The Road (Oprah's Book Club) by Cormac McCarthy Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Road (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: The Road to where that is the question
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this book because of the good recommendations. However, I just did not get the same feeling after reading it as others have. I found the style of writing monotonous and rather dull, just as well it was a short story! It certainly is not worthy of the 4 or 5 star rating. After a slow start the story does get interesting and you want to know how it ends, unfortunately its a bit like a damp firework - dissappointing. Book Review: Genius at work...
Summary: 4 Stars
I had never read McCarthy Before but Picked up the road because of all the hype surrounding the selection of The Road to Oprahs book club. For once the hype was worthy of the product. The road is a visionary work of art, not a masterpiece, but very well done. McCarthy's style is sharp, dry, brittle, and panoramic and pulses with human emotion. More importantly "The Road" led me to McCarthy's true masterpiece "Blood Meridian." I cannot recommend this book highly enough! Book Review: Devastating
Summary: 5 Stars
Rarely has a book filled my thoughts to such an extent as this one. It opened so many wells of emotion that I cried for an hour after I finished it. I took from it 2 central messages - the preciousness of all that we have on this living planet and the risk that humanity is capable of placing it under, as well as the devastation that we must all experience when we lose those we love. We are all ultimately alone, yet we cling to our loved ones as we struggle through life in a world gone mad in much the same way as the father and son cling to each other on their journey. This book will make you appreciate those you love all the more. Awesome.Book Review: An essential read
Summary: 5 Stars
Cormac McCarthy is one of the USA's biggest and most important literary novelists, laden with awards and praise throughout his lengthy career. It is almost unnecessary to review The Road, his latest novel, as it has already won this year's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and garnered a major sales-boosting appearance on Oprah Winfrey's US book club, but it was a book of such impressive power I felt compelled to add my thoughts.
Some have already argued that The Road is not really science fiction, since the book features nearly nothing about the holocaust that destroyed civilisation before the book began (there are hints of it being either a nuclear war or an asteroid impact), little about how humanity develops afterwards (aside from the obvious descent into barbarism) and little in the way of an effective plot. The story is instead a series of viginettes that follow the unnamed protagonist ('the man') and his unnamed son ('the boy') as they head south, away from the freezing winter that is consuming the devastated USA, hoping to find a safe haven along the coast. Along the way they occasionally meet other survivors, they loot abandoned shops and homes, and find themselves relying on one another to keep going. However, science fiction is more than just about machines and sociology: it's about people, and how the impact of a future event (such as an atomic holocaust or an meteor strike) effects them and their lives. In this regard, The Road is essential science fiction.
The book is beautifully, starkly written. McCarthy employs a stripped-down prose style with some minor embellishments to keep the story moving. Given that many pages are covered by simple, short sentences as the man and the boy exchange views, the book is actually much shorter than its 300-page count would suggest, and easily readable in a couple of hours. The lack of plot is unnecessary, as this is a stunning atmospheric mood piece with some biting observations on the nature of humanity.
It is difficult to find anything worth criticising about the book. Some may feel there isn't enough plot or backstory or in-depth character history, but that's not the aim of the work. It's about two people and what keeps them going when everything else has been destroyed. In that regard, it works brilliantly. There are some vague similarities to earlier works - this could almost be said to be a road trip (but less revelatory) version of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend - but nothing that is particularly offputting. The book is stunning.
Book Review: Delivers a Vision of Hell
Summary: 5 Stars
Quick and rapid-fire descriptions, driven by metaphors and similes, ride on top of a deep piece of work that depicts two heroes, a man and his son, going though hell. Every house, every boat confronts the possibility of food and continuance of life with harm and death. You will definitely reflect a little less casually on the contents in your cupboard after reading this book.