Cormac McCarthy's - The Road -

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by RockyBalboa

I leave for Irvine, CA for 3 weeks straight and am taking some reading with me. What is the book about? Maybe I'll go pick it up before I leave.

The end of the world. The world destroyed by fire. No God, no nothing. Everywhere ghost cities and towns and charred trees, and dried up and blackened corpses shriveled to leather. Everything, and I mean everything, dead except for a few miserable wandering humans, madly looking for food. Most of them eating other humans. It's about a man and his little boy "carrying the fire," "the good guys," as the man keeps telling his boy who has never seen green trees or blue sky or blue water or birds or fish. Sounds sappy I know, but for the most part it's not sentimental, and when it is McCarthy burns a fire through you like a blow torch.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by YOhio

Oprah probably gave SU a car or a free makeover or something like that.

I have seen his photo so I think it was probably a car.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by creekster

I have seen his photo so I think it was probably a car.

You're quite correct that I don't need it.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

You're quite correct that I don't need it.

Sure, that's what I meant. You betcha.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Oprah has had a lot of great books on her list. What's the problem? People otherwise disinclined to read much are being exposed to great books. Is that a bad thing? This visceral reaction by men becasue Opra is a show followed by housewives is nonsense. So Oprah has the Midas touch; she can all by herself make a novelist rich. So what? If anything, great novelists don't get their due often enough, especially now all most people do is watch television. Do you know how many millions are made every day in our system by charlatans, as opposed to novelists who have this extraordinary, once in a million gift? McCarthy is a classic example. McCarthy spent most of his life in poverty while generating a body of work many people including the storied Harold Bloom believe is the greatest of any living American author.

I just object to what she stands for, emotional masturbation to billions. Thus, if she touches something it must be sickly sweet.

She is objectionable beyond measure.

[8ballrollin]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

The end of the world. The world destroyed by fire. No God, no nothing. Everywhere ghost cities and towns and charred trees, and dried up and blackened corpses shriveled to leather. Everything, and I mean everything, dead except for a few miserable wandering humans, madly looking for food. Most of them eating other humans. It's about a man and his little boy "carrying the fire," "the good guys," as the man keeps telling his boy who has never seen green trees or blue sky or blue water or birds or fish. Sounds sappy I know, but for the most part it's not sentimental, and when it is McCarthy burns a fire through you like a blow torch.

Here is my take. Let me know what you think, SU.

On its face it's a simple plot: a post-apocalypse travelogue, a father and son adventure - stark and very matter-of-fact in its gloom. Not a very original plot, but the narrative is good enough to warrant a recommendation if it contained nothing else.

What I see as metaphor or deeper levels. (NOTE: some spoiler elements, but not specifics):

The “darkness implacable” of the universe against those who “carry the fire”
Note: the father is very much a polymath (renaissance man, maybe?)

Our children keep us from the abyss: Their simple (correct?) understanding of what’s morally right and wrong ("can't we help him, papa?"). Our existence must go beyond our everyday search for food. In the face of a cold, grey existence working for THIER future, not our own, helps us slog forward.

Endurance – "This is what good guys do.”

Where man can’t live, gods fare no better

Man’s destruction of natural beauty (when we are no longer like the children?) vs. it’s inherent complexities and splendor (example in the last page).

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by 8ballrollin

Here is my take. Let me know what you think, SU.

On its face it's a simple plot: a post-apocalypse travelogue, a father and son adventure - stark and very matter-of-fact in its gloom. Not a very original plot, but the narrative is good enough to warrant a recommendation if it contained nothing else.

What I see as metaphor or deeper levels. (NOTE: some spoiler elements, but not specifics):

The “darkness implacable” of the universe against those who “carry the fire”
Note: the father is very much a polymath (renaissance man, maybe?)

Our children keep us from the abyss: Their simple (correct?) understanding of what’s morally right and wrong ("can't we help him, papa?"). Our existence must go beyond our everyday search for food. In the face of a cold, grey existence working for THIER future, not our own, helps us slog forward.

Endurance – "This is what good guys do.”

Where man can’t live, gods fare no better

Man’s destruction of natural beauty (when we are no longer like the children?) vs. it’s inherent complexities and splendor (example in the last page).

These are all very good points. I agree they are meanings in the novel. Well done. Thanks for so concisely identifyig them.

I'm still puzzling over the theology. Is the next to last paragraph supposed to be hopeful, or unspeakably bleak, a woman conforting a little boy because she must shield him from the awful reality that he is the last of the gods and men? Oprah must be discerning the former meaning, or I have a suspicion it would not have made her book list. But I'm not sure that's McCarthy's intent. Like Woody Allen some of his works suggest an optimistic world view, and these have been the best sellers (until this novel if this novel has any optimism at all), but his best work is dark dark dark.

This relates to the awful paradox that runs through the book: in a post-apocalypse world survival is the only thing, but why bother surviving? And the man's awful dillema: He can't bear to leave his son alone in such a world, but the worst imaginable outcome is to have to kill him. The fact that they do try so hard to survive, and go to such lengths to last each day at a time, just to do it, is one of the most moving and provocative concepts in the book for me. Maybe it's the man's dillema that drives him, nothing more.

One quibble about your points. I'm not so sure this is in any way a polemic about man's abuse of nature. It's not clear to me this is supposed to have been done by humans. But there is that wonderful scene where he comes upon the tipped over book shelf and water logged books and thinks about row upon row of lies.

The fidelity with which he has created this dead earth is amazing. The discriptions of physical details in such spare and stark prose will stick with anybody, as will the lovely though very simple exchanges between father and son. Maybe he's telling us that even a corpse of an earth is beautiful to behold. He certainly renders it that way, ironically.

[8ballrollin]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

One quibble about your points. I'm not so sure this is in any way a polemic about man's abuse of nature. It's not clear to me this is supposed to have been done by humans. But there is that wonderful scene where he comes upon the tipped over book shelf and water logged books and thinks about row upon row of lies.

The fidelity with which he has created this dead earth is amazing. The discriptions of physical details in such spare and stark prose will stick with anybody, as will the lovely though very simple exchanges between father and son. Maybe he's telling us that even a corpse of an earth is beautiful to behold. He certainly renders it that way, ironically.

You may be right on my last item. I think it was my weakest point - this is why I listed it last.

I have some thoughts on the paradox you mention. I'll post them later in the day, when I have some more time.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by 8ballrollin

You may be right on my last item. I think it was my weakest point - this is why I listed it last.

I have some thoughts on the paradox you mention. I'll post them later in the day, when I have some more time.

The novel also addresses the problem of evil. What happens to the prospect of God in a world such as this? This is a problem that has always been with us and now maybe more than ever, but McCarthy brings it into sharp focus with his post-Apocalypse allegory.

[8ballrollin]

My updated thoughts:

The Road is not a good novel, but a great one. The last novel I felt compelled to reread immediately after completing it was Heart of Darkness - back when I was in school. But then again, I have not read much fiction since college, so maybe that’s not saying much.

My takes on the metaphor in this novel are something less than amateur. Feel free to pick them apart or make fun of me as you will!

In the end, I think the underlying theme is one of faith. Faith in God? Maybe not, depending on your point of view. If not faith in God, then faith in mankind. Faith in mankind’s ability to become enlightened - to be and act moral. Faith that man can be lifted out of the dark ages, even as it stands on the shores of its sure extinction.

Good vs. Evil is addressed but not in a theodicies (as I understand the term). It never tries to justify God or explain evil in the face of complete despair and destruction, but evil is vivid in this tale. That being said, the book is theological – it IS the end of the world after all.

(WARNING: Spoilers!!!)



The theological musings start at the beginning of the book: “If he is not the word of God God never spoke”

In the middle: To the old man on the road, “What if I said that he's a god” Old man’s response, "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."

The old man again, "When we're all gone at last then there'll be nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too. He'll be out in the road there with nothing to do and nobody to do it to. He'll say: where did everybody go? And that's how it will be. What's wrong with that?" He mimics, in a way, the wife’s earlier fatalism (nihilism?).

And at the end: The father goes to die after reaching “a crossroad.” On the far side of the road? More destruction, the remnants of trees which have been knocked down by a storm - their ash-like fossils being wiped from the earth.

“All still dead.” Is it worth going on?

Before he dies, he looks at his son and sees “light is all about him.”

“There is no prophet not honored” “Whatever you said was right.”

“You need to keep going.”

“Is the fire real?” “Yes, it’s inside you.”

“Don’t give up.”

They reached a “point of no return” to carry the fire when he recognized they carried it.

Papa is dead three days, then uncovered.

The dad: Doles out Old Testament justice (the thief) and demonstrates real-world pragmatism (“we can’t do anything for him”, “don’t take any chances” – ok, thanks Reagan.) The dad has a wide breadth of knowledge. He instills the need to carry the fire – stand on the shoulders of giants.

The son: New Testament mercy, morality and enlightenment (the old man on the road, the other struck by lightning, boy in the window).

Seeing the paradox between justice and mercy - pragmatism and idealism, he asks, “Are we still the good guys?”

Once again at the end: the boy stands at the same crossroads. Is it worth going on?

“Are you one of the good guys?”

Yes, they are the good guys: they don’t eat people (they aspire to more than just the next meal). They carry the fire.

Loving mother. (has a daughter - the fire moves forward?)

“…the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time”

But the world is broken and cannot be fixed. What was is no more.

Me: that’s ok, because in the face of real extinction, faith remains.

Me, part two: what we have today, in all its detail – hand on wife’s leg -“feeling her stocking beneath the stuff of the dress", children’s funny mimics, “the odds are against them”, trees, a falcon falling for its prey, a lazy fishing trip are to be admired (not strong enough a word) and remembered.

I know many will want, in the end, to see darkness in this novel, but after some thought - I don’t. Call me Oprah!