The Road

End Game

End Game




Could consider McCarthy's ending two ways.

As last reel morality. The cynical movie trick of satisfying convention.
The need to feed the reader a positive end after their journey through the dark night with the dying duo.
A 'happy meal' ending with action figure and fries. Not a win-win to appease the warm and fuzzy, still a winning season.

As reward for Darwinian hard work. Although the deck was stacked, the consequences were 'fairly' resolved after the initial 'raw' deal. The story stayed true to the characters. The father and son became an expert survival team. The quest to find OTHERS, other people strong, resourceful, and of equal moral foundation, was realized.

How long can the parasite survive after the host has died? The father and son were seeking a community that was self sustaining, had a future, did not eat it's young.







4too
 
Stayed up until last night until 5 AM reading it. It's an arrestingly powerful book. It makes me want to spend time with my father, for one.
 
Father Versus Son

Father Versus Son



Haris suggested I go out and talk to people.
Discover how real folks discourse.
Went out the back door.
No body there.
No dazzling interaction beyond the mono syllable conventions of commerce seemed present at the service a station next door.
Due to the peculiarities of this urban suburb, the side walk ends at my west boundary. No fragment of sidewalk for a 100 yards.
Car Culture well established when this portion of Ohio tax structure was wrested from agricultural pastoral stagnation.
No self declared world english speakers awaiting to be emulated. Not even the Swedish Chef on the TV.

Speculated that "Our Brother From Another Planet'' as iconic a character as any playing Frisbee Tag at DAC
was pointing in the same direction as some stalwart authority figures at NMA.
Welsh said READ to improve communal cognition.
A carnation of Kharn encouraged focused essays (write and rewrite) to curb the rampaging vocabulary, and randomly evoked grammar.

Time and tide offer one or the other, cut bait, or go fish,

I have been cutting bait.


Got through Cormac McCarthy's ""Blood Meridian"". The Judge and The Kid seem to be an anti- relationship. An 'Apocalypse Now' bald, Big Brando of a demon philosopher, as the adult supervision you must flee to survive, and a hard luck runaway
you'd never want to meet.
Not a romantic depiction of THE WEST, nor WAR, or the 'Pursuit Of Happiness'.

Hardly a conventional ''hero's journey''.
More of a medieval morality play.

No glorious 7th Calvary, only a final reel like the ''The 7th Seal''.




4too
 
finally got around to reading it. decent book, but nothing special really.

i was kinda annoyed by his choice of words at times. also the end is much too Holywood for me.

there's a few things i still don't understand (the continued fires etc), but i suppose that is the entire intent.
 
While I'm genuinely curious about the book... something slightly more curious occured to me...

Does anyone actually understand 4too?
 
Grave digging- but then as an admin, I am allowed such guilty pleasures.-

Finally caught up with my McCarthy readings-

Over the past couple of months I finished off-
(1) No Country for Old men- loved it.
(2) Blood Meridian- ALso loved it.
(3) THe Road- which I greatly enjoyed.

In response to some of the comments- especially 4too, I think the ending is a return to what Lehane mentions as McCarthy´s Gnostic sensibilities. You see this also in Blood Meridian.

I agree- Blood Meridian plays the Kid (who seems to possess some moral code) against the Judge (who responds to a claim by the kind `you´re nothing´with- ´you don´t know how right you are´) as a biblical story of light vs dark, good vs evil.

Blood Meridian´s ending follows the main body of the story- involving scalp hunting along the mexico-texas border in the 1840-1850 period. Throughout this the Kid possess little more morality than the rest of the gang, but the Judge (Judge Holden) is really a despicable person who will blot out all life that he has not allowed to exist. This guy is so wicked that he buys a couple of puppies only to toss them in the river.

In Blood Meridian- the Kid is finally left to wander and the ending summaries decades in few pages. But in those few pages, the Kid is shiftless and alone and at one point he lives a child essentially an orphan (much as the story begins with his own experience as an orphan). After this he encounters the judge and it is suggested that the Judge grabs the Kid and essentially destroys him in an outhouse. Latter the judge is seen dancing in the bar and proclaims that he will never die and the dance (a dance of destruction and death) will go on forever.

In a sense we can see the Judge as a depiction of evil- a destroyer and corrupter, a lier and deceiver.

In the Road we have other images in which the father sees the child as the voice of god. I saw that more as representaitve of the father´s love of the child. But there are a couple of points when the story suggests more. A few times the characters are left almost to starve to death, but each time the father finds food- somewhat miraculously given the shortages. We are told that the hope never really fades.

SPoiler- although the father dies- he does so at a point when the son is more capable of taking care of himself and the father sees the son as glowing with light. Even when the father dies, the son is discovered by a passerby who has been tracking them who apparently decides to adopt the son. Miracles again. THe son´s faith in goodness, his moral code, and the frequent statements of having the light, and of being ´the good guys´. may suggest something more- the spirit of hope and goodness.

So I think McCarthy is again pointing out some spiritual hope in this. This isn-t really a Christian hope- for the father points out that mankind is past religious distinctions- but I think something more profound and perhaps gnostic.

One view of gnosticism believed that the material world was evil, but the spiritual offered redemption and godliness. It seems that McCarthy is again playing on that theme.
 
as said, very holywoodian ending... book would've been better if it had been a raw one (though that in itself doesn't have to mean death for all).

either way, it was enjoyable, but i really dont see why so many people are so hyped about it.
 
SuAside said:
as said, very holywoodian ending... book would've been better if it had been a raw one (though that in itself doesn't have to mean death for all).

either way, it was enjoyable, but i really dont see why so many people are so hyped about it.
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Part of the reason is that it leaps from genre fiction or, more importantly, moved from literature to genre- giving genre more depth.

Well let´s not forget that another big book not so old was Margaret Atwood´s a Handmaiden´s Tale, that was also post apocalyptic.

I think its big because McCarthy is pretty powerful a figure in the literary world. One of the reviewers of the Road points out that McCarthy represents a ´tough guy´realm of contemporary literature- an opposing force to the more ´savant´approach-

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1938709,00.html

We can divide the contemporary American novel into two traditions, or two social classes. The Tough Guy tradition comes up from Fenimore Cooper, with a touch of Poe, through Melville, Faulkner and Hemingway. The Savant tradition comes from Hawthorne, especially through Henry James, Edith Wharton and Scott Fitzgerald. You could argue that the latter is liberal, east coast/New York, while the Tough Guys are gothic, reactionary, nihilistic, openly religious, southern or fundamentally rural.


The Savants' blood line (curiously unrepresentative of Americans generally) has gained undoubted ascendancy in the literary firmament of the US. Upper middle class, urban and cosmopolitan, they or their own species review themselves. The current Tough Guys are a murder of great, hopelessly masculine, undomesticated writers, whose critical reputations have been and still are today cruelly divergent, adrift and largely unrewarded compared to the contemporary Savant school. In literature as in American life, success must be total and contrasted "failure" fatally dispiriting.

But in both content and technical riches, the Tough Guys are the true legislators of tortured American souls. They could include novelists Thomas McGuane, William Gaddis, Barry Hannah, Leon Rooke, Harry Crews, Jim Harrison, Mark Richard, James Welch and Denis Johnson. Cormac McCarthy is granddaddy to them all. New York critics may prefer their perfidy to be ignored, comforting themselves with the superlatives for All the Pretty Horses, but we should remember that the history of Cormac McCarthy and his achievement is not an American dream but near on 30 years of neglect for a writer who, since The Orchard Keeper in 1965, produced only masterworks in elegant succession. Now he has given us his great American nightmare.
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McCarthy is of the tough guy mode. These are less thinking characters than actors who display their actions in what they do. What they do and what they say matter more. McCarthy´s use of language helps color the canvas, but that´s all. When he uses Calamites to discribe some of those captured by cannibals- he returns to a more primitive state or powerlessness not seen since Rome.

Suaside, you and others have pointed out that McCarthy´s unwillingness to use grammar is annoying. What I was initially puzzled with, when reading All the Pretty Horses (which is a great read) is that he can go pages in Spanish- which can be annoying as hell if you don´t know the language. In Blood Meridian there is a section where a wandering carnival group tells the fortune of the scalp hunters, but that´s in Spanish too. Either as reader you get it or you don´t. McCarthy doesn´t really give a shit.

Same goes with some of the grammar. WHy no quotes? Well I suspect that for McCarthy when someone says something, than its just out there. It is less a possession of a character than something inherent and self-possessed- an idea once articulated and now in the wind. Perhaps it has something to do with his gnostic-like approach- I don´t know.

Genre writers point out that the Road makes some mistakes-
http://www.geocities.com/fantasticreviews/road_summer_apocalypse.htm
for example- aren´t those cities radioactive? What about the dust?

Thing is that this might be genre fiction to those who enjoy genre elements. But I think the Road transcends genre, but escaping genre elements.

For instance- compare two bits taken from the review linked above-
McCarthy´s the Road-
The dead wife says to the father character-
They say that women dream of danger to those in their care and men of danger to themselves. But I dont dream at all. You say you cant? Then dont do it. That's all. Because I am done with my own whorish heart and I have been for a long time. You talk about taking a stand but there is no stand to take. My heart was ripped out of me the night he was born so dont ask for sorrow now. There is none. Maybe you'll be good at this. I doubt it, but who knows. The one thing I can tell you is that you wont survive for yourself. I know because I would never have come this far. A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.
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Compare to - Summer of the Apocalypse

The peaches dropped from the policeman's hand, and in it he held the gun. He was very fast. Eric tried to swallow, couldn't. The end of the barrel, only a foot from his face, looked a mile wide and infinitely deep.
Trapped, his head in the car and off balance, Eric heard the policeman's hard and heavy breath. The man said, "Do you know Gloria?" The gun didn't waver.
Eric tried to answer, but he couldn't force a word through his throat. He shook his head no.
The gun sank to the backpack, and the officer gazed out the front window, turning away from Eric. His voice became distant and soft. "She's about your age. At the hospital with her mom now. They got a touch of something," the policeman said. He focused suddenly on Eric, and his voice became businesslike. "I thought maybe you went to school with her."
Cupped loosely around the pistol grip, the man's hand fascinated Eric. He tried to speak again and squeaked out, "I go to Littleton High."
"A Littleton Lion." The policeman slid the gun onto his lap and stuck it between his legs so the barrel pointed down and the grip was still visible. "I was a Golden High Knight. Played football." He licked his lips.
Eric let out a long breath silently and realized he hadn't been breathing. "Uh huh," he said.
"Thousand people buried in that football field now." The policeman gripped the steering wheel. He was wearing a black glove on his left hand. "Don't think the Knights will have a good season this year," he said.
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the grammar wasnt really my gripe, but rather the individual choice of words at times. i felt it broke the flow of reading at times, because some drew undue attention.
 
McCarthy´s use of language is particular at time. It worked for me in Blood Meridian. In the Road I read the language more in terms of the main character´s thoughts.

Blood Meridian is still the best of his work, though Outer Dark is pretty good.
 
The Road was the first McCarthy book I read. I enjoyed it. Thought it was relatively honest. I laughed and laughed when I saw that Oprah recommended it.

Some of the other EOTW books I've read that I thought were well written and very interesting are "The Brief History of the Dead", "The Pest House", "Oryx and Crake", and "Cat's Cradle".

Oryx & Crake and Cat's Cradle are both about the dangers of science run-amok. The Pest House is more Road-like in just focusing on life after the collapse of society. Brief History of the Dead is a good bit different then the others, mixing EOTW with philosophy. I really liked all four of these books.

I bought "No Country for Old Men", and purposely avoided seeing the movie until after I've had the opportunity to read it.
 
I am thinking about getting this, but a little taken back with Oprah's name being on it. The reviews I have read make it sound like On the Beach, which I felt was just awful on many levels (though it is considered fantastic by many).

So is The Road like On the Beach?
 
BUMP!

Can't believe I didn't read this back in 2006 when I was young and really in to PA. I watched the movie when it came out but wasn't that into it.
However I finally read it over the weekend and I was really drawn into it. Maybe because I'm a father myself now. There's a lot of good and interesting points in this thread about the ending of the book. I also think it would probably have been better with a darker ending where you don't know what will happen to the boy. But it's an American book so no surprise there.

In The Road Earth is covered in a dark shroud of ash and clouds and all plant-life has died out because of it. Nothing grows (except the mushrooms they find). There's been at least eight years since the event and any food left to scavenge is almost depleted. Most humans have turned to cannibalism as the only way to stay alive. To be alive, just for the sake of it, makes most humans do anything, they even roast the newborns over fire...

I like it that you aren't given any real answer to what caused the apocalypse. It could be meteor strike, a super volcano, environmental destruction caused by humans, nukes or several of them combined. First there where firestorms and the ground is covered in layers of ash since. In some cities buildings almost melted. Then the cold came and the Earth is getting darker everyday. It reminds me of the Fallout 2 intro where it's stated that "A quiet darkness fell across the planet, lasting many years. Few survived the devastation".

The man and his boy are travelling across America from east to west and then they follow the ocean south. They encounter lone wanderers, cannibals and there's even a huge formation of a Mad Max-style gang they watch travel the road. They also encounter a man that has been expelled from "a collective" and he has had two of his fingers cut off because of what he did. That was interesting because it must mean that that collective had another food source other than humans, otherwise they would just have eaten him.

Another interesting thing is that when food is scarce gold is worthless. At one point they encounter a prepper bunker that has food and also some gold stored in it. The builder thought gold would probably still be valuable after the apocalypse but it is not, not when food is running out. The father doesn't even consider bringing it with him.

The Novel really makes you think about what it is that makes life worth to continue living. The boys mother killed herself but the father still has hope and it's that hope that spurs him on, he won't kill the boy and then commit suicide himself. He believes that he can find a place where the boy can live a life worth living. A lot of the humans they encounter, especially the cannibals, seems to be living just for the sake of it but the man lives on hope. It's beautiful in a way.
 
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Blood Meridian, of course, is one of the greatest pieces of Western fiction (despite what has happened in terms of discussion about it). His "Border Trilogy", when read as a cohesive whole, is quite good as well. Some may say Faulkner, others Flannery O'Connor; but McCarthy's body of work stands as the magnum opus in terms of pushing the artistic capabilities of three different styles of prose/literary techniques: Southern Gothicism, Modernism, and Minimalism.

Faulkner is complex through his use of a non-linear, unconventional narrative structure of storytelling similar to that of contemporaries: Proust and Joyce. What makes McCarthy interesting is his structure of novel is quite linear. But due to the sparse use of grammar coinciding with the detailed poetic descriptions, he can still be a challenging read. Not to a Thomas Pynchon or Jon Barth degree, but it's structured in a way that stimulates the same receptors.

But, compared to McCarthy's other works, I feel "The Road" is a bit more sanitized and - like the user above said - "Hollywood-esque". Especially compared to "Blood Meridian" and "Child of God". Some of my opinion is also influenced by how many films/games that I view as redundant that have used it as a template - whether intentional or not. But that is no fault of the novel itself and I'm not taking a "Seinfeld is Unfunny" stance on it. Also, knowing that the year prior "No Country for Old Men" was released. Its good but feels very supplementary to the rest of McCarthy's bibliography. Since it's the only time he ever released a novel after only one year apart from another.
 
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