The Road by Cormac McCarthy (4)

Okay?
Okay.

The reader of The Road follows a father and son through lucky windfalls and near deaths on a south-bound journey, piecing together an image of a bleak, ash-covered country and its hopeless survivors. It is a slow and arduous read to match the trip. Several scenes in the book were completely horrifying, despite my desensitization to the idea of cannibalism from reading science fiction.

There are only snippets of memory from the pre-apocalypse world. These glimpses, and the man's poetic reflections, are the most beautiful and stirring passages. Much of the prose resembles stream of consciousness narration, and the dialogue is as boring as talking to an actual person. The disaster and its cause are mostly mysterious and the reader can only guess it has something to do with worldwide fire.

I'm not really glad I read this. I was perplexed by the boy, who was far too guileless for a child who has only known a decimated world populated with cannibals. I was also disappointed with the only half-believable conclusion. The improbable half was hastily tacked on and then abandoned. It was too convenient, but perhaps was part of the pattern of the traveling family's occasional luck. The Road didn't offer unusual perspectives on a common theme. A post-apocalyptic novel must always ponder the value of morality after the destruction of society, inhumanity during scarcity and terror, and methods of survival and adaptation. There was enough suspense keeping me interested in whether the "bad guys" would catch the homeless family, but I admit I nearly fell asleep as I began it on the subway two or three times.

I don't even think I want to see the film anymore.