The Road

There is always the danger in reading “it” books, that the book you read can never match the book that has been raved about by everyone you know.

This should not be your concern in approaching Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

McCarthy paints a bleak picture of a post-apocalyptic world, and a father and son who are trying to make their way through it. Food is scarce, crops and animals virtually non-existent, but McCarthy manages to argue that even in situations such as these, to simply survive is not enough. We must also hang onto what makes us human, or else all is lost. So, the father and his son (whose names we never know), walk through the tattered and dangerous landscape, calling themselves “the good guys” who carry “the fire”. This is how the father makes his son understand how important their humanity is to them.

As they march on and see things that are truly chilling, it is ironically the father who teeters on the edge of losing this precious spark, the boy never falters.

I wont spoil the ending, as wondering what is going to happen is one of the primary joys of a book such as this. But it is well worth reading, and has not been so talked up as to be a disappointment to anyone. But be prepared for quite a few tense moments. Not for the faint of heart.