Alek_tq
12-27-2008, 09:46 AM
Throughout the story McCarthy uses a basic, rough style of writing. He often neglects to use commas, apostrophes and quotation marks. The story also lacks typical dialogue styles. Conversations lack quotations and the dialogue is often not separated into separate paragraphs. In addition, the novel has no chapters or breaks, and the main characters are referred to merely as "the man" and "the boy".
They made couple of movies, the new one should be done in the following year. The novel is great, better than "I am Legend" imho.
The anticipation of whats the next thing that could happen to the main characters is great. The only thing I don't like about book is the lack of some interpunction and paragraphing, other than that, its great.
The Road - Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road#cite_note-12)
If you haven't read it yet, get on it. :rockon:
The Road follows a man and a boy (approximately ten years old), father and son, journeying together for many months across a desolate, post-apocalyptic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-apocalyptic) landscape, some years--the period of time almost the same as the age of the boy--after a great, unexplained cataclysm. The story takes place in the lower Appalachian mountains (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_mountains). Civilization has been destroyed, and most species have become extinct. There is no sunshine, only deep, dark clouds, and the climate has been altered radically. Plants do not grow. What happened outside of North America is left unexplained. Humanity consists largely of bands of cannibals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism), 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 all dead (dead wood for fires is plentiful), and the rivers and oceans are seemingly empty of life. The only non-human organisms the father and boy encounter is a dog, some edible mushrooms, moss, and some mold and shriveled apples found in an orchard.
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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothermia), 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 being 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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catamite) 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." This raises the question of whether maintaining such seemingly pointless nobility in such a situation, while admirable, is ultimately suicidal, at its core a failure to adapt to a changed environment.
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.
They made couple of movies, the new one should be done in the following year. The novel is great, better than "I am Legend" imho.
The anticipation of whats the next thing that could happen to the main characters is great. The only thing I don't like about book is the lack of some interpunction and paragraphing, other than that, its great.
The Road - Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road#cite_note-12)
If you haven't read it yet, get on it. :rockon:
The Road follows a man and a boy (approximately ten years old), father and son, journeying together for many months across a desolate, post-apocalyptic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-apocalyptic) landscape, some years--the period of time almost the same as the age of the boy--after a great, unexplained cataclysm. The story takes place in the lower Appalachian mountains (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_mountains). Civilization has been destroyed, and most species have become extinct. There is no sunshine, only deep, dark clouds, and the climate has been altered radically. Plants do not grow. What happened outside of North America is left unexplained. Humanity consists largely of bands of cannibals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism), 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 all dead (dead wood for fires is plentiful), and the rivers and oceans are seemingly empty of life. The only non-human organisms the father and boy encounter is a dog, some edible mushrooms, moss, and some mold and shriveled apples found in an orchard.
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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothermia), 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 being 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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catamite) 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." This raises the question of whether maintaining such seemingly pointless nobility in such a situation, while admirable, is ultimately suicidal, at its core a failure to adapt to a changed environment.
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.