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The Road (Oprah's Book Club) Paperback – March 28, 2006
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A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.
The Roadis the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.
Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest bestselling novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.
- Print length287 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateMarch 28, 2006
- Dimensions8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
- ISBN-109780307387899
- ISBN-13978-0307387899
- Lexile measure670L
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Guest Reviewer: Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane, master of the hard-boiled thriller, generated a cult following with his series about private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, wowed readers with the intense and gut-wrenching Mystic River, blew fans all away with the mind-bending Shutter Island, and switches gears with Coronado, his new collection of gritty short stories (and one play).
Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith. --Dennis Lehane
Review
"His tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful. It might very well be the best book of the year, period." —San Francisco Chronicle
"Vivid, eloquent ... The Road is the most readable of [McCarthy's] works, and consistently brilliant in its imagining of the posthumous condition of nature and civilization." —The New York Times Book Review
"One of McCarthy's best novels, probably his most moving and perhaps his most personal." —Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Illuminated by extraordinary tenderness.... Simple yet mysterious, simultaneously cryptic and crystal clear. The Road offers nothing in the way of escape or comfort. But its fearless wisdom is more indelible than reassurance could ever be." —The New York Times
"No American writer since Faulkner has wandered so willingly into the swamp waters of deviltry and redemption.... [McCarthy] has written this last waltz with enough elegant reserve to capture what matters most." —The Boston Globe
"We find this violent, grotesque world rendered in gorgeous, melancholic, even biblical cadences.... Few books can do more; few have done better. Read this book." —Rocky Mountain News
"A dark book that glows with the intensity of [McCarthy's] huge gift for language.... Why read this? ... Because in its lapidary transcription of the deepest despair short of total annihilation we may ever know, this book announces the triumph of language over nothingness." —Chicago Tribune
"The love between the father and the son is one of the most profound relationships McCarthy has ever written." —The Christian Science Monitor
"The Road is a wildly powerful and disturbing book that exposes whatever black bedrock lies beneath grief and horror. Disaster has never felt more physically and spiritually real." —Time
"The Road is the logical culmination of everything [McCarthy]'s written." —Newsweek
"There is an urgency to each page, and a raw emotional pull ... making [The Road] easily one of the most harrowing books you'll ever encounter.... Once opened, [it is] nearly impossible to put down; it is as if you must keep reading in order for the characters to stay alive.... The Road is a deeply imagined work and harrowing no matter what your politics."—Bookforum
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Product details
- ASIN : 0307387895
- Publisher : Vintage (March 28, 2006)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 287 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780307387899
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307387899
- Lexile measure : 670L
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #14 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #69 in Reference (Books)
- #194 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author
Cormac McCarthy was born in Rhode Island. He later went to Chicago, where he worked as an auto mechanic while writing his first novel, The Orchard Keeper. The Orchard Keeper was published by Random House in 1965; McCarthy's editor there was Albert Erskine, William Faulkner's long-time editor. Before publication, McCarthy received a travelling fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which he used to travel to Ireland. In 1966 he also received the Rockefeller Foundation Grant, with which he continued to tour Europe, settling on the island of Ibiza. Here, McCarthy completed revisions of his next novel, Outer Dark. In 1967, McCarthy returned to the United States, moving to Tennessee. Outer Dark was published in 1968, and McCarthy received the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing in 1969. His next novel, Child of God, was published in 1973. From 1974 to 1975, McCarthy worked on the screenplay for a PBS film called The Gardener's Son, which premiered in 1977. A revised version of the screenplay was later published by Ecco Press. In the late 1970s, McCarthy moved to Texas, and in 1979 published his fourth novel, Suttree, a book that had occupied his writing life on and off for twenty years. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981, and published his fifth novel, Blood Meridian, in 1985. All the Pretty Horses, the first volume of The Border Trilogy, was published in 1992. It won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was later turned into a feature film. The Stonemason, a play that McCarthy had written in the mid-1970s and subsequently revised, was published by Ecco Press in 1994. Soon thereafter, the second volume of The Border Trilogy, The Crossing, was published with the third volume, Cities of the Plain, following in 1998. McCarthy's next novel, No Country for Old Men, was published in 2005. This was followed in 2006 by a novel in dramatic form, The Sunset Limited, originally performed by Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago. McCarthy's most recent novel, The Road, was published in 2006 and won the Pulitzer Prize.
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Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece that will leave an indelible mark on your soul. With sparse yet poetic prose, McCarthy takes us on an emotionally intense journey through a desolate and merciless world, revealing the depths of human resilience and the fragility of hope.
Set in a bleak, ash-covered landscape, the story follows a father and his young son as they traverse a road to an unknown destination. Their world is ravaged by an unexplained cataclysm, devoid of life, and haunted by bands of desperate survivors turned savage. With every step, the duo battles hunger, cold, and the constant fear of being discovered by those who would do them harm.
What sets "The Road" apart is McCarthy's ability to capture the essence of humanity in its purest and most primal form. Through the profound relationship between the father and son, McCarthy explores the power of love and the lengths we go to protect those we hold dear. Their bond is both tender and fierce, providing a glimmer of hope amidst the surrounding darkness.
McCarthy's writing style is simultaneously stark and hauntingly beautiful. His minimalist approach, devoid of quotation marks and traditional dialogue tags, immerses readers in the characters' thoughts and experiences. This narrative choice intensifies the sense of isolation and desperation, echoing the desolation of the world they inhabit. The prose is poetic in its simplicity, punctuated by moments of raw, gut-wrenching emotion that will leave you breathless.
While the post-apocalyptic setting is undeniably bleak, "The Road" offers a profound meditation on the human condition. McCarthy delves into themes of survival, morality, and the fundamental nature of mankind. He explores the boundaries between good and evil, showcasing the lengths some will go to preserve their own lives, and the rare acts of selflessness that restore our faith in humanity.
Through its harrowing depiction of a world teetering on the edge of annihilation, "The Road" forces readers to confront their own mortality and contemplate the choices we make when faced with dire circumstances. It serves as a powerful reminder of the fragility of civilization and the enduring power of hope, even in the face of unimaginable horrors.
"The Road" is not a book for the faint of heart, but for those willing to embark on this profound journey, it offers an unforgettable experience. McCarthy's masterful storytelling, combined with the depth of his characters and the weight of his themes, make this novel an absolute must-read. Prepare to be captivated, devastated, and ultimately uplifted by this haunting portrayal of humanity's struggle to survive in a world where darkness reigns.
Reviewer J. McClain was entirely accurate when he said, "McCarthy has a very descriptive writing style, but uses a minimum of words in the process." The techniques used to narrate was one of the most compelling elements of the novel.
"The boy lay with his face in his arms, terrified. They passed two hundred feet away, the ground shuttering lightly. Tramping. Behind them came wagons drawn by slaves in harness and piled with goods of war..."
The plot revolves around the father and the son, represented respectively by "he" and "the boy." Their names are never learned, which makes the emptiness and desolation in the book ever greater. The dialogue between characters uses rudimentary language, but the lack of quotation sometimes caused difficulty in distinguishing the speaker.
The Road is already well known to be dark and gruesome, but it is the love between father and son that is the highlight. They truly are each other's world's entire. They don't vocally express their love, yet their touching actions towards each other - letting the other have the first drink of water, trying to protect the other from rogue groups of human predators, pleading the other to stay close at all times - are the most moving aspects of their relationship.
Unfortunately, the question of The Road is whether love will be enough to survive. The writing is starkly existentialist. The notion of God was discussed a few times, and the idea of "Heaven" is pondered as well. Death is considered with little emotion, and whether the characters live or die… well, often they are indifferent. Life in their world and death wherever else may as well be equal. Existentialism questions the concept of having a "meaning" to life. The father's meaning, if there is one, is his son. His entire life is committed to protecting him and keeping him alive.
The Road is an above average read and overall a fresh view on a post-apocalyptic world (and perhaps one of the most realistic.) It is the type of novel that can give nightmares and maybe ruin a day if one is not accustomed to gory, somber material, so purchase with discretion! The Lexile level is 670L; the vocabulary, then, is not particularly challenging and could probably be deciphered by a 4th grader for the most part. However, the material dictates for a mature audience at least in high school. Any horror advocates will love it.
The book would receive 5 stars if it were at a faster pace and less repetitive. The same scenario occurred over and over, and the story simply dragged on to the point where the main characters would nearly die every time. While it is understandable that a book like this cannot necessarily be at a fast pace and action is not easily incorporated, the plot could have benefited from some liveliness and variation in character endeavors. In other words, 70% of The Road was slow, and many readers will not appreciate that and put it down. Patience is required.
For $7.99 on the Kindle, the buy is worth it! If no Kindle is on hand, the paperback edition would be most strongly recommended for the cheaper price. This does not live up to a $17.23 book; it's only 301 pages!
Overall, the book is not a fairy tale, and it will not paint a happy picture nor one that is even vaguely optimistic. The book is disheartening and bleak and will make you question your very existence, yet it was an irresistible page-turner and is recommended!