My experience with "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

[nuxvomica]

I didn't read the book but rather listened to an unabridged audio version during a 5-hour (each way) road trip through Upstate New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. At one point I stopped at one of those "country store" places that had all kinds of gourmet foods. I felt oddly relieved that there were so much food available and I found myself spending a lot of time examining the many premium varieties of hot cocoa mix. I rarely drink hot cocoa and decided not to buy any once I realized that my interest in the beverage was probably due to a scene in McCarthy's story.

It's a haunting story that gave me a lot to think about. It wasn't the post-apocalyptic desolation and it's attendant horrors that got to me so much as the continuously raised question of the meaning of our lives. I think the world of "The Road" is disturbing not because it's setting is so foreign but because it is so recognizable.

[earthside]

1. An Excellent Book.

I think you are correct that what it shows is just how thin the line is between our world of hyper-consumption, mega-abundance, super convenience ---- and the disappearance of all of those things.

I would also recommend James Howard Kunstler's novel "World Made by Hand" that shows the same thing, but from a different perspective.

[nuxvomica]

2. That store I visited was all about...

"hyper-consumption, mega-abundance, super convenience" and it's not like it was a Wal-Mart on some main thoroughfare. Every remote corner of our country seems an expression of these desires now and McCarthy deserves some praise for managing to infuse my consumer experience with such horror.

I will check out your suggestion. It sounds like a good choice for me on the heels of McCarthy's book.

[kestrel91316]

3. I absolutely LOVED The Road, and think it truly deserved the Pulitzer.

It combines fantastic literary prose with my decades-long favorite genre of postapocalyptic fiction.

Permanent spot on my bookshelf. Maybe even deserves a hunt for a first edition hardback, the ultimate badge of honor here.

[nuxvomica]

4. It's funny when you read a good book and learn later...

that it won the Pulitzer. The audiobook box doesn't mention it. By the way, the reading was very well done by an actor named Tom Stechshulte. He was able to give the man, the boy and the mother very distinct but not caricaturish voices.

[kestrel91316]

5. You do know they're making a movie of it now also, right?

Viggo Mortenson to star as the father. I am waiting on pins and needles. I smell Oscar potential already.

[nuxvomica]

6. Yes, I found sound some stills earlier today

The landscape doesn't look nearly as bleak as I had imagined but the shopping cart was dead-on. Charlize Theron and Mortenson are good choices, IMHO. And Robert Duvall as the old man as well. Should be a good movie.

edited to add link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/mediaindex

[kestrel91316]

7. The boy in the stills is much taller/older than I imagined the boy in

the book. I have him pictured as sort of a stunted 6-yr-old.

[nuxvomica]

8. It was really not clear to me how old the boy was in the book

I imagined he could've been 6-16 or so. Having spent his whole life in the desolation, he would've likely been stunted as you say. I also got the impression from some of the descriptive passages that both the man and the boy were extremely emaciated and I'm frankly pleased that someone like Christian Bale didn't get the lead in the movie and do a "The Machinist"-style embodiment of the character. The actors look fairly well-fed in the stills.

[MorningGlow]

13. I thought he was about 10 or 11, wasn't he?

12 at the most, I think.

Devastating passage--when the father washes the boy's hair and it's actually blonde, and is pretty much the only color in the world. GAH.

[YankeyMCC]

9. A quesiton to those who've read this and don't consider themselves SciFi fans

I actually haven't read it yet but it is on my "to read" list.

It is definitely a SF genre story but like a few other recent fiction hits it is being marketed as 'main stream', "Yiddish Policeman's Union" for one example.

So I'm just curious to hear if the people here who've read it, do you consider "The Road" as science fiction and if you're not already someone who reads SF do you think now you'd give similar themed Science fiction a try?

[nuxvomica]

11. I consider it sci-fi with powerful social and philosophical messages

I am planning to read Kunstler's book if I can get to the damn bookstore before it closes so I guess I would be interested on a similar-themed story. In the post-apocalyptic area, I had read two other books decades ago: "Alas, Babylon" and "The Stand". The latter was a huge waste of time, IMHO. I picked up "The Road" not knowing much about it. I recognized the author's name in the bookstore and picked up the audiobook because I was just looking for something to kill time on a road trip. I would not normally have been looking for a book in that genre.

[AngryOldDem]

10. It is a very excellent and sobering book.

Mainly because it is so plausible.

[MorningGlow]

12. Excellent book

I can't read it again. It hit me too hard. IMO it's not a sci-fi book, but a horror novel. I read it nearly a year ago, and I am STILL thinking about it.

So recognizable--very true. I found myself wanting more flashbacks--more details of how it came to this, if you know what I mean. But then again, there were "just enough" of those scenes--just enough to keep me reading, to keep me curious, and to keep me in the frame of mind of the book's "present" without spending too much time in the past, just like the characters, even though remnants of the past were all around.

So, so disturbing. I also started paying attention to our abundance--of food, of convenience, of everything--as well as renewed my concern about the future, especially because I have a son of my own.

[Orrex]

14. IMO the science fiction aspect is the basic assumption of the novel

That a catastrophy could kill everything, including bugs and fish in the ocean, without equally exterminating all of humanity. Some people with whom I've discussed this, both here on DU and elsewhere, simply can't get past this part. "How could it kill cockroaches and not people?" they ask. Well, that's the s/f part of it. McCarthy is saying, in essence, "let us assume that some unnamed apocalyptic event could wipe out all animal and plant life but not people. What happens next?"

I suspect that McCarthy himself wouldn't call it a science fiction novel, much as Atwood doesn't consider Oryx and Crake to be science fiction.

That's fine for both of them, of course, but it's not exclusively up to them, either.

Regardless, the book is excellent and powerful whether or not the reader chooses to describe it as science fiction.

[pitohui]

15. that is not even remotely the case, it is not an SFnal assumption

this is not science fiction because there is never any explanation offered and sf relies on a veneer of explanation

benford called this kind of thing tennis with the nets down -- it ain't science fiction, it's a fairy tale -- "what if everything died except the human beings?" without any reason ever given as to how/why this could happen

no serious sf reader can accept this as sf, compare this with a novel by iain banks for example and then talk to me about pulitzers

"the road" is a simple two fingered exercise next to a concerto like "the algebraist" -- hell, next to "oryx and crake" for that matter

on the other hand there is wider audience out there in the world for "chopsticks" than for the advanced work just as more people can play and enjoy slot machines than can play and enjoy chess -- i don't want to take your slot machine away from you, but please, don't kid yourself that it's the real thing, okay?

"the road" at the end of the day is only sf if you think that everything set in the future is to be considered sf regardless of whether there is any veneer of science or "if this goes on" or anything reality-based in the story at all -- might as well call harry potter sf!

in any case IMHO to be offended when your work is called science fiction is equally to betray one's lack of knowledge (much as i admire atwood, to be insulted that her work of obvious science fiction was called science fiction does not reflect particularly well on her -- i like doris lessing's frank ability to say okay i am trying this thing called science fiction even tho it isn't "high status" to do so)

to me "the road" is an exercise in the cult of ugliness/cruelty porn more than anything else, obviously, there is a (large) market for that, but sf is not primarily about ugliness and cruelty for the sake of ugliness and cruelty (pace orson scott card and ender's game little boys killing each other and entire species) -- if you are WIDELY read in science fiction then i would hope you would know that the heart of the genre is the sense of wonder, the beauty and mystery of the universe, the rose on the dungheap, not the dungheap!

[Orrex]

16. What? You again?

Seriously, I have to confess that I just don't comprehend your acrimonious dismissal of The Road as even potential science fiction or even simply as a piece of well-written fiction. So you didn't like it--we get it, we get it. Do you really need to take a piss in everyone's copy of the text before your exalted crusade can be fulfilled?

How does the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive work? How does a Worm's metabolism function in the absolute absence of water? How, exactly, does a positronic brain work? None of these questions is answered by the relevant text in each case, but each is certainly part of a science fiction work. To require an explanation of every science fiction device is foolish and weirdly obsessive.

Benford lifted that analogy, BTB, from TS Eliot, who once described non-standard-form poetry the same way. Eliot later recanted, after realizing that his absolutist stance on the issue was absurd.


This is also the second time you've impugned my literary credentials, for some fucked up reason that you have yet to articulate, other than because my ideas differ from yours. I'm plenty well read of science fiction, thank you very much, and The Road fits neatly into the apocalyptic sub-genre. If it'll help you sleep better tonight to dismiss it as "cruelty porn," then I'll be happy to list it there as well, along with A Clockwork Orange, The Eye, and a lot of PKD's and Ellison's stuff.

So you don't like calling it science fiction. Got it.

Got it.

[JitterbugPerfume]

18. Go Orrex

:loveya:


Sci Fi is a suspension of "belief" but it often has a valuable message .

PK Dick Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood ,Kurt Vonnegut, Frank Herbert, Walter M Miller ( my personal favorite) have all provided many hours of pleasure for me

My life would be much more mundane and boring without it!

[YankeyMCC]

17. "Frankenstein"

Widely acknowledged as the first Science Fiction novel, not one bit of explanation of the technique used for reanimation. The level of explanation of the fictional scientific aspects of a story really only affects the debate about the type of SF it is, Hard Science, Space Opera, New Weird, etc...

[subsuelo]

19. I read it this weekend. What a journey

I feel like a different person this Monday, honestly. Reading The Road changed me... it gave me a new found appreciation for so much in this world that is so often forgotten about. All the conveniences - even the things that aren't so convenient. The beauty that is all around. True there is horror and violence and all the awful things happening in the world. But there are also so many wonderful things - and in abundance!

The writing is great. I could barely put the book down until it was finished.

I also felt the ending didn't disappoint. Was a bit worried about that, about 3/4 of the way in. I won't say more so as to not spoil it for others.

[HamdenRice]

20. This book came up in my writing worshop last night. Two who read it hated it.

I haven't read it, but I respect their opinions a lot. They said that the strange thing about the book is that when people recommend the book to them, the person recommending it typically says something to the effect that it wasn't an enjoyable read, but that it's "important" to read. They both said reading it felt like a chore and that the only payoff was in the last pages.

I haven't read it or even browsed it. Can anyone explain/relate to what they were getting at?

[Orrex]

21. For them to call something an 'important' book without giving additional insight...

is equivalent to saying "I heard that I'm supposed to recommend this book, but I don't know why." I've read it about five times, and I don't think it's particularly "important." Hell, I don't even know what "important" might mean in this context.

They both said reading it felt like a chore and that the only payoff was in the last pages.

That's a fairly juvenile critique, and honestly it sounds like the reaction of someone who decided to hate it simply because Oprah decided to like it. In fact, I don't even know what "payoff" they might mean, because if it's what I think it is, then they really missed the point. The real payoff begins on the first page and ends some considerable span of time after you've read the last page.

I don't doubt that you respect the opinions of these two, but I'd like to hear more specifically what they didn't like about the book. It's bleak, that's for sure, and McCarthy's style can certainly be off-putting, but neither of these are sufficient IMO to generate hatred.

[HamdenRice]

22. I think that's the point they were making

namely, that the recommendations were from people who read it, didn't like it, but felt obligated to recommend it based on what has been written and said about the book -- ie that the people who recommended it were being superficial and hypocritical. They were making fun of the people who did not enjoy the book, but nevertheless recommended it.

I haven't read the book and they were pretty dismissive not because it was bleak but because to them it wasn't well written and was boring. I doubt Oprah-disdain had anything to do with it because one of them doesn't watch or even own a tv.

I obviously can't confirm their judgments because I haven't read the book and was trying to get some reason for possibly buying it. In this thread, there are opposing views, but most of the debate is over whether the book "qualifies" as science fiction because of its premise.

We didn't discuss the book for very long, but I felt that my workshop mates, as aspiring writers, tend to have higher standards for style and technique (as opposed to plot and description) than most readers. For example, I'm reading Edward P. Jones, "The Known World" right now -- a book that received glowing reviews, and is considered "important." But I find his eccentric use of tenses and his point of view shifts somewhat jarring stylistically, although someone who isn't trying to write might not be bothered by those aspects of his writing, and might not even notice them.

From what I've read here and in reviews of The Road, I suspect I might not like it for similar "writerly" reasons. Many writers devote a lot of energy to figuring out how to describe character, and how to describe change and transformation in character, how to handle dynamic shifts in relationships between characters or between characters and their settings and situations. The reviews of The Road suggest a continuously bleak, if poetically bleak, situation that deepens rather than changes (until the end? perhaps that's what they meant by payoff?) which would be more attractive to readers of poetry and science fiction than to readers of character-driven literary fiction. But again, I haven't read the book, and am just trying to decide whether to buy it.

[Orrex]

23. Fair enough

The two main characters are actually pretty strong, with a strong bond between them. The nature of this bond is what changes both throughout the story and at the end.

But it's definitely not character-driven in the sense of having deep explorations into either of them. I'd assert that it is well written, even if the style itself doesn't appeal to everyone.

However, McCarthy opts not to use quotation marks in his dialogue, and I admit that I find this gimmicky and artificial, even though he's been doing it for decades. This affectation could easily and understandably turn some people off to his writing. And I hope that the reader appreciates my decision not to use the word "eschews" in the first sentence of this paragraph.

[paparush]

24. I read "The Road" in (practically) one sitting and loved it.

I hope the movie isn't a complete disaster.

[Swede]

25. I read it in one evening.

I have never done that before. Very grim,but it is an important book.

[Onceuponalife]

26. I loved it

I read it in 3 or 4 days; it was hard to put down. I didn't find it boring in the least. It was riveting. I liked how almost all the characters were identified noy by any name but in a real literal way ("boy" "man" "old man" "soldier", etc.). It was terifying to think how easily this could happen in RL, and the scene of the people locked in the room....well, if it's possible to scream silently inside your head, I did it!

I'm a huge SF fan and imo, this was horror, not SF.