About The Road

Post 1584:

            Every moment matters. That’s why it should be a top priority to live in the present and to go forward fully, eyes open. Giving a crap. None of that mailing it in stuff.

            Of course, this is easier said. Life presents countless distractions. Noisy world. A billion things are trying to catch our eyes and turn our heads from what’s right in front.

            I’ve always proclaimed that if there’s one good thing about the post-apocalypse, it really helps with arranging priorities. Cormac McCarthy gives us a couple hundred pages to tighten up our to-do lists and experience Armageddon in his award-winning novel, The Road.

            Is this one of the bleakest books ever? Eh, I would say yes and no. Yes, the air is filled with ash. Sure, green has turned gray. Yep, there’s very little hope left and you may succumb any day to hunger or sickness or cold or cannibals.

            There’s that. I’m not going to deny it. I think McCarthy’s natural homebase as a writer is painting dark pictures. We get plenty of that here.

            We are also blessed with some seriously moving moments. The simple things a father must do to protect his son are not so simple after the end of the world. Every basic decision is one of love and sacrifice.

            I like the “limited” nature of the story. We’ve got a man and his son trying to get somewhere better than they are without dying. Within this simple structure, however, we go deep as balls. You can feel the desire to quit and just lay down and die on almost every page. This sounds like a drag but I found it to be a wonderful study of the human condition. Questions of the soul are brought to the fore simply by the lack of other souls. Is humanity gone when most of the humans have died?

            It’s not a rollicking page-turning extravaganza, but neither is it an awful intellectual exercise. Some of the passages are written with this masterful simplicity that is ridiculously economic and sophisticated. If you read five pages you’ll get what I mean.

            The Road is a great novel. As far as “literature,” it’s up there with the best. The writing is purposeful and the imagery is the stuff of legends. I will say that if I were trying to survive after Armageddon and I only had so many things sitting around to read, this isn’t one I’d pick. That’d be a lot. After a hard day avoiding life-ending cuts and sprains and gangs of people that want to kill me for a ten-year-old can of peaches, I’d prefer to snuggle up to the fire with something a touch more light-hearted. Maybe a saccharine selection from McCarthy’s earlier days like Blood Meridian. It’s a long road. I like to keep a positive outlook.

            Cheers and see you after.