Book 20: The Road
Book 20: The Road
Writer: Cormac McCarthy
Genre: Science Fiction
Number of pages: 287
Read This Year: 5753
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best]: A
Short description/summary of the book: from Amazon.com:
Best known for his Border Trilogy, hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century," Cormac McCarthy has written ten rich and often brutal novels, including the bestselling No Country for Old Men, and The Road. Profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose, The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, one of the best books we've read this year…
My Thoughts: Set in a dying, post-apocalyptic world, The Road is a haunting story about a father and son attempting to survive in a blighted landscape full of unimaginable dangers. The mother long dead, their destination uncertain, this book is simply an account of their travels - searching for food, trying to escape from cannibals, protecting the few things they can call their own. Most of the book is told through the eyes of the unnamed father, as he worries about his son, often disregarding his own health and safety in the process. Ultimately, the book is a love story about the father and son, “each the other’s world entire.” McCarthy doesn’t delve too deeply into the history of this world, nor into its future. Even the characters of Father and Son are relatively unexplored - we know very little about them except that the boy was born after whatever happened to devastate the world and their devotion to one another is absolute. Despite this, the book is incredibly deep and layered, with a richness rare in this genre. It’s a marvelous book, and one that frankly leaves me at something of a loss for words.
In the Queue: Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill