Are you carrying the fire?--Book Review of THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy
There have been a special few books over the years from which I got that sense of just knowing after reading the first sentence or two. It could be knowing I'm in for a great ride. Or knowing this particular bundle of words and paper is going to change everything. Or perhaps having a sense that this is one of those books that I'm just going to read from cover-to-cover in one sitting. Or even knowing that I'd better have a box of tissues handy, or knowing that I'm going to love whatever piece of literature I'm holding in my hands... That sense of there you are, I've been waiting for you.
There are even fewer books that move me to tears.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy falls into both categories.
My brother received this book for Christmas from my cousins. They gave me The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike which was girlier than I generally tend to read...and also more social commentary than I had patience for at the time. So I read about half of it and then decided to commandeer my brother's gift. Hey, he wasn't reading it...and I can't bear to have new books in the house that I haven't read (Hi...um, my name is Zaelia and I have a reading problem...Hi, Zaelia).
I'm not sure what I was expecting. Certainly it wasn't what I got. The Road is set in a grim, grey, post-apocalyptic world, and the prose is fairly sparse to match that. Not a word is wasted.
The Road is a survival story, focused on two unnamed protagonists: a man and a boy, a father and his young son who must navigate the barren, frequently dangerous landscape of an ex-america on their way south to the sea: winters have become too cold to survive longer in their last home. They're travelling the road with a shopping cart, a tarp or two, an ever-decreasing supply of food, some blankets, a couple toys for the boy, perhaps, and a gun with two bullets. And each other, "each the other's world entire". You can read it one of two ways: you can see the darkness and the devastation and the bleak regression of the human race to cannibals and marauders and God only knows what else...or you can see the love that keeps these two characters alive.
It winds up at just under 300 pages, so I consider it to be an average-sized novel. I finished it in one sitting of about 2 hours the first time I read it (I'm now midway through a second read-through, because I don't think I quite grasped it the first time). But it's no light read. It's dark and depressing and frightening...I cried at least once. However, over all this, there is a kind of bleak beauty to the writing. McCarthy is a master of words--much like Markus Zusak, though the two are very different stylistically.
Of course, one can't really describe this book. It must be read and felt and experienced to truly be understood.
If you only read one book this whole year to come, make it this one. I am, for all I've tried to explain it, speechless, deeply moved, and changed in some intangible but still important way.
...Also, it's going to be a movie, due out sometime this year. Viggo Mortensen will be the man, which is pitch-perfect casting, if you ask me. I can't wait to see it.