It's hard to imagine our world devoid of sun, vibrant color, or plants of any kind. Yet The Road does conjur up these almost lifeless images and takes readers on a journey through such a landscape: gray, cold, hard, and wearying. Life does exist, however, even in an environment as non-supportive as Cormac McCarthy has penned: a father and son.
The father and son are at the heart of this story, and their walk through a bleak, destroyed, post-apocolytpic landscape is the backbone of the novel. When we first encounter them, they are years into a journey toward the ocean. Through the father's thoughts, we get only the barest glimpse into their past. The boy, born about the same time the world went through it's cataclysmic event, has never known life as before and listens to his father's tales about a time gone by with wonder. The pair face what seems a certain death: food is scarce, and no other traveler, it seems, can be trusted. Roaming gangs of cannibals populate the countryside.
Told in brief, concise sentences and paragraphs, The Road is riveting. Yes, there is much description regarding food (canned pears for dinner) or lack thereof. Yes, there is much talk of the shopping cart, their belongings, and walking. Nonetheless, the passages put the reader right there with the father and son. The reader walks with them, stiffens when strangers appraoch, and feels the raw desperation of a husband losing a wife. As bleak and unyielding as the countryside is described, the language lends itself to very vivid images of what surrounds the father and son. Even as the two main characters remain nameless with only a vague guess as to their age and locaton, the reader still cares for them and roots for them as they seemingly slip from death's grasp again and again.
The very things described above may be off-putting for readers. Walking, eating, sleeping interspersed with the occasional odd encounter may not seem like page-turning material. The non-traditional punctuation and structure of the work also may grate on a reader's nerves. However, do not let these things deter you from reading this. It is a page-turner. It is on-the-edge-of -your-seat suspense. The Road is definitely a trip worth taking.
