English (658) Spanish (8) French (8) Danish (3) Swedish (3) Italian (3) Dutch (2) Catalan (2) Norwegian (2) German (1) Czech (1) Finnish (1) All languages (692)
Showing 1-25 of 658 (next | show all)
|
Loading... The Road (Oprah's Book Club)by Cormac McCarthy
 aklnbrg | Jun 2, 2008 | 
The pervasive gray serves to enhance the moments of color, as markers of McCarthy's intent. The color of the orange fire sparks in the man the words: write a list. say the litany. remember. The book is about the end of civilization, and the seeds of its foundations- the bare bones of its structure- God, family and love as sacrificial commitment. McCarthy uses the word "fragile" a number of times as a descriptor of Western culture. A tenuous existence at best, the West currently hangs on humanist illusions, images that McCarthy strips away. The sure foundations are kept with the man and the boy- the torchbearers. The two streams of humanity - as described by Augustine in the City of God- are portrayed in stark silhouettes. The "creedless shells of men tottering down the causeways like migrants in a feverland" and the boy and his father- trying always to remember the old stories of valor and honor. The barbarians and the believers, the creedless and the carriers of the fire. Awesome. (  ) chriszodrow | Feb 9, 2010 | The Road won a Pulitzer Prize, so I knew it had to have something special about it. Also it’s being made into a film, which is probably not the best advert. It has an intriguing cover though, with man and boy in a gray world in the rain, so, living in rainy Oregon as I do, I decided to give it a try and was immediately hooked: From the first bleak vista, a nameless man reaching out to check the breathing of a nameless child; through miniature scenes, each carefully crafted, no excess words to describe a dying world; through steps and details and how will you open a jar when the lid’s stuck and there’s no tools left in the strangers' house to grip it…; through conversations with no punctuation because the words themselves punctuate the silence; through sickness and knowing what’s coming and not wanting to know—and through knowing what’s gone but not wanting that either; through to the point where I know the book’s going to end but I hope maybe it won’t; to final, lonely, impossible satisfaction. A few weeks ago a jar of peaches leaked in my kitchen cupboard. Brown sticky fluid dripped down the inside of the door into a puddle on the floor. The tin itself looked rusty, slightly blown. Father and son might have found it there and discarded it rightly as unsafe. McCarthy’s book makes me see it again in my mind, and wonder how the rest of my stocks will fare when the world ends. The Road is a truly beautiful, masterful book, scarily real, emotionally draining, absorbing and haunting and sad. It deserves its prize. It foreshadows everyman’s last hope. And I’m glad to have finally joined the ranks of those who have read and enjoyed it. ( ) SheilaDeeth | Feb 8, 2010 | Incredibly written --- but incredibly depressing! (  ) caroren | Feb 6, 2010 | Incredibly written --- but incredibly depressing! ( ) caroren | Feb 6, 2010 | This book was so hard to get into - I found it extremely easy to daydream as soon as I opened it. I had to read this for my creative writing group and I think if it hadn't been for that, I might not have even finished it.The Road is the story of a father and son who struggle to survive in the barren and burnt landscape of America after some unknown disaster has taken place. There is little plot and most of the focus is on the relationship between the characters. There are some gory instances when the two have run-ins with cannibals and the tenderness between the characters was really the only [b:saving grace|130916|The Saving Graces A Novel|Patricia Gaffney|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171995451s/130916.jpg|126092] (I did cry slightly at the end). I think I'd have enjoyed hearing about the disaster that made the world this way, rather than a repetitive "they made a fire, pulled the tarp over them and ate a tin of peaches..." There was also rather annoying paragraphs of characters' imaginings and dreams which were hard to understand and made the reading even more slow going.The book is written with sparing punctuation - dialogue not being encased in quotation marks is one example. This was confusing and I think the gimmick distracted me from the content but I suppose it did add a different element to the story. I've read some reviews with snobbish speculations that the punctuation was left out to emphasise the starkness of the characters' surroundings but since a lot of the sentences were clumsy ("He went to check the valve that it was turned off.") and many other sentences had full stops thrown in the middle and then the sentence continued after it without a capital, I'm not sure all of the grammar issues were done for effect or if there was a laziness about the writing/editing. (  )1  Dissidence | Feb 5, 2010 | A man keeps his son alive in a post-apocalyptic world. And the book is very much like a road: you join it where it has already been going for some time, and leave it even though it keeps going, away in the distance. Poetic and unsettling and a little hypnotizing, I can see why this is such a favourite for book clubs and the like. I read it in a day and enjoyed it a lot. It's haunting. ( ) jenniferbee | Feb 5, 2010 | Certainly a worthwhile reading experience. Thought-provoking on many levels. (  ) miha | Feb 5, 2010 | Too dark and depressing. I couldn't finish it. The relationship between the father and son is warm and inspiring, however. (  ) Steve777 | Feb 2, 2010 | Like all of McCarthy's writing, the prose is sparse and evokes a harsh and unforgiving landscape far better than eloquent or flowery language ever could. There is an odd abstract detachment to his writing: the main characters don't have names, and moments of incredibly deep and painful emotion are described in movingly terse language. We never learn what has caused the apocalypse, or what the mysterious communes are that scare the Man. All we know is that he is traveling with his son, moving on in constant search of food, in constant flight from cannibals and bad guys. It is a depressing story, but naturally there is a small ray of hope in the innocence of the boy, in his constant yearning to help others, even though he knows they will try to kill him, and in his father's constant love. There are some interesting moments examining how humans react under pressure: the Man is not a cruel man by nature, but must do some cruel things to other people so that he and his son can survive. The son questions whether their own lives are worth this cruelty. In the long run, this is not a terribly original story, and you can foresee the sad ending from the opening pages. It is McCarthy's writing that makes it worth reading. I listened to the audiobook, and I thoroughly enjoyed the narrator. (  ) Gwendydd | Feb 1, 2010 | Bleak, cold, grey - these are the feelings communicated by this post-apocalyptic story of a father and his son, trudging on a (perhaps hopeless) trek to the south, in a vain search for warmth and safety. A story of loss, struggle, and hunger, it was almost impossible to put down. And it made me heartily glad that society was still around after I finished the book - the alternative, after all, doesn't even bear consideration. ( ) Meggo | Jan 31, 2010 | Good, quick read. Creative. Moody. Touchingly written, highlighting the bond between a father and son by setting it against a macabre and horrific backdrop of the dissolution of all social ties and bonds in the post-apocalyptic world. (  ) linedog1848 | Jan 30, 2010 | With 680 reviews on this site already, what could I possibly say that would be different or original from anyone else? This is my second Cormac McCarthy. It won't be my last. My sister-in-law lent it to me. "You'll read it in a day," she said. She was right. Good stuff to read on hot summer nights when you've turned the air-conditioning off for fear of global warming. Our pantry has always been the source of mirth in our family...well stocked with tins by my husband - a hangover from his grandfather from the war years - the sisters-in-law always joke they know where to come when the apocalypse hits. Now I'm thinking we should be building a donger - or whatever they're called. Speaking of words there were quite a few in this book I'd never heard before and that's always a good thing - to stretch the brain. At 1am I got up and googled "krugerrands". I've led a sheltered life obviously. This is a simple and a difficult book to read. It is a classic "and then" story. The father and son talk much like fathers and sons do these days but its so much more poignant in their predicament. And then again is it? Is that what Cormac is asking? We wonder what we will be like when faced with a challenge like this or any challenge. Are we prepared enough ? - mentally, physically, morally. Can anything prepare us for life and what we might face? Are we just victims of the blind biological drive to keep going. I can see we're going to have fun at bookclub with this one. And the movie comes out today! ( )1 alexdaw | Jan 27, 2010 | This book will haunt you for quite a while. It's set some years after an unnamed world-wide apocalypse--in a kind of nuclear winter. The world is covered in ash, no living things other than some itinerant humans who roam the roads (alone, in pairs, in groups) scavenging their way to survival. A man and his young son are working their way south to perhaps warmer days. The man holds to the belief that they are "the good guys" and "carry the fire." In fact, they do seem to hold to higher standards than many of the people they come across (I won't detail the horrors they encounter). But, when they do have the opportunities to help someone, the father becomes wary, afraid, protectionist. Who can blame him? Well, his son seems to. The relationship between the father and son gives strength to their journey. This book echoes themes in Jose Saramago's Blind and even Waiting for Godot in some of the roadside conversations. Some questions that surface: if there's no future to live for, why live? are we basically an "every man for himself" species? do personal relationships give the ultimate purpose in our lives" Oddly, there is a wee glimer of hope at the end. Or is it just a short reprieve from a hopeless future? ( ) tmannix | Jan 27, 2010 | The Earth is dying and civilisation has come to an end. A Father and young Son walk through America heading for the coast. They have a gun, a cart of scavenged food and they have eachother. The way this is written is very clever. It is all written in a very simple way whilst the story handles some very difficult scenarios. Each even is written out in fragmented blocks in one long chapter - it really gives the reader a sense of the day to day struggles in the character's lives. I really wanted these characters to 'be ok' and needless to say, I cried my eyes out towards the end. The Road really highlights the unbreakable bond between the parent and child. ( ) MuggleMagic | Jan 27, 2010 | Seven out of ten.In a post-apocalyptic America, a father and son walk alone through the burned wilderness. Their destination is the coast but they don't know what will await them when they get there.Quite slow-moving - a lot of the time nothing happens which is all part of the bleakness of the scene. The moralising and the questions raised are extremely interesting but the conclusion left me wanting more. ( ) theboylatham | Jan 25, 2010 | I started this book yesterday and could not put it down. A post-apocalyptic story of a man and his son walking towards only a sliver of hope. It is both bleak and beautiful. This book confronts the reader with the extremes of human survival when human decency and even humanity itself are in question. I think McCarthy has a clear vision of what man would be without the common grace of God. This book probably disturbed me more for the implications it has for a more localized apocalypse like WWII Soviet Union or mid-nineties Rwanda than it does for the dystopian future McCarthy has in mind. When the world turns upside down on you, the question is not only of how you survive, but how far you would go to extend the survivability of a spouse or child. Most westerners cannot fathom the type of fear and want these events bring about. Even our homeless can survive on what we toss away as mere rubbish. ( ) SwampIrish | Jan 25, 2010 | I can sort of abstractly appreciate McCarthy's talent, but his spare, minimalist style doesn't do much for me personally, and I was underwhelmed by The Road. As well, while I'm not usually one to complain about books being too bleak or depressing, this one was so hopeless I found myself not even able to relate to the characters. What, exactly, were they going to? Why? What did they think would be there? The book doesn't answer these questions and I can't fill in my own answer; the only character I could comprehend at all was the nameless wife, who had (presumably) killed herself years before. Needless to say, this is not a cheerful frame of mind for a novel to put one in, and while I honestly don't expect or even want to be made cheery by fiction (that's why I read stuff like this and not cozy mysteries and chick lit)--there's got to be something more than this utter black hopelessness. ( )1 katieinseattle | Jan 22, 2010 | I read this at a sitting, completely unable to put it down. Once I had finished, in bed, late at night, I couldn't sleep for fear but lay watching a tree through the window. This seems to me so much nore plausible a future than those described in most visions of future disaster. Usually, there is some cataclysmic event that kills most of the people, and the plucky survivors scrape a living from the remains of civilization while they remake their world. Here we've destroyed the world all right, but there is no going back. No chance to start again, no cosy community to settle down to rebuilding. The world is destroyed. There is no food, no shelter and no hope. Plant and animal life has gone and with them beauty and peace. The man and the boy struggle on, carrying 'the flame' of humanity that only they seem to recall. 'This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a whimper' Incredibly, this is still a book of great beauty and compassion; but a book to make you weep. ( )4 Goldengrove | Jan 22, 2010 | I read this book a few years ago. Very interesting style of writing and an intense read. ( ) ColieCakes | Jan 21, 2010 | Intense. Well worth the read if a post-armageddon world. Lean and mean writing. ( ) jengel | Jan 18, 2010 | Wow, what a powerful read! It brought tears to my eyes. The way McCarthy wrote it was perfect. Sentence fragments. Simply constructed dialogue. Short sentences, paragraphs and sections. You never find out the man and the boy's names and rightfully so. In such a scarce and scorched wasteland, it would be superfluous anyway. I thought this book was brilliant and disturbing. ( ) wflooter480 | Jan 18, 2010 | An original and compelling love. But worth the Pulitzer? I think not. ( ) SarahinFlorida | Jan 17, 2010 | Overstylized and pointless, better as short story ( ) Zenodotos | Jan 17, 2010 | A very dark picture of life after nuclear war and the quest of a father and son on the road to find a safe haven from the anarchy that has ensued. ( ) nEtVolution | Jan 15, 2010 | I put off reading this for a long time, because I find the world sad enough that I don't often feel like piling postapocalyptic dystopian literature on top of it. But, wow, McCarthy does things with words that are easily as haunting and spare as anything in Hemingway. ( ) wanack | Jan 14, 2010 | |
|
Here's how stark works. The personalities of the characters are not fleshed out enough to make them interesting. They just have large amounts of bravery, sincerity, goodness or innocence. It's done this way because they are not as important as the story itself, which is huge.
This starkness is why some readers will find the story boring, just as they find the Bible boring, but for the rest of us, this is it's greatness, it's what makes us take it seriously.
Some readers see a resemblance between the child in the story and Jesus. Well, I'm no Christian. So it's hard for me to evaluate that. But In my opinion, the resemblance of the father and son in this story to Abraham and Issac is striking.
Here's how.
Abraham and Isaac were the first father and son team in the history of faith and this pair, well, they are the last. Abraham takes his son on a really important journey where the precise destination and the reason for aspiring to reach it are subtle, and become a talking point between them along the journey, giving rise to existential questioning, acceptance and solidarity of the son towards the father. Last but not least, and this is big enough that if you did not notice it, you will want to kick yourself and say how could I not see that patriarch written all over these pages. Abraham has from the start set his mind on the eventuality that he will be called upon by his supreme duty to kill his beloved son, the son who represented G-d's promise. In our story, the man says, and this is not an exact quote, if this child is not the word of G-d, then G-d never spoke. How Abrahamesque can you get?
I found it interesting that so many people relate aspects of this story to the hardships in their own lives. Isn't our world a vivid contrast to the setting of the story, so full of life, hope and meaning? Nevertheless, I read it just as I was divorcing and found that the absence of any semblance of a world in which he once occupied a place was all too similar too my own experience. It really hit me when someone asked him if he was a doctor. “I'm nothing,” he answered. How could he be a doctor, or anything, if there was no world?
Another reader told me that the journey along the road, pushing a shopping cart, reminded her of the period of her life when she was a young mother, pushing a baby stroller along a very lonely path seeking out help that she desperately needed only to find herself returning to a cold campsite empty handed and wanting night after night.
The story is relevant to so many of us because so many of us have tasted extreme scarcity of that which we desperately and diligently seek and desolation of a world once cherished.