Began: 9/26
Finished: 10/1
Book: The Road
Written by: Cormac McCarthy
Main themes:
guardianship, is living for the sake of living worth it? what happens to people when they are at their end, the end of everything. Innocence, childhood.
Summary:
post apocalyptic world, somewhere in america, nameless father and son (not sure if it’s even explicit that it’s his child) travel down the road, first west towards the ocean and then south, in search of some respite from the world that is dying from an untold cause. Everything is dead or dying, the great calamity is mostly over, and the two seem to travel through areas that have already been destroyed, then ransacked by the few survivors, and a little further after that. There are a few chance meetings with others, and they are almost always brutal, terrible affairs. On the road, everyone is starving, in rags, without hope. People are eating each other. The man carries a gun with two bullets, for themselves as much as for the enemies, in case things get worse. This is a bleak book.
General impressions:
Very quick (easy) read, short sentences, short descriptions, most everything is treated with a curt unenthusiastic telling. Written through the perspective of the father, who is dying, tuberculosis most likely, and his wrestling responsibility for the boy. The boy is a pure thing, and this is the only world he ever knew, wants to help others, feed the hungry, share what they have. Is terribly afraid of the world and yet wants to help it. This book is pretty sad.
Quotes
Some dialog between the man and the boy. McCarthy doesn’t use quotation marks (or chapter headings)
What is it Papa?
Nothing. We’re okay. Go to sleep.
We’re going to be okay, aren’t we papa?
Yes. We are.
And nothing bad is going to happen to us.
That’s right.
Because we’re carrying the fire.
Yes. Because we’re carrying the fire.
***
During a chance meeting, an old man talking about the boy
It’s better to be alone. So I hope that’s not true what you said because to be on the road with the last god would be a terrible thing so I hope it’s not true.
***
He was standing there checking the perimeter when the boy turned and buried his face against him… Oh papa, he said. He turned and looked again. What the boy had seen was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit. He bent and picked the boy up and started for the road with him, holding him close. I’m sorry, he whispered. I’m sorry.
***
Do you think that our fathers are watching? That they weigh you in their ledgerbook? Against what? There is no book and your fathers are dead in the ground.
