Book #50
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A father and his son walk alone through burned America, heading through the ravaged landscape to the coast. This is the profoundly moving story of their journey.
I loved it.
There is very, very little plot involved here. Hardly anything really happens, but you know what you're dealing with, and the fact that not much happens is almost a relief. The book is based almost entirely on father and son, and how much they love each other.
It's deeply moving as a whole. The dystopian setting of the novel brings us into a stark, grey world, depressing us right from the beginning. The only shining light we are given is the man's love for his son, which never falters.
The prose bothered me to begin with. The absence of punctuation is normally a deal-breaker for me, but I soon came to understand the need for skeletal prose. It quickly became beautiful to me, evoking the emotional weight of the journey and emphasising the starkness of their landscape incredibly well.
Although very, very dark and depressing, I really feel this is one that everyone should try at least once. The realism McCarthy gives to a post-apocalyptic world is absolutely something to be experienced.