The Road

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
The Road  

First Edition hardcover of The Road
Author Cormac McCarthy
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) post-apocalyptic fiction
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date September 26, 2006
Media type print (hardcover)
Pages 256 pp
ISBN 0307265439

The Road is a 2006 novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. It is a post-apocalyptic tale describing a journey taken by a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted years before by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed civilization and, apparently, most life on earth. The novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction.

McCarthy said the inspiration for The Road came during a 2003 visit to El Paso, Texas, with his young son. Imagining what the city might look like in the future, he pictured "fires on the hill" and thought about his son. He took some initial notes but did not return to the idea until a few years later, while in Ireland. Then, the novel came to him quickly, and he dedicated it to his son, John Francis McCarthy.[1]

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The Road follows a man and a boy, father and son, journeying together for many months across a desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape, some years – the period of time almost the same as the age of the boy – after a great, unexplained cataclysm. Civilization has been destroyed, and most species have become extinct. The sun is obscured by deep, dark clouds, and the climate has been altered radically. Plants do not grow. Humanity consists largely of bands of cannibals, their food-source captives, and refugee-travelers who scavenge for food.

Ash covers everything; it is in the atmosphere, it obscures the sun and moon, and the two travelers breathe through improvised masks. Plants and animals are apparently virtually all dead (dead wood for fires is plentiful), and the rivers and oceans are seemingly empty of life. Very rarely do the man and boy encounter any sign of non-human life.

The boy's mother, pregnant with him at the time of the cataclysm, was overwhelmed by the desperate and apparently hopeless situation and has committed suicide some time before the story begins. Her rationalization, offered by her as a pragmatic view, was that they all would be raped, killed and eaten, and that there was no hope left for a different fate. The father is literate, skilled with firearms, well-traveled, and knowledgeable about machinery, woodcraft, and human biology. He is alert, attentive and aware, and applies all he knows to anticipating and overcoming the challenges he knows are ever-present. He realizes that he and his young son cannot survive another winter in their present location, so the two set out across what was once the Southeastern United States, largely following the highways. They aim to reach warmer southern climates and the sea in particular. Along the way, threats to the duo's survival create an atmosphere of sustained terror and tension.

The father coughs blood every morning and knows he is dying. He struggles to protect his son from the constant threats of attack, exposure, and starvation, as well as from what he sees as the boy's innocently well-meaning but dangerous desire to help the other wanderers they meet. They carry a pistol with two bullets, meant for suicide should it become necessary; the father has told the son to kill himself rather than be captured. The father struggles in times of extreme danger with the fear that he will have to kill his son to prevent him from suffering a more horrific fate, examples of which include: chained catamites held captive by a marauding band; the discovery of captives locked in a basement, their limbs gradually harvested by their captors for meat; and a decapitated human infant being roasted on a spit.

In the face of all of these obstacles, the man and the boy have only each other (the narrator says that they are "each the other's world entire"). The man maintains the pretense, and the boy holds on to the real faith, that there is a core of ethics left somewhere in humanity. They repeatedly assure one another that they are among "the good guys," who are "carrying the fire."

In the end, having brought the boy south after extreme hardship but without finding the salvation he had hoped for, the father succumbs to his illness and dies, leaving the boy alone on the road. Three days later, however, the grieving boy encounters a man who has been tracking the father and son. This man, who has a wife and two children of his own, invites the boy to join his family. The passing mention of one child being a daughter implies that an eventual adolescent pairing for the boy is possible, the first and only ray of hope given in the storyline regarding the future of humanity. The narrative's close also suggests that the wife is a God-fearing and compassionate woman, who treats the boy well, a resolution that vindicates the dead father's determination to stay alive and keep moving as long as possible.

[edit] Style

Throughout the story McCarthy uses a basic, rough style of writing, which some critics[who?] have called Biblical in its cadences and rhythms. The use of typical punctuation such as commas, apostrophes and quotation marks is heavily restricted. The story also lacks typical dialogue styles; conversations lack quotations, and individual speakers are not identified. In addition, the novel has no chapters, and the main characters are referred to merely as "the man" and "the boy". Some of McCarthy's other works also use stripped-down grammar and nameless protagonists (such as "the kid" in Blood Meridian).

[edit] Reception

The Road has received numerous positive reviews and honors since its September 26, 2006 release. The review aggregator Metacritic reported the book had an average score of 90 out of 100, based on 31 reviews.[2] Critics have deemed it "heartbreaking," "haunting," and "emotionally shattering."[3][4][5] The Village Voice referred to it as "McCarthy's purest fable yet."[3] In a New York Review of Books article, author Michael Chabon heralded the novel. Discussing the novel's relation to established genres, Chabon insists The Road is not science fiction: although "the adventure story in both its modern and epic forms ... structures the narrative," Chabon says, "ultimately it is as a lyrical epic of horror that The Road is best understood."[6] Entertainment Weekly in June 2008 named The Road the best book, fiction or non-fiction, of the past 25 years, ahead of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Toni Morrison's Beloved.

[edit] Awards and nominations

On April 16, 2007, the novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[7] It also won the 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.[8]

On March 28, 2007, the selection of The Road as the next novel in Oprah Winfrey's Book Club was announced. A televised interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show was conducted on June 5, 2007 and it was McCarthy's first, though he had been interviewed in print before.[9] The announcement of McCarthy's television appearance surprised those who follow him. "Wait a minute until I can pick my jaw up off the floor," said John Wegner, an English professor at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, and editor of the Cormac McCarthy Journal, when told of the interview.[10]

British environmental campaigner George Monbiot was so impressed by The Road that he declared McCarthy to be one of the "50 people who could save the planet" in an article published in January 2008. Monbiot wrote, "It could be the most important environmental book ever. It is a thought experiment that imagines a world without a biosphere, and shows that everything we value depends on the ecosystem."[11] This nomination echoes the review Monbiot had written some months earlier for the Guardian in which he wrote, "A few weeks ago I read what I believe is the most important environmental book ever written. It is not Silent Spring, Small Is Beautiful or even Walden. It contains no graphs, no tables, no facts, figures, warnings, predictions or even arguments. Nor does it carry a single dreary sentence, which, sadly, distinguishes it from most environmental literature. It is a novel, first published a year ago, and it will change the way you see the world."[12]

[edit] Film adaptation

A film adaptation of the novel is currently in post-production. It is directed by John Hillcoat and written by Joe Penhall. The film stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the Man and the Boy, respectively. Production has taken place in Louisiana, Oregon, and several locations in Pennsylvania including Presque Isle State Park and the Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike. It is due for release in 2009.[13]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Conlon, Michael (June 5, 2007). "Writer Cormac McCarthy confides in Oprah Winfrey". Reuters. Retrieved September 8, 2007.
  2. ^ "The Road by Cormac McCarthy: Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/books/authors/mccarthycormac/road. Retrieved on 2008-02-15. 
  3. ^ a b Mark Holcomb. "End of the Line -- After Decades of Stalking Armageddon's Perimeters, Cormac McCarthy Finally Steps Over the Border". The Village Voice. http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0636,holcomb,74342,10.html. Retrieved on 2007-04-23. 
  4. ^ Jones, Malcolm (September 22, 2006)."On the Lost Highway" Newsweek.
  5. ^ "The Road to Hell". The Guardian. November 4, 2006. http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,,1938954,00.html. 
  6. ^ Michael Chabon. New York Review of Books review "After the Apocalypse". pages= page = date =. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19856 New York Review of Books review. Retrieved on 2007-04-30. 
  7. ^ "Novelist McCarthy wins Pulitzer". BBC. April 17, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6563291.stm. Retrieved on 2007-09-08. 
  8. ^ The National Book Critics Circle 2006 finalists
  9. ^ Michael Conlon. "Writer Cormac McCarthy confides in Oprah Winfrey". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN0526436120070605?pageNumber=1. 
  10. ^ Julia Keller. "Oprah's selection a real shocker: Winfrey, McCarthy strange bookfellows". Chicago Tribune. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/1246151131.html?dids=1246151131:1246151131&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Mar+29%2C+2007&author=Julia+Keller&pub=Chicago+Tribune&edition=&startpage=1&desc=Oprah%27s+selection+a+real+shocker+. 
  11. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/05/activists.ethicalliving 50 people who could save the planet
  12. ^ George Monbiot (October 30, 2007). "Civilisation ends with a shutdown of human concern. Are we there already?". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2201594,00.html. 
  13. ^ Zeitchik, Steven (2008-10-18). ""Road" rerouted into 2009 release schedule". The Hollywood Reporter (Reuters). http://www.reuters.com/article/filmNews/idUSTRE49J0A820081020. 

[edit] References

  • McCarthy, Cormac (2006). The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0307265439

[edit] External links

Awards
Preceded by
March
by Geraldine Brooks
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
2007
Succeeded by
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz
Personal tools