The Road. Cormac McCarthy
nzshadow
5,518 Posts
I finished this book yesterday.I could not put it down.Never has a book moved me like this.I cannot begin to explain how terrifyingly brilliant it is.Absolutely crushing yet entirely beautiful.It was handed to me by a trusted friend with the simple words "read this book"I knew nothing of the book when i began, i did not read the back cover.If you too are unfamiliar with the book, my advice to you:Read this book.Holy fuck.If you do nothing else this year, Read this book.
Comments
I love this book.
I could not put it down either.
It was brilliant.
P gunn, can you kick off that Carson McCullers thread you were talking about a while back? To offset the men in my literary life, I've been looking for more female authors. And, I should read something of hers. I've had, "Reflections in a Golden Eye," on my shelf for years, but never got around to it.
BUT, back to the subject at hand...I always thought this was a good way to sum up The Road. From the 2007 Tournament of Books on themorningnews.org. A bit overwrought, but I can't question the sentiment.
Plus, it outlines that parent-child relationship I've heard echoed by most parents I know who have read the book. (to be noted: I am NOT a parent to a child.)
[/b]JESSICA FRANCIS KANE: Last night I stood a long time by my son???s crib watching him sleep. New parents do this a lot, but I am not a new parent. A little later I went downstairs and watched my daughter sleep. After she and her brother are in bed I???m usually so grateful for the respite that most nights the last thing I want to do, much as I love them, is watch them sleep.
Most nights I have not just finished reading The Road.
I tried to resist this book. I???d seen some of the reviews; I knew the subject matter. I slogged through the opening pages thinking, ???Really? Is this going to work???? Then I hit page 16, the man remembering a summer evening in a theater with his wife: ???Freeze this frame. Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned.???
I read furiously after that, couldn???t put the book down. Only I had to, had to make dinner and put my children to bed???just the simple stuff of life we take for granted and The Road shows us we???re fools to do. Fools.
Good God, where did this book come from? It seems to me terrifyingly good, and not good as in ???masterpiece??? or ???instant classic,??? but good as in ???future sacred text.??? The world???s slow dimming. Civilization dying. The ingenious decision to set the story some years after the cataclysm, whatever it was. It???s wrenching to read the time placers: the early years.
???Once in those early years he???d wakened in a barren wood and lay listening to flocks of migratory birds overhead in that bitter dark. ???He never heard them again.???
Where I live in Virginia the cherry trees are blooming. Today it will be warm and the air seems soft and pink with promise. I, however, feel sick. Flashes of McCarthy???s burned-out land keep coming to mind, obliterating all of it. It???s awful and wonderful. I haven???t been so affected by a book in a long time.
'Reflections In a Golden Eye' is pretty unusual for McCullers. Read her short stories (brilliant), 'The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter', and 'Member of the Wedding'.
Different kettle of fish.
Great in a different way; not nearly as universal.
Blood Meridian is one of the only books I finished reading then started reading again. The Road was great though. You should read Outer Dark too, I really enjoyed that one. It has some early hints of things to come in the Road.
I'm halfway through atm and this statement rings true.
Its fantastic, I wish I had time to read more often than just on the train on the way to work.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is like one of the best books i have ever read in my life... has a real almost "noir" darkness to it, but def w/ a female perspective...
Ditto for people with parents.
A classic book.