Sunday, April 17, 2011

The Road by Cormac McCarthy


This book was a gift from a friend of mine.  It isn't the type of book I would normally pick up on my own.  However, it is one of the best reads of my post-edumacation required list of reading phase of my life.  McCarthy uses the most stark, barren form to describe events in a world that is, I assume, post nuclear fall out.  The descriptions are cuttingly simple, as if taken straight out of the minds of a starving man, still in shock from so many losses, and desperate to survive with his son.  McCarthy writes with limited punctuation, limited conversation, and, in 256 pages, grips the reader by the throat and says, "This is real possibility for your future."

I can still see the endless mummified bodies on the road, the ash, the gray sky.  I can still hear the wheels on the shopping cart they push through snow and sand to keep their supplies close.  I can still feel the urgency to get out of the cold, where miniature, cannabalistic armies have gathered into the south, hoping for food, hoping for sunlight, hoping for sane human life to show you that all is not lost.  If all is lost, why struggle so hard to keep your son alive?

I highly recommend this book.  We live in a very comfortable world and take for granted so many gifts.

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