Maerman reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Jesus. I think I need to call up my dad.
Paperback, 287 pages
English language
Published Nov. 11, 2006 by Vintage International.
The Road
4 stars
(364 reviews)
The searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son’s fight to survive.
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.
The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and …
The searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son’s fight to survive.
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.
The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation. (back cover)
Colin Devroe reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Page turner. A living thesaurus. very good.
jankmammal reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Storygraph'
2 stars
I think, on the whole, I’d have rather read a book about the cannibals.
Didactylos reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
A very dark and disturbing vision of life after a catastrophe. Told in a fragmented but easily readable style, grim and bleak.
Sonya reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
I love post-apocalyptic stories, and this one is very well done. I'd compare it to the likes of "A Canticle for Lebowitz", which is of a high caliber.
I didn't want to put it down, which says something.
The only thing I didn't like was the ending. How do you end a story like this? I wasn't sure how McCarthy would do it, but I took faith that it would be excellent. I was a little disappointed, but it's no reason not to read the book. The ending doesn't hold the book together - each section does that on its own.
govmarley reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
I thought this book was fantastic.
Bleak and depressing, it tells a tale of what our future could be. The imagery is cold. I needed a warm blanket and a cup of tea while reading it. It's the tale of a father's love, a tale of hope, and a tale of life continuing on.
Cormac McCarthy has a way with words. I could picture every location as they traveled along the road. I could feel every cold wind in my bones, and my stomach was clenched in fear and hunger for our travelers. If you haven't read this book, just do it. It left me changed. 4 1/2 stars.
T reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
"Goodness will find the little boy. It always has. It will again."
Ha, ha, ha! McCarthy may be as monotonous as hell, but every once in a while he winks out an hilarious zinger... It was meant to be LOL funny, right? (But I think I'll cry if I find the above in the quotes database.) Alas, as ridiculous as that line was, it wasn't enough to make up for the rest of the tedious puerility.
The fire's inside you, boys, don't you forget it. Happy trails.
Matsafi reviewed Droga by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'Droga' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Postapokaliptyczna wizja świata. Ojciec i syn skazani na tułaczkę, w poszukiwaniu lepszego jutra. Powieść oparta głównie na dialogach, które mimo swej prostoty zawierają głęboki sens.
"Droga", jako połączenie powieści drogi, powieści przygodowej oraz horroru jest uznawana za największe arcydzieło Cormaca McCarthy'ego. Przez wiele tygodni była bestsellerem New York Timesa, przyjęto ją także do Klubu Książki Oprah Winfrey. Oprócz wspomnianej Nagrody Pulitzera została również wyróżniona najstarszą angielską nagrodą w dziedzinie fikcji. The Tait Black Memorial Prize.
"Droga to powieść przejmująco sugestywna i niepokojąca, to książka, która ukazuje, co czai się pod warstwą żalu i grozy. Nigdy wcześniej nikt nie opisał zagłady świata w sposób tak przekonujący, zarówno w wymiarze duchowym, jak i fizycznym." (Time)
Ikwezi reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
He is very good at describing desolate landscapes, portentious with meaning.
scbarton reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Very repetitive, and a little boring. The author is quoted as saying he did not know how the book would end while he was writing it, and I believe him.
Eduardo Santiago reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Maybe if I were 15 and this were my first postapocalypse novel I'd rave more or at least understand the praise. At my age I just found it clumsy, formulaic, poorly developed. The apocalypse scenario is not credible. Character or relationship growth nonexistent. At the end you feel like you've just plodded wearily along a bleak road without accomplishing or learning anything.
Yashima reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I think this is where I officially give up. I cannot bring myself to finish reading this story. The language is great but I find no connection to the story being told. It's too much post-apocalyptic dreariness and it makes me depressed just thinking of this book. It's most probably a good book but it turns out maybe I am not the kind of person that reads McCarthy books. I tried.
franksbooks reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
I think I need to read it again now my perception has been completely changed of what it is, in fact, about by the final page.
tiff reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Yes. The sentences were short and choppy, full of supposedly uninteresting detail. We see the man- he is whittling wood to make fake bullets to fill the empty chambers in the pistol they are carrying for protection. We get the very minute details of this action. It has turned some off of the book, along with the metaphors that seemed to be piled one on the other, but to me that was the charm of the book. The everyday encumbrances of the man and the boy, living in a semi-inhabitable land laid to waste by what I assume to be a world-wide nuclear holocaust (don't quote me on this- there was mention of fire in a flashback and people are burnt into the macadam in other parts of the book which is where I'm drawing my conclusions from). Everyday it takes courage to get up, to move on, to starve, …
Yes. The sentences were short and choppy, full of supposedly uninteresting detail. We see the man- he is whittling wood to make fake bullets to fill the empty chambers in the pistol they are carrying for protection. We get the very minute details of this action. It has turned some off of the book, along with the metaphors that seemed to be piled one on the other, but to me that was the charm of the book. The everyday encumbrances of the man and the boy, living in a semi-inhabitable land laid to waste by what I assume to be a world-wide nuclear holocaust (don't quote me on this- there was mention of fire in a flashback and people are burnt into the macadam in other parts of the book which is where I'm drawing my conclusions from). Everyday it takes courage to get up, to move on, to starve, to be thirsty, to look for shelter, to smell badly, to kill others or be killed. The details were necessary, for the most part, to ensure the reader feels what the man and boy call "the fire" that they both are carrying. Get to that in a moment.
I had to look up words, which is no drawback if you are reading on an ereader (at least not for me). I thought that using some of the words like "truncheoned" which don't exist anymore was a bit of pretense on McCarthy's part but he's such a brilliant writer that I excused it.
The man lied to the boy a lot. The boy was precocious and knew quite a bit about life and to some this seemed implausible, especially for a child so young. But it was important to the narrative, to show how a brave man, father, protector knew so little about their existence. The boy was my favorite character, and at the end I almost cried for him. But I digress.
The fire that they carried. The fire that the man's wife didn't have or want to have. The will to survive in a dead world. The good guys. To get up everyday knowing existence wasn't to exist, that everything has died or will die someday. That fire was the whole point of the book. The details, the precocious little boy, that was all great and kept me reading but the heart of the book, the light in all that death was the will to survive and carry on when all is lost. I don't know what I'd do if I survived a nuclear holocaust. I'm not sure I'm brave enough to keep going or brave enough to kill myself. What I do know is this book was magnificent and I will be rereading it for years to come.
Sandra reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Re-Read
This is a story stripped to the bare essense of all humanity. There is nothing left of the physical realm. No life. Not even shelter or small comfort. No distractions of time or place, only survival. Only ugliness, hopelessness, death. Relecs from a seemingly make believe world, useless. Even dreams are void. Humankind reduced to scavenger at best. At BEST. For the most part now, at worst, more depraved and without remorse than the lowest form of animal. Monstrous even. Both hunter and hunted. The smallest glimpse of beauty, now exceedingly rare, the love of parent and child. That's it. It is a desperate love, all consuming, relentless. It also is the saddest love as one will have to leave the other, the hardest thing especially in this terrible landscape. Some humans still, despite the desperation, carry the fire, the goodness, the will to strive forward against all odds. …
Re-Read
This is a story stripped to the bare essense of all humanity. There is nothing left of the physical realm. No life. Not even shelter or small comfort. No distractions of time or place, only survival. Only ugliness, hopelessness, death. Relecs from a seemingly make believe world, useless. Even dreams are void. Humankind reduced to scavenger at best. At BEST. For the most part now, at worst, more depraved and without remorse than the lowest form of animal. Monstrous even. Both hunter and hunted. The smallest glimpse of beauty, now exceedingly rare, the love of parent and child. That's it. It is a desperate love, all consuming, relentless. It also is the saddest love as one will have to leave the other, the hardest thing especially in this terrible landscape. Some humans still, despite the desperation, carry the fire, the goodness, the will to strive forward against all odds. Dare to have hope. Alas, most do not.
I find this book somewhat flawed in a way. The apocalyptic world was not done very well, imo. But it's Cormac McCarthy. Even a flawed Cormac McCarthy is worthy of 4 stars. Anyway the apocalyptic world is secondary to the man and the boy and their journey of hope.
This book breaks your heart and gives a glimmer of redemption at the same time. It's bleak though. Probably not for everyone.
ps After thinking about this for a little while it's almost like the boy symbolizes the Christ-child. He is pure of heart. He wants to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. He feels compassion and love and pain for humanity and knows how they all suffer as he suffers. He feels the need to offer comfort however small. "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me". He carries the fire (the holy spirit) given to him through the father. He is born to the world and left in a world that is defiled and hostile. A star (the flare) is sent to the heavens to herald his arrival. He is risen on the third day, taken in and raised by someone not his true father who now resides in the spirit. And we don't know for sure as the story ends, but he just may be the savior of mankind.
anyway, yeah
Subjects
- Fathers and sons -- Fiction
- Voyages and travels -- Fiction
- Regression (Civilization) -- Fiction
- Survival skills -- Fiction