241 pages
English language
Published Jan. 22, 2006
The Road is a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. The book details the grueling journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed industrial civilization and almost all life. The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006. The book was adapted into a film of the same name in 2009, directed by John Hillcoat.
Probably one of the greatest books ever written in the English language. Easily among the best of the 21st century as of 2023. Gorgeous, horrifying, haunting, utterly captivating. And the prose, goddamn the prose! One of America's greatest authors at the apex of his career. This was my second time reading it and I appreciated it even more this time around.
Second time reading. Still brilliant. And the prose ... incredible. This is one of those few books I could set down after finishing and then just pick right back up again.
"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.
Excellent. Rarely have I been so completely drawn into a world with so few words.
This was a very creepy yet beautiful book. Cormac McCarthy is one of those writers who has the ability to constantly craft beautiful sentences and this book is rife with them.
It's a relatively quick read, especially for the man who wrote [book:Suttree], but it is by no means simple. It chronicles some of the travels of a man and his son through a world that has ended and seen the loss of all semblance of human civilization and kindness. It is a portrait of sadness, desperation and love. It is haunting.
