http://www.zgeek.com/forum en Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:05:02 GMT vBulletin 1 http://www.zgeek.com/forum/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.zgeek.com/forum http://www.zgeek.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83400&goto=newpost Mon, 25 May 2009 20:42:02 GMT Death and decay form the foundation for Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. And yet, despite the omnipresent bleakness that fills its pages, this post-apocalyptic tale of two people, a father and son struggling to survive in a future that has been torn asunder by an unnamed cataclysm, hope still finds a... Death and decay form the foundation for Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. And yet, despite the omnipresent bleakness that fills its pages, this post-apocalyptic tale of two people, a father and son struggling to survive in a future that has been torn asunder by an unnamed cataclysm, hope still finds a way to take root.

The story unfolds several years after a calamity (hinted as a nuclear holocaust, but never overtly confirmed) has scorched the earth, leaving it a grey husk of burned out cities, dead trees, and barren of most wildlife. Through the midst of this ash-strewn landscape father and son meander like vagrants pushing a rickety grocery cart laden with their meager possessions. Their quest is simple; to stay alive, find food and head south in the hope of escaping the cold of winter.

Their quest is pocketed with fear, as the landscape, long since ransacked for foodstuffs, holds roving bands of cannibals and thieves. It is also a journey of discovery, both in terms of what lays round the next bend as well as the human condition. Between the sparse and simple meals of survival, the man and the boy are equally sustained by their devotion and love for each other.

McCarthy, whose works include No Country for Old Men, All the Pretty Horses, and Blood Meridian, says he was inspired to write the story after he became a father in his 60s, a generational chasm from which The Road draws its inspiration. Whereas elements of what’s left of humanity have long since abandoned their aversion to exploiting their own for food, the man and boy steadfastly cling to old world values of right and wrong. This demarcation is rooted in the man’s love for his son, wanting him to hold firm to the qualities of a different, long dead world the boy never knew, having been born at the time of society’s destruction. It’s the only gift the man can reliably pass along to his son – the quality that sets humans apart from animals, and allows the two to cling to their own internal civilization in a world without any.

In the process of telling its story, The Road manages to transform everything we presently take for granted into a wonder of discovery and survival. The simplest of things like a withered and dried out apple, a can of peaches, a bath, take on the aura of manna from heaven, causing the reader to see how the smallest, most currently mundane things can suddenly become vital under a different set of circumstances.

Understandably, some have praised The Road as being the greatest ode to environmentalism ever written. British environmentalist George Monbiot lauded the book’s importance to the cause, and named McCarthy one of 50 people who could save the planet. Yet it contains no platitudes in favor of any such stance, and achieves this end by simply being what it is; a story of survival and love. ]]> Books Haggisboy http://www.zgeek.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83400