"The Road"

by Cormac McCarthy, 2006, 241p, rating=4

Duh, just noticed the book cover is dark... appropriately so since the world that the man and boy lived now was dark and dreary! This is because this is a post apocalyptic novel so the road ahead is unknown and scary. Your survival skills had to been challenged here. Consequently, this book touched upon human's awakening of it's ultimate capabilities in face of the world's end. Would it be better to live or die? Is the fight to live worth it at this point? Is God around? Does having hope make a difference? These are a few of the questions that this book had it's characters pondering. Deep.

I believe a seasoned reader would find this book extraordinary. The author was skilled in describing everything in detail and much in symbolism that I suspect some I missed. Being that I am a striving reader, I saw the details more cumbersome. I was eager to find out what's at the end of the road. It was however the journey getting there that was more important to the author to get across. Surely it was, because when you're at that point of existence ... you don't know for sure who's the good guy or who's going to eat you! Yes, I said EAT. When you're starving and your scavenged food is gone, what else is there that some may turn to but cannibalism? Really, this book is intense in human desperation and tenacity.

Oh, oh, oh, the ending!! All the bleakness that you've been reading comes to a conclusion and you will be exhausted along with the man and boy's journey and you will weep, wail, ... howl!!

Excellent book. Now I've got to find the movie and see the novel in film ... should be interesting.

**My quotables:

"You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget." pg 10.

"If you break little promises you'll break big ones." pg 29.