The Road

307 pages

Published June 29, 2007 by Random House Inc.

ISBN:
978-0-330-44862-8
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4 stars (319 reviews)

Cormac McCarthy's tenth novel, The Road, is his most harrowing yet deeply personal work. Some unnamed catastrophe has scourged the world to a burnt-out cinder, inhabited by the last remnants of mankind and a very few surviving dogs and fungi. The sky is perpetually shrouded by dust and toxic particulates; the seasons are merely varied intensities of cold and dampness. Bands of cannibals roam the roads and inhabit what few dwellings remain intact in the woods.

Through this nightmarish residue of America a haggard father and his young son attempt to flee the oncoming Appalachian winter and head towards the southern coast along carefully chosen back roads. Mummified corpses are their only benign companions, sitting in doorways and automobiles, variously impaled or displayed on pikes and tables and in cake bells, or they rise in frozen poses of horror and agony out of congealed asphalt. The boy and his father …

36 editions

A tale of emotional and physical stamina

4 stars

I think the takeaway with this tale is to never stop trying, to never give up. There’s no promise of something better, just the very human decision to will yourself forward. That if a better place is indeed out there, it can only be reached through effort, one step at a time.

reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Overwrought, didn't quite land for me

3 stars

I can see why for many this is a beloved book for some, but it didn't capture me.

The writing often felt plodding and overwrought, instead of evocative and touching. And this novel is all scene and style and very little story, so there was not much else to go on.

I found myself wishing this had been a short story instead of a novel.

Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

En lugar de abrirme las venas prefiero quedarme con lo bien contada que está una historia tan literalmente desesperada: un lenguaje seco, evitando connotacoines, sin usar nombres propios (“el hombre”, “el niño”), aunque con mucha riqueza léxica. Consigue mantener el interés en lo que no es más que una marcha continua por el mismo territorio arrasado, sin alegrías ni grandes sucesos, sin esperanza ninguna.

Review of 'La Carretera' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Un padre y su hijo, solos, caminando sobre la carretera de un mundo destruido por algún evento que ha llenado el mundo de ceniza, que en su paso ha quemado todo. ¿Cuál es el propósito de seguir viviendo en una situación similar? El niño no lo sabe, solo cree en su padre, en que deben seguir adelante, a pesar de toda la destrucción y las acciones de “los malos”, porque “nosotros somos de los buenos”. Es así como el niño irá formando sus propios conceptos.

Por su parte, el padre es un hombre que ama a su hijo, que literalmente vive por y para él, ¿con qué propósito?, el mismo no lo sabe, pero debe seguir adelante hasta que sus fuerzas se lo permitan.

Un libro que derrite el corazón igual que todo en ese mundo se ha ido deshaciendo, que se regocija en cada golpe de suerte al encontrar …

En mi carretera

4 stars

Así como a los vinos les afecta el terroir, el clima, la contaminación ambiental, el maridaje escogido, las condiciones meteorológicas y lugar donde se prueba y hasta la compañía de quien lo cata etc., los libros se ven afectados por el lugar, el tiempo y el estado de ánimo de quien los lee. Es por ello que siempre aclaro que las estrellas con las que los califico hablan de mi disfrute, no de aspectos técnicos o la maestría con que estén abiertos. Tal es el caso de La carretera, de Cormac McCarthy.

Duda: ¿En qué difiere el nunca será de lo que nunca fue?

Este libro estaba en mi mesa de noche cuando mi papá murió. Lo comencé unos días antes. Se mantuvo sin leer casi una semana y media. Y para colmo, el tema parecía embonar perfectamente con lo que acontecía en mi vida en esos momentos. Estas …

La Carretera: una obra fundamental.

5 stars

He descubierto a Cormac McCarthy. Acabo de leer su obra cumbre, La Carretera, y vaya si me ha calado. Por su estilo, directo, poético, duro y bello, que me gusta mucho y que me resulta afín y ameno. Pero también por su temática, que me parece fundamental. ¿De qué trata? Para mí trata del sentido de la vida para nuestra generación, época de Cultura del Shock y cúlmen de la Sociedad del Espectáculo. Cualquiera que tenga mis casi cincuenta, más si está criando a un hijo, se habrá sentido de una forma íntima, difícil de explicar, una o muchas veces, en esa carretera que recorren los protagonistas del libro, en la que uno busca un futuro para él y para los suyos, un rayo de sol en un mundo en apariencia gris, decadente e inseguro, que amenaza en convertirse en ceniza de una manera más o menos literal, según el …

A deeply human love story

4 stars

This book is powerful. Not a lot happens but I couldn't set it down.I don't understand the man's intentions on the surface. But, on some level I want to understand their actions. I was drawn to the characters and their relationship to each other. The love the man has is healthy in a dying world. The two face the world in stoic resistance. I will need to unpack this book over the next few days. This is a love story on a human level. I recommend reading it.

Review of 'The Road' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The day-to-day of a father and son in a post-apocalyptic USA. This is falls under my category of books read once for a class and long since forgotten about. The straightforward dialogue between father and son are the best parts.

Are we still the good guys? he said.
Yes. We’re still the good guys.
And we always will be.
Yes. We always will be.
Okay.

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