The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
I have heard of, but never read, McCarthy’s most famous book, All the Pretty Horses. Published in 1992, I suppose it was somewhat ahead of my reading abilities at the time (I was 12). But it was only after ten pages of The Road–The Boyfriend and I were sitting in the dentist office waiting room and I turned to him in happy surprise, my eyes shiny–that I knew I would not only devour this novel but attempt to get my hands on any other of the 10 novels he’d written, including Pretty Horses.
The Road begins in a post-apocalyptic America where soot and ash cover the world, blowing from place to place on the wind and falling down like rain, a world that is more vivid and believable because the author chooses not to tell us how it became so scarred. He removes the exposition and thereby allows the reader to suspend disbelief effortlessly, not dealing with niggling doubts about whether it could have “really” happened. Instead, we are all the sudden in that world, as stuck as the main characters of father and son in the bleak future, knowing that it does no good to ask why or how but only to soldier on.
For the father and son, this means trudging down the road in the direction of, well, hopefully something better. The father doesn’t know if it will be, the son only has vague ideas of what better even is, but both realize that without the motion of moving on, they will give up hope that “better” is possible. Yes, it is a dark vision. Take for instance the father’s thoughts on the purpose of continuing to struggle, the purpose of thought when it will never be known outside your own head:
No sound but the wind. What will you say? A living man spoke these lines? He sharpened a quill with his small pen knife to scribe these things in sloe or lampblack? At some reasonable and entabled moment? He is coming to steal my eyes. To seal my mouth with dirt.
Yet despite this darkness, and because of it, you are pulled along with these men and their love and dependence on one another. In their quest to remain human and yet still remain alive. As they attempt to find out why alive is better than dead.
(Son:) Can I ask you something? he said.
Yes. Of course.
Are we going to die?
Sometime. Not now.
And we’re still going south.
Yes.
So we’ll be warm.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay what?
Nothing. Just okay.
Go to sleep.
Okay.
I’m going to blow out the lamp. Is that okay?
Yes. That’s okay.
And then later in the darkness: Can I ask you something?
Yes. Of course you can.
What would you do if I died?
If you died I would want to die too.
So you could be with me?
Yes. So I could be with you.
Okay.
I don’t want to ruin this sparse, powerful story or style with any more commentary. I want to keep its mystery with me and hope that many more readers will, like me, find a memorable jewel of words and ideas in this novel. Polish it up. Put it on a mental shelf.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Buy the hardcover.
If you loved The Road, you really should read All the Pretty Horses (still in my top 10) and The Crossing. The Crossing has a very similar feel. McCarthy really knows how to paint a sparse picture and make it real and somehow colorful. I fully expected to be utterly depressed at the end of the book, but I wasn’t — only sad that the experience was over.