeting in this book is the mould the father finds on the Spanish ship.

What a powerful, haunting read anyway! I remember looking more than once outside the window as if to make sure there were still trees, patches of blue sky (there weren't any, February was a mess this year), a dog, something living. And such beautiful images as that of the sun revolving around the obscured earth like a mourning mother (yet that is scientifically inaccurate too : who wrote about the reader's "suspension of disbelief"? Todorov?).

Interesting discussion. I just finished it and I didn't find it all hopeful - I'm not sure where people are picking up on the hope. So the boy lives a few more days or years, but all plants and animals are dead and the canned food will eventually run out, so I don't see what hope there is for his or humanity's continued existence. Essentially McCarthy shows us a planet with no energy source - not much sunlight can penetrate the dust cloud, so there can be no production of food. Eventually some remaining photosynthetic bacteria could proliferate once the dust has settled enough - but we are talking geological time here. Humanity would be over.

Which is maybe the point of the novel. Obviously it has some elements of "society creates humanity" rather than the other way 'round, like Lord of the Flies, but maybe the real point is that the man and the boy think that their behavior matters, even as they know that it is the end of the line for humanity, that nothing is coming after and no one will know or care what you've done. I wonder if they are right to think so?

I was also surprised that apparently everything - insects, plants, birds, etc - was dead but that there were so many humans left alive. Were houses that great a protection from the disaster, whatever it was (I agree that radiation isn't very likely - given that the man remembers seeing the event and he was just in his house, which is not likely to protect one from a nuclear bomb)?

Overall, I enjoyed reading it, and thought the sparse dialect of the characters was very fitting. I didn't find it as moving or as haunting as some, but it was certainly worth my time.

#39 - I don't have a copy of the novel with me, but at the end, wasn't there a fish swimming in the water? I think that was where the hope was - that and the fact that the boy was so good.

#39/40 I don't recall fish at the end. But, there were supposedly some trout in a river by a waterfall - this was near the beginning of the book. There were also some mushrooms around the same section.

I got the idea in both places that he was just thinking about the trout that were - and the mushrooms and apples were just preserved from before. Although I suppose mushrooms could survive on the remains of other life for a little while- but that won't last forever either.

Concerning the trout, I think it is pretty clear those were just memories: At the start (p.41) - "He'd stood at such a river once and watched the flash of trout . . ." At the end (p.286) - "Once there were brook trout in the streams . . ."

I know you can't always trust the characters, but the man says that everything is dead many times, and I don't think there is any evidence to prove him wrong.

I liked this so much better than No Country for Old Men. Yes, it is dark, scary, and could be depressing for some. I liked that there were no names. It didn't make you care for the father and son any less. I borrowed the book a year ago, and just purchased the trade paperback to read again.

I'm a little concerned about the movie - please no CG with things exploding. The desolation describes is scary enough. Hollywood always wants to make things better and usually ends up making them worse.

I thought this was a wonderful book. There is hope for the future. Our children are our hope. The father's love for his child never waivered. I wonder what led McCarthy to write it?

#42 jlelliott - thanks regarding the trout, I'll have to reread that section.

#42 - Yes, thank you. I re-read the end and agree that the trout passage was a memory. I think that I read that passage too quickly the first time and wanted it to be a sign that there was new life!

Actually I did exactly that both times - I read it and was all excited "look, Trout!" - then had to go back and figure out that I was wrong. I think the style of the book made it particularly easy to read quickly, at least I know I skipped ahead of myself several times.

I really think that I need to re-read it soon - I just finished it about a week or so ago but am finding myself with lots of questions.

Love this book! First Cormac McCarthy novel I've actually enjoyed (though I went on to read NCfOM, and liked that as well). Earnest attempts years back to read All the Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian were quickly abandoned. Liked the writing in small doses, but the Faulkneresque meandering and descriptive density quickly became oppressive. Much prefer the clean, pared down style of these recent novels. More conversational, better suited to McCarthy's characters, situations and themes.

Agree that the novel never clearly spells out the nature of the apocalypse in question, but along with some other posters, I got the impression that it was probably nuclear. It's a textbook nuclear winter "cold death" scenario, and I seem to recall some early, vague mention of great, burning craters to the southwest.

Surprised, though, that so many view this as a hopeless book. I saw it as fundamentally hopeful, though McCarthy characteristically opts for the grimmest draught of hope available. Lke No Country, The Road is essentially a novel about the value of moral decision-making. Perversely, it takes place in a world that does not seem to value any sort of morality, a world that, in fact, seems to repudiate human morality at the most basic level.

In The Road, there is no reason for anyone to adhere to any vision of the good. The world is quite simply over, no one will survive to care, and obeying any dictate but the need to survive will probably get you killed. The only meaningful questions that remain concern how long one can (or wishes to) endure the void that's left behind. Nevertheless, the novel's protagonist stubbornly refuses to give up his "civilized" sense of right and wrong. He refuses to surrender to moral annihilation, though he gains nothing from this refusal, and though physical annihilation seems to be a given. The novel does not condemn this potentially suicidal obduracy. Instead, in his typically bleak and taciturn manner, McCarthy celebrates his abandoned hero, eventually rewarding him with a "happy ending" that may seem improbable, but which clearly reveals the author's sympathies.

I saw The Road as an unapologetically religious text. This reading derives not from any explicitly Christian symbolism, but rather from the way McCarthy heroicizes the act of faith. The state of the planet can be read as a metaphor for a coldly mechanical world in which the seeker can find no material evidence of God. If we accept this metaphorical reading, the protagonist's pilgrimage becomes an argument for sustaining faith in the face of that seeming lack. (Saying this as an agnostic/atheist type, mind...)

Good thoughts, BobStandard.

Is Cormac McCarthy a religious person? I have no idea about him personally - haven't tried to read any of his books before although I have All the Pretty Horses on my shelves and just pulled it down to look at it.

Dunno anything about McCarthy the man, though my cousin had some drinks with him in a bar once. Apparently, McCarthy told a joke about freedom. It went like this:

"You know what absolute freedom is? This guy jumps out of an airplane. As he's falling down, he's saying, 'I'm free! I'm free!' But then you know what happened? His chute didn't open and he smashed to bits on the ground."

This doesn't cast much light on Mr. McCarthy's religious beliefs, but it may tell us a little something about his sense of humor. Anyway, have you read No Country for Old Men? If you liked The Road, read that one. It's a lot of fun, grim but action packed, and the quasi-religious moralism is even more explicit there.

I'll try to get 'hold of a copy and add it to Mount TBR! Thanks for the recommendation.

Okay, the thread seems to be pretty well played out, so I now feel the need to weigh in:

I was one of those who wasn't enamored of The Road. It just flopped down in front of the reader and said "here I am take me or leave me but faGawdSake don't you dare analyze me or you'll get mad."

At least, one heard this voice in one's head as one read along, growing more and more irked at the pretentiousness of the thing.

The narrative is driven by the boy and the man moving from place to place to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. So far, so good, as in "that's a trope we're all familiar with and can hang with." Then we get to the standard, "Mad-Max" film villains. Then environmental destruction a la A Boy and His Dog among many others. Then the man dies at the end, and we are left wondering (if we're decent human beings) what the devil will become of the boy now.

And...?

None of this is new, and that's not my problem with it; none of this is particularly well-handled, and that IS my problem with it. Portentously arty non-punctuation doesn't make this a deep book. The French nouvelle roman of the 1940s and 1950s (Alain Robbe-Grillet being one of my favorite practicioners, followed closely by Claude Simon and Nathalie Sarraute) did this stuff fifty years ago and it WAS fresh...now there needs to be some reason to use this technique or it comes across as simply affected.

I have heard from others that I am too harsh in my judgment, that the punctuationlessness of the book is partly making the point that the world lost to the man and the boy means that they are existing without amenities and so we should share in their struggle.

Bosh.

But I am a veteran reader of post-apocalyptic fiction and so acknowledge that I set a very high bar for novels in this genre. I am also a person who enjoys books about fathers and sons. I didn't really get this book from that angle at all. It seemed to me that the man and the boy had a standard f&s thing going, and nothing changed much until the man dies. So your point, Mr. McCarthy, is that sons are abandoned and bereft and directionless and vulnerable after the death of their father?

And...?

Thanks for this thread, Richard.

I enjoyed reading the posts to get a real grasp of what this novel is about. I'm glad to have my curiosity satisfied. It saves me the time and trouble of reading the book which I probably wouldn't have ever gotten around to--too many other things on my TBR pile. I had tried a couple of his earlier books when they came out and wasn't really excited about them--didn't finish either one-- but there has been so much hype about this one I thought maybe I should try again. But I don't think would be to my taste--no offense to those who loved it, but I'm not surprised to learn it was an Oprah book.

Richard - two thoughts. My goofy thought is that analyzing books is bit like walking a tightrope. You start at one end, which is a closed book and walk to other, which is whatever value the book has to offer. If you can stay balanced, you can cross into a new place and maybe get somewhere interesting. If you don't analyze at all, then won't make it across to any understanding. But, if you analyze too much, you lose your balance; you can kill the book. All books are flawed, and if we aim our critical eye, then we have separated ourselves from the reading experience. We only get the words, if that makes sense. Maybe it doesn't

Anyway, I don't disagree with anything in your post. It's all true. And had I read the book looking for something better-than-other-post-apocalyptic-novels * I don't know that would have taken anything from the book.

My other thought is that the story isn't the point of this book. Actually, not much happens. This book is more about exploring the meaning of the world McCarthy created. And about exploring survival. For what purpose the does man carry on through all this; why not follow his wife's example? And what roll does faith and religion play in this survival? And there is a constant conversation between the grown man who knows what the world was like before the event, and a young boy who was born after the event. The boy has innocent and foolish questions - but also fundamental questions about their life. The man has an art to his answers. He is playing the humble wise man, and he doesn't talk down to his son, but does talk at this sons level. For me these conversations were maybe my favorite parts of the books. I'm getting off my point - which is that this is not a quest story, or even a story about survival, it's a philosophical journey of sorts.

*I have no idea why it's posting at "novel..." instead of as "novels" as I typed it.

>54 dchaikin: dchaikin, granting your point that the purpose of the book is a philosphical conversation between Experience and Innocence, what then is the territory explored? Why should this conversation take place in this post-apocalyptic world? Or more precisely, what value does that setting add to the somewhat pedestrian (pun deliberate, you live too far away to come after me for it) rehash the book makes of The Republic's allegory of the Cave?

None of which is intended to say you shouldn't or are wrong to enjoy the book on each and all of these levels. I am not saying that my opinion is True And Correct, only that I judge this book quite harshly because it is so very highly praised and the author is held up as an exemplar of talent and gift. I disagree, and I don't take prisoners when I disagree.

When a book is touted as breaking new ground, as this one was, I want to see that. I didn't. This makes me feel very emperor's-new-clothesish.

Oh sure, ask me a bunch a tough questions. First of all, I didn't mean to imply anyone is wrong or right. Apologies if it came out that way. We're just discussing interesting ideas.

what then is the territory explored? - A thread in itself. But, a quick short answer: Hope, Religion (the power of; the naturalness of; the irrelevance of the details of;...), the fragility of life, the tenacity of humanity, the barbarity of humanity, what we will do for our children, the value of life...

Why should this conversation take place in this post-apocalyptic world? - I don't know, but I presume largely for dramatic effect. But also to reach some the questions of above - especially the fragility of life. You could have a similar story by stumbling across the antarctic, but it wouldn't quite have the same effect or meaning.

what value does that setting add to the somewhat pedestrian rehash the book makes of The Republic's allegory of the Cave? I haven't a friggin clue. But I'm interested in your thoughts. The only thing I know about Plato's cave is from Sophie's World (also from some other long lost post somewhere in LT) and I've already forgotten the details.

When a book is touted as breaking new ground, as this one was, I want to see that. I didn't. This makes me feel very emperor's-new-clothesish. -- see my goofy tightrope point above.

>56 dchaikin: d, your tightrope point:All books are flawed, and if we aim our critical eye, then we have separated ourselves from the reading experience. We only get the words, if that makes sense. Maybe it doesn't.

Sure it makes sense, but I don't grant your point. In order to put anything at all into a context, we must by definition separate ourselves from an immediate experience and provide connections and influences and the like. There is little value in experience unless it contributes to the store of wisdom the experiencer possesses.

This being a point easily belabored, I move to criticism...in order to criticize something a critic needs a fund of experiences that relate to the criticized experience. Then applying the experience, and deriving a conclusion from the application, is by its nature removing the critic from immediate sensations and opinions.

So. I read this book with expecatations formed in large part by critical praise and commercial adulation in the form of Oprah and sales figures. My expectations were based on what I have read previously, and what I should, as a reader, be able to trust the praise and kudos to indicate.

I brought to the party my own experiences of post-apocalyptic novels, of literature at large, and of previous McCarthy books.

I concluded that The Road wasn't anything very special after all based on those factors. And the tightrope point goes flooey here because the function I performed was that of a critical reader, not an experiential reader. As an experiential reader, I want to know what the hell the man was playing at rehashing tired themes in a pretentious, portentous faux-sonorous drone, and expecting me to pay $14 for the privilege of having his book on my shelf.

About the Parable of the Cave, see this Wikipediaentry for a pretty decent precis. The thing that I felt Mr. McCarthy was doing is best summed up in this line: "...humans are all prisoners and that the tangible world is our cave. The things which we perceive as real are actually just shadows on a wall." The pre-apocalypse world is the shadow, the wall and the people chained up forced to look at the shadows are the post-apocalypse world.

All the points you bring up in post 56 are valid and important and I don't for an instant want to give the impression that I AM RIGHT. The reasons I hold my opinion of the book, though, are pretty solid as far as I can tell. The ideas dealt with in this book are eternal, eternally important, and very interesting. Would the book had been the same.

richard - One clarification. I tried to make that point that analysis & criticism can make the reading experience better, and also worse; that there is a balance as to finding the right level. Thinking about it more, this is a problematic point as most people would argue that there can never bee too much analysis - it gets you closer to the book and enriches the meaning. I think that may largely be true. My thought process is experimental (apologies for dragging you through it). But, I think there is a delicate balancing on the critical/skeptical side. Some criticism adds to the book, and yet too much seems to me to kill it - for any book. I find that unknown books give more enjoyment-vs-quality than known books do. There is joy of discovery, and also there are no expectations. With an award-winning highly praised book, we have high expectations, and that opens us up to being too critical, and therefore inevitably disappointed.

Does that make sense? I'm not sure. It's a little mysterious how books do such different things to different people; it's also beautiful in a way.

Back to post #52

"punctuationlessness"
Is that a word?

I agree about this point. It is not a new trick and it doesn't effectively serve its purpose and, frankly, it's annoying.

>59 januaryw: januaryw, it is now. Any other locution drags me through several related words and I find that annoying. I think I was German in one of my past lives. Ram them words together they'll all fit some old how.

>58 dchaikin: d, okay. Point taken. I don't think my fundamental point is invalidated by your accurate observation that analysis will kill the fresh experience of any given stimulus. I think readers must seek a balance on their own as to what constitutes enough vs too much before encountering a given work of art; afterwards, it's all a matter of an individual's need level of further information.

And don't apologize for thinking out loud. I am perfectly willing to go through thought processes. If I ain't in the mood, I won't. Simple!

richardderus, various posts:

It sounds (re: #57) as though you came to The Road with inflated expectations, and that they may have overshadowed your appreciation of the novel's modest merits.

First of all, it's a work of popular fiction. Pretentious, perhaps, but fairly simple and straightforward at heart. It moves along at a good clip, and the characters and situations are familiar ones. Although The Road is harsher, artier and more doom-besotted than most of what we're used to finding on the bestseller lists, it's not an especially "groundbreaking" novel.

In spite of that, I still think it's a good one. It worked for me. I was caught up in its surface story, and enjoyed puzzling out the moral implications. I suppose it wasn't necessary that the tale be set in a post-apocalyptic landscape (re: #55), but such an extreme setting throws both the character's struggles and McCarthy's deeper themes into harsh relief. Cuts away the inessentials to get at the meat -- like the Jack London of "To Build a Fire".

*** *** ***

Your mention of The Allegory of the Cave from Plato's Republic is apt (also re: #55). McCarthy is asking us whether our moral convictions are "shadows", thrown by our civilized social imprisonment. If we "prisoners" were freed from these chains (as by the destruction of civilized society), would these seemingly absolute convictions be revealed as merely convenient fictions? Or do they have functions and meanings that transcend their momentary social utility?

Is the Father (novel's main character) in some sense "right" to cling to his apparently obsolete morality ... or is he merely reassuring himself with faith in something that never existed in order to avoid having to face an unpleasant truth? And if it's the latter, could there be value in his rejection of true (but meaningless) daylight in favor of more meaningful (though imaginary) cave-shadows?

It IS a combination of The Cave and A Boy and His Dog, but I don't see anything wrong with that.

#58 dchaikin

you said: "With an award-winning highly praised book, we have high expectations, and that opens us up to being too critical, and therefore inevitably disappointed."

I think I know what you mean and agree with you. So often when I've been told how wonderful a book is I end up disappointed because I guess I expect to be "blown away" rather than just either entertained or informed or even just absorbed in the story. High expectations often lead to disappointment.

I find the opposite is also true. Sometimes I start a book thinking just pass the time because it's handy and I need something to read and end up being totally enthralled--almost blindsided by how great it is. So perhaps low expectations can lead to real delight.

One thing I have learned--and I think this is true for most readers--I have to make up my own mind how I feel about a book and often it can be related to my mood at the moment, the circumstances in my life at the time I'm reading it, or maybe just some random idea in the book that either touches me or repels me.

Also, for myself, I can read almost anything if it is well written--I have some authors I have a love/hate relationship with--love their writing, not fond of the subject matter! (I feel that way about much of Truman Capote as well as McCarthy) And the reverse is true--authors whose subject matter I find compelling but who I can hardly stand to read because the writing is so clunky. (Can't come up with any specific ones right now in that catagory--just remember the feeling when it happens.)

Just my 2 cents worth--

>61 BobStandard: Bob, I grant all your points about the book itself, and I still maintain that, no matter what standard (!) is applied, the book does not succeed.

This is, as I have stressed, an opinion, and I don't expect that others should adopt it merely because it is, self-evidently, correct accurate and fair. After all, I AM the Fox News Channel of LT.

**THE ABOVE WAS FACETIOUS**

That just the problem, the kind hearted wouldn't be as likely to survive.

Why so glum, chum? In spite of its virtues, which are many, if not legion, this epic lacks a certain spark. Life, my fellow readers, is an incurable disease. I too can mourn the passing of Starbucks and the disappearance of HagenDaz, but doesn't the utter lack of hope tickle the center of our awareness, perhaps perversely (I won't argue that), to force a smile, a chortle? The darkness of the road and sunless sky seems to this reader a little beyond the pale...

http://www.amazon.com/Prairiewind-Southern-JW-Lollar/dp/1500156795/ref=sr_1_4?ie...

IF YOU LOVE McCARTHY...this is in that vain
Closest I have found anyway

http://www.amazon.com/Prairiewind-Southern-JW-Lollar/dp/1500156795/ref=sr_1_4?ie...

THANK YOU! just wanted to pass along another who reminds me often of McCarthy I hopes that others will find him
http://www.amazon.com/Prairiewind-Southern-JW-Lollar/dp/1500156795/ref=sr_1_4?ie...

http://www.amazon.com/Spectrums-Void-JW-Lollar/dp/1493775170/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&...

TRY THIS AUTHOR if you love McCarthy...just found him at a seminar in Joilet, IL...budding author but I am going to champion him. Give him a try!

http://www.amazon.com/Spectrums-Void-JW-Lollar/dp/1493775170/ref=sr_1_2?
ie=UTF8&qid=1428589068&sr=8-2&keywords=jw+lollar

http://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Black-JW-Lollar/dp/1490444262/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&a...

The title sounds interesting. I will look that in amazon. Thanks!

Suntup Editions will announce a new special edition tomorrow, and many "in the know" (myself not among them) are quite confident that it will be The Road.

As yet, all there is is a 0:51 video at https://suntup.press/.

(If it turns out not to be The Road, you have my apologies.)