The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Stand by Stephen King (Books 93 & 94)
Book 93: The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy, 2006.
Genre: Literary. Science fiction with post-cataclysmic theme.
Other details: Hardback, 256 pages.
An unnamed man and his unnamed son travel on an unnamed road through a land devastated by an unnamed cataclysm. The man is dying from an unnamed illness. They forage for food and other items and avoid the 'bad guys', who would likely make them dish of the day. With seemingly all plant and animals life dead it doesn't bode well for planet Earth let alone the two travellers on the road.
The Road was a book group selection for August. After my first session of reading The Road I didn't make the connection between my low mood and the book but the next day when I finished it, I realised that its bleakness and pessimism was responsible for me heading into a short downward spiral of depression. In looking up some background information I found that environmentalist George Monbiot had praised it as a cautionary tale for humanity and a wake up call against the continued abuse of the natural environment. These remarks left me scratching my head in puzzlement because whatever the cataclysmic event in The Road was, it certainly did not indicate one caused by human environmental abuse. As McCarthy declines to identify the trigger event, I was left with the choices of meteor strike, gamma ray event or super-volcanic eruption. I discounted a nuclear event due to lack of mention of radiation and fall-out.
The language was certainly poetic in places and although the lack of punctuation was slightly irritating, I never felt lost in terms of the story or dialogue. The minimalist style also suited the starkness of the story and the landscape. Yet in terms of content it seemed more of a short story. I would have appreciated more background to the cataclysm and found I was continually looking for clues in the text. When I brought this up at my book group, one of the men who loved the book asked 'why was it important or even necessary to know?'. For him it was all a metaphor about father-son love and the setting inconsequential but for me, as someone interested in and involved with environmental issues, it was important.
I also felt irritated because there have been many science fiction stories covering this territory and no writer in that genre would be so sketchy with his setting. Of course, McCarthy isn't writing science fiction, this is 'Literature' or an 'extended parable on the human condition'. Add to that the way that literary prizes tend to be handed out to writers such as McCarthy but denied to anyone writing within a genre. It seems science fiction writers are the equivalent of bottom feeders in the literary world and there are Great Writers who deem to write 'speculative fiction' and it's suddenly a Huge Event and World Shatteringly Important Book.
As Michael Chabon observed in his long review of The Road: "the post-apocalyptic mode has long attracted writers not generally considered part of the science fiction tradition. It's one of the few subgenres of science fiction, along with stories of the near future (also friendly to satirists), that may be safely attempted by a mainstream writer without incurring too much damage to his or her credentials for seriousness. The anti-science fiction prejudice among some readers and writers is so strong that in reviewing a work of science fiction by a mainstream author a charitable critic will often turn to words such as "parable" or "fable" to warm the author's bathwater a little, and it is an established fact that a preponderance of religious imagery or an avowed religious intent can go a long way toward mitigating the science-fictional taint.
Keep in mind this is a rant and I'd be happy to be proved wrong.
In all conscience I can't give this book the title of masterpiece and am somewhat perplexed by the praise given it. It makes me think there is something I am missing. Again it's that feeling one gets when standing in front of a piece of modern art and just not getting it. Is it just a matter of medium? Can I appreciate Tracy Emin's 'Unmade Bed' because I am educated in the language of modern art; yet modern literature and experimental literary forms leaves me cold because I haven't approached them in this way? Am I the literary equivalent of a Sun reader due to a lack of refinement? Still I have to be true to myself even if I'm the one in a million who isn't wowed by a book or film. However, I did take the time watch Cormac McCarthy's interview with Oprah Winfrey, partly to clarify my own responses as well as gain some more background.
I am not familiar with McCarthy's work but it seems he writes literary Westerns and I liked his laconic demeanour.
It did seem from what he said that his main intention was to write about the powerful love he felt for his son, to whom the book is dedicated, and to focus this through through the journey. The extreme circumstances of that journey highlight these emotions. He also indicated that he wanted to convey the sense of how precious life is as it is now and to appreciate what we have. I am paraphrasing of course. It does seem though that the degree of symbolism that people have given the book is largely what they have brought to the reading over a conscious intention on the writer's part. He said as much to Oprah's probing about meaning. Having said that he does credit his subconscious with having written the book during the four years from the time he had the first idea. In that sense there may well be layers of meaning not evident to his conscious mind though I suspect that it is more a 'blank canvas' effect on the part of many readers.
By this I mean that the reader will read into the text what they want to as the very sparseness of detail allows for more personal interpretation. It explains Monboit's response as well as others (Oprah?) hailing its redemptive Christian message. Something that passed me by completely though I guess if you inclined to believe that only a handful will be saved from eternal damnation 'the fire' mentioned could be divine grace. See now I am doing it. :)
I feel when it comes down to it, The Road's devastated landscape is what bothered me more than the loss of humankind. It was that sense of the Wasteland, yet without hope of redemption. Of course, the Earth might recover in several million years from such an event but that is rather beside the point. The whole book was just too nihilistic for my taste.
Book 94: The Stand.
Author: Stephen King, 1978, revised in 1990.
Genre: Science Fiction with post-apocalyptic theme.
Pages: 2007 Complete and Uncut Edition, 1421 pages and unabridged audio edition read by Bruce Huntley (approx 33 hours).
I've reviewed The Road alongside Stephen King's The Stand, which was my audio book in the car for many months this year, though I also dragged its 1400+ pages around with me to various appointments. I'd been waiting for a suitable time to include it and given that both books have a theme of a devastated world and similar covers featuring a road stretching to the distance, this seemed a good time.
Again we have a situation where humankind is all but wiped out though in this case not by an environmental cataclysm but a man-made one when a virulent super-flu escapes from a bio-weapons lab. Most of the world's population is wiped out and it is expected another percentage will die due to related issues. The story focuses on a handful of survivors who are drawn by their dreams to travel either to Mother Abagail, a 101-year-old devout Christian woman living in Nebraska or to Randall Flagg, the sinister Walking Dude, who may be the devil incarnate and who has set up a community in Las Vegas. This leads to a showdown between good and evil.
I loved this book at my first reading of it and while this is probably about my fourth re-read, continue to find worth in it. King doesn't write poetically but he does have a way of making an epic story very accessible. The book is explicitly Christian in theme, which may be off-putting to some. King has a tremendous skill with characterisation for both his 'goodies' and 'baddies' - indeed he draws them in many subtle shades of grey. I'm glad I took the time to revisit it.