What I’m reading: The Road

August 5th, 2008

The Road is one of the books that everyone you know who’s read it demands that you must too because it is so very good.

The thing is that in this case they’re pretty much spot on, the book is that good.   A literary science fiction novel focusing on a father/son relationship.   It is a very powerful book.

Forget that the world is over, forget that there are roving bands of cannibalistic killers.   The book is about the relationship between the boy, who has never experienced anything but the apocalyptic nightmare and the man, his father who will do anything to protect him.

The picture that Cormac McCarthy paints of the world after the apocalypse is vivid in its cold starkness, there is nothing left alive and everything is covered in ash and refreshingly the world isn’t recovering.

The survivors (outside of the boy and the man) resort to some of the most horrible things in order to stay alive, it’s like all beauty was removed from the world and also from their souls.   I’m not going to give anything away lest it lessen the impact of such encounters but they will stay with you afterwards.

This is a very tight and personal story, it’s quiet and moving with the backdrop of the end of the world.   I will warn you though that this book does not contain answers, you will think long and hard on its contents.   There is no big bright bow to wrap everything up neatly in the end.

Go read it now.

From one award winning novel to another, if you’ve been following the twitter feed you might know that I’ve been getting off the computer earlier in the evening of late in order to re-read Watchmen.   I will post about it sometime in the coming days.   It is just as good the second time round.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Categories: Books | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments