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: A Haunting and Touching Book
Summary: 4 Stars
My wife's book club picked up McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" for one of their monthly selections. In the end, she bought the book but never read it. I felt obliged to read it in order to justify the expense and finished it. I found the book to be depressing but still interesting enough to read. I found "The Road" to be a similar type read except there is a touching element. As you probably read before, "The Road" takes place after a apocalyptic event which I took to be a nuclear war. Some reviewers mentioned the possibility of an asteroid impact. Whatever the cause, the ultimate effect was the destruction of cities (some melted) and the extinction of all plant and animal life. Humanity has been whittled down to a isolated few survivors who in some cases have turned to cannibalism. In this backdrop, the author tells the story of a father and his young son desperately trying to survive and reach the coast. Love is what keeps them going. For such a depressing book, this touching father-son interaction kept me reading the book.Book Review: A Journey to Nowhere
Summary: 1 Stars
This was one of the most boring books I've ever read! It begins with a journey from nowhere and ends the same way. I'm reminded of going to a suspense film 30 minutes after it began and leaving 30 minutes before it ends.
Spend your money on a book that has something to say and says it.
Book Review: A Keeper.
Summary: 5 Stars
I am deeply affected by this book, this writing, and this journey. I am always in love with McCarthy's visions, albeit often bleak ones, and his bare-bones yet incredibly descriptive prose. How can I call a 10-line sentence bare bones? Maybe it's the way it feels being read off the page. Maybe it's the landscape of terrain or the landscape of the character he's describing. I have spoken with others about this book and gotten a range of reactions... some can only focus on the bleak overtones and miss the glimmers of hope and color. This book will go on my shelf and be taken down for several more reads through the decades, and will be recommended often to people.Book Review: A Layered Grey Snow Story.
Summary: 3 Stars
The story is set in a post-catastrophe world. It is a story of a nameless man & his young boy travelling through a dark chaotic society. There is a bit of the TV series "Dark Angel" without any angels & the feel of "A Farewell To Arms" that permeates the scenes. Here nothing grows, people turn to cannibalism, & the boys mom kills herself. The man & his son are each others whole world; every day is a brutal trial for survival. This is a desolate "Lord Of The Flies" world, where the strong enslave the meek.
In their southern journey to the coast{we are not told why}, there are times when the bitter father refuses to help others in need while his son is a selfless, giving soul. The father becomes consumed with the devestation around him while his son holds onto whatever humanity he can. "This is the heart of the story."
Down deep in his soul the man knows there is little hope for the future, he lives solely to keep his son alive. The formers parental angst is well crafted by the authors detailed prose. However, between the eternal bleekness of the story & lack of dialogue I can't give it more than 3 stars. I do recommend it as a fairly fast read despite the picture it paints of hopelessness.
Book Review: A Light But Compelling and Entertaining Read
Summary: 5 Stars
Cormac McCarthy was born in Rhode island and grew up in Tennessee, but now lives in Tesuque, New Mexico. He is viewed by many as one of the more unusual and most talented of the current American writers. For example, Harold Bloom has written a number of things positive things about McCarthy. I selected this book after reading Pretty Horses and a few of his other works covering the years 1968 (Outer Dark) to 2005 (No Country). I was interested in the present novel, his most recent novel.
This is McCarthy's tenth novel published in 2006. It is about a man and his son who migrate from their home to the ocean after some sort of cataclysmic disaster that has engulfed the whole planet killing most plants and wildlife. It is about the details of the trip with narrative descriptions of the desolate landscapes, descriptions of fellow travelers who they meet, and the story of their trip and the emotions that they feel.
McCarthy has developed his trademark prose where he writes long rambling sentences to describe the natural setting and between these passages he uses mixed narrative and dialogue. McCarthy uses what is called polysyndeton, or the use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some might be omitted. It is a stylistic scheme used to slow down the tempo and to describe natural settings, such as mountains, rivers, etc.
That complicated literary style is in the present novel, and it works effectively. Readers new to McCarthy might wonder about the long sentences as they first begin to read, but after a while the reader grows to accept and appreciate the style.
This is not dark novel about crime and murder as was his last novel, No Country for Old Men, set in Texas. There are some positive elements and sympathetic displays of emotion. Also, this is a faster and smoother novel than some of McCarthy's earlier works - but it is written in the same style as some earlier works. I was able to read the novel in just three or four hours: it is a light and entertaining read.
The present read is very compelling and the book is hard to put down. It is among his best works and I highly recommend the book.