Posted: 3/28/2007 8:58:23 PM EDT
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While you'll see people fawning over it because they think it's some kind of intellectual masterpiece, I personally think it sucked. McCarthy's writing style is very difficult to get used to. He doesn't seem too fond of punctuation, and during conversations it's easy to get lost trying to follow the characters. Think more "train of thought" than normal English rules of grammar. I'll sum it up: The world sucks, it's the most post-apocalyptic of any post-apocalyptic setting I've ever read. Everything is covered in COLD GREY ASH (these words are used about 1,000,000 times during the course of the book). The Father is very pessimistic and distrustful, the Son is very naive and innocent. They wander and see many bad things. The end. Read it for yourself if you're still curious. I had really high hopes because of all the reviews, but about 1/3 of the way in, I realized it felt like I had read the same paragraph about 1000 times over. |
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If you want to read "The Road" to see what a literary work with survivalist themes is supposed to be like, then go ahead. But don't buy it, get from the library. If you want to read it to pick up some pointers on what to do in an extreme situation, don't bother. If the father and son didn't keep finding other peoples supplies, they would have died at about Chapter 4. It is possibly the bleakest novel I have ever read. Steve |
| Thanks for the info. I kind of wondered about it, since I had not seen it mentioned here in any of the "What to read" threads. I will probably read it, just for something to read, but not get my hopes up as far as looking for things to learn. I guess if nothing else I could go at it from the "What NOT to do" vantage point. It's too bad, because like I mentioned before, I did like the author's work in All the Pretty Horses. I looked at some of his other works too and they seemed interesting. Time will tell. |
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I liked it. I thought it did a great job of capturing the mood and the total distrust that would take place as society breaks down. And the utter hopelessness that would seize people. I think it is great that Oprah chose this book. SHTF mainstream literature, FTW. |
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I agree that it is pretty difficult to read due to the author's writing style, especially when characters are conversing. I thought it was actually a pretty good story, otherwise. Sure, the father and son were dependent on finding supplies, but it is set about 8 years after a full-scale nuclear exchange. How many of us have that kind of stash put aside? In most of the longer survival fiction popular on this web site, the heroes "find" supplies. It surely was a depressing look at a possible future, but I think it was definitely worth reading. It won't appeal to many who always want a happy ending, though. There have been one or two previous, relatively short threads on the book. Here's a question: WHAT were you doing watching Oprah?  If you claim you learned it wan an Oprah pick by searching/ linking, I won't believe you.  |
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I enjoyed it. It was far from the best book I ever read, but I have read thousands of books and obviously only one of them would merit that title. I doubt that I would read it a second time which I do with any book I REALLY like, but I certainly think it is worthwhile to read once. Anything to read is better than spending the same amount of time staring at the TV. |
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If you thought the writing in that one was "challenging" to read, you ought to try Ridley Walker, by Russell Hoban. That one is so strange you spend half the time trying to figure out what they're saying. I just read The Road a few weeks ago, and while I found it interesting, I don't consider it one of the better post-apocalyptic books I've read. It was pretty dark(yeah, I know, many of them are) and didn't give many details about what had happened, but maybe the characters involved in the story didn't even know what had happened. I was wondering what could have done all that burning(to leave all the burn effects and ash everywhere) and still left people alive. 
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{putting Bon bons back in freezer} I wasn't watching it, honest {\putting Bon bons back in freezer} Seriously though, I caught it on Yahoo as the top news story. At first I just clicked passed it, then my mind registered that it had said something about post apocalyptic fiction and I was like WTF? and went back to it. |
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The most interesting part of the book is where they find the prisoners who are "meat on the hoof" for the guys with guns, including one guy that has already had one of his legs harvested but is otherwise still alive. Aside from that, not much of a survival book unless your survival plan is luck. |
I recently found another one to add to my collection of post-apocalyptic books, but it's one of those books that's written about the time hundreds of years after the apocalypse hits. This one's titled The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau. It's sort of like A Canticle for Leibowitz, but not quite so long after the apocalypse.
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I thought it was worth the read when I finished it. It was pretty depressing. It was an excersise in mental conditioning just reading the book. Someone said earlier that it was bleak, it sure was. You should check it out though. If anything it will make you appreciate the little things. |
That was one of my "what the hell?" parts of the book. He's making out like giving the kid this Coke was a treat. The kid was born the day of the event. There haven't been Coke deliveries since then. Ever tasted a year old Coke? I have, and it ain't exactly what I would call a treat. More like something died in the can. A several year old Coke isn't going to be any better. I was also put off a bit thaqt the kid played with toy cars and trucks and made the appropriate noises. But thinking it over, I supose he could have learned the noises to make from his dad. |
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Where were they going? Or was the dad just wandering about hoping to find some el dorado to finally stay put? Most of us have 1 or 2 places we'd run to in an emergency but what if neither were 'there' anymore? Then what?  The more ambitious have 1+ years worth of food, fuel, water, on hand and 40 years worth of ammo  . But again, should a full exchange annihilate modern society and the ensuing starvation wipe out the skeleton remnants.... alot of unforeseen hardship would come knocking to push the best "bug inners" out of their nest.I currently live near woods, - plenty of wildlife all over the place and good earth to grow all sorts of things...but post apocalypse, I know even with the best gardening I wouldn't be able to feed my family indefinately without resupply. Supposing I survived the post-event panic at all, I'd need to forage to stretch the dwindling survival stash as long as possible and then go on the hunt further afield as that was exhausted.... It really makes one think about hard realities and the weight of responsibility having children places on one's shoulders. 
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They were just heading south. The way I understood it is they had laid low eating up their supplies for the past few years but they eventually had to head south because of the nuclear winter. And great point about dependents. You maybe be able to lone wolf it in the first years but eventually you are going to want a woman & kids. |