Yes, it is very well written, yet is without any substance.

Simply put, a polished turd.

I was so excited to read it in for a class, but I hated every boring moment. Yes, it was incredibly well written, but there is absolutely nothing below the surface. Completely unoriginal. It seems as though McCarthy used eloquence and a pretentious rhetoric to overcome writers block.
The themes were incredibly simple.
Survival in the face of hopelessness? Who would have thought that humans would try and survive. Its called life derp.
Father-Son protection: Same as any parent-child relationship . Soooo deep McCarthy, I guess having kids so late in life makes these simplistic parental themes seem amazing.
Humans are essentially animanls without society: I think I read “Lord of the Flies” in middle school. Also, no kidding huh. Who knew humans act like animals in an animal scenario?

McCarthy: “Idea for a book. Post-nuclear holocaust. Father must protect his son and survive.”
Publisher: “Then what?”
McCarthy: “No that’s it.”
Publisher: “I saw ‘Road Warrior’ last week and thought it was sick. Through in some tribal renegade survivors.”

Best argument against my stance: It won the Pulitzer Prize and many people give it acclaim. Do you know how many people like Justin Bieber?

This is no book, just a really long poem.

Do be struck by its dark sadness is like the first time a pop-oriented teenage girl hears a Dashboard Confessional song. “Its…so…sad…OMG!”

As a post-apocalyptic novel there were gaping holes in the narrative – no plants, no animals (surely rats, that most resourceful and omniverous of animals would survive?), yet humans still slog on. Plants have been dead for years, but there are windfall apples. To start with I could forgive the inconsistencies because of the beauty of the writing, but to me they became more irritating as the novel progressed. A beautiful, bleak novel – yes, but too inconsistent to merit all the praise that’s been heaped on it.

I take exception with reviewers who say McCarthy used this technique for effect in the telling of this story. All of his books are written this way. He is not using nonstandard punctuation, run on sentences, and sentence fragments to more effectively paint a bleaker post-apocalyptic picture. He feels it is the best way to write, period. Personally, I think the only people more pretentious than Grammar Nazis are people who think they are such brilliant writers that basic grammar is for everyone else.

As for the story itself, what was so extraordinary in the way the father cared for his son, or in what they did to survive? It was all pretty instinctual, and any parent knows that doing whatever you can so your child survives is pretty much as natural as breathing. Quite honestly, I couldn’t imagine treating any child differently under these circumstances, much less my own child, so the story did not come across to me as a shining example of love or heroism, either. The Man tried to keep himself and his son alive. Is this really some sort of novel concept?

I was moved at certain points of the story, too, but not as much as those who were moved to tears.. If you want a bleak and moving post-apocalyptic story, try Richard Matheson’s “I Am Legend” or any of Stephen King’s forays into the genre, like “The Stand” or even “Cell.” Even George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” might be worth a look, if this one had you sobbing.

I am trying to synthesize my thoughts on the existentialism or nihilism of the novel. I feel that the Man is stuck to choose between God and suicide, which is essentially the result of a nihilistic view. I’m having a hard time getting my thoughts together on whether it’s nihilism, existentialism, or just plain religion/lack there of. So… I don’t know what your thoughts are. I feel that a deep understanding of this would greatly contribute to the meaning of the novel.

Anywho… I’m going back to work on the paper. I don’t know if any of y’all had considered those views. But if you didn’t find much meaning in the book, I would suggest looking into the presence of nihilism and existentialism to provide more depth and understanding.

I was forced to keep going in to check on my 2 year old son as he slept – to look at his little face, & face the depth of my commitment to him – could I ever hope to reach the stature of the father in McCarthy’s novel?

This book is biblical in both its depth & the sparseness of its prose – spirling layers of meaning & symbolism there for the reader to take.

McCarthy is a giant.

BTW I was also very moved by the book and agree with an earlier post that it is one of the books of the decade.

The Road’s deconstructive grammar is a reflection of the decline of civilisation and its rules, but McCarthy’s brutal, yet eloquent, prose is also a deliberate contrast to the language which the two main characters use. The man and his son speak in simple, repetitive sentences with very few words. It highlights the ultimate reversal of language, where vocabulary shrinks as words which no longer have any relevance (such as green, aeroplane or money) disappear. McCarthy hints at this with the man’s inability to describe the world before to his son.

To those who posted negatively about the absence of plot and names – this is also deliberate by McCarthy. In a post apocalyptic world things lose their meaning, including people and plans. The man and the boy are anonymous entities in a meaningless world, who still move forward because it is the survival instinct of a species. The man’s inability to resolve his own decisions for keeping them both alive attests to the struggle between the mind’s logic (why live any longer) and the body’s need to survive. Intensely powerful stuff.

The only downside to this book is the Hollywood ending. McCarthy sets up the world as almost empty and peopled with ‘bad guys’ yet within three days of his father’s death the boy is miraculously found by a perfect family unit of father/son/boy/girl to replace his existing family. I would have preferred if the boy continued on his own into the dark of an uncertain future, like Paul in D.H Lawrence’s ‘Sons and Lovers’. It would have suited the unknown bleakness of the story. We have no history to the characters or events (a nice touch by McCarthy – once again he disposes of things which have no relevance to their lives – only the struggle of right now has any importance) and it would be right to have no concept of the boy’s future.

My biggest gripe was the repetition of the word “and” in sentences. I have seen this used to great effect, but this annoyance continues across pages and pages.

I have yet to finish this book and am sure I eventually will come back to it, but I am thoroughly disappointed.

This book is the literary equivalent of an early Punk song. Sure, it’s half-written and rough, but there will always be those who’ll say it is “Raw” and “Real” and if you don’t like it, you simply don’t understand it. Sadly, there will always be those who will believe that, too.

Thanks

Cheers.

How many people felt guilty taking a shower, eating a sandwich, or simply finding your way outside on a moonlit night after putting it down? I am not a man of strong faith, but I am a father and this book put me through the wringer!

This book strips us down in a way that is familiar to us all…we all know what a grocery store is; how shopping carts with broken wheels rattle; what stumbling around in the dark is; what coke tastes like….McCarthy uses these familiar physical things to bring us into a world as horrible and hopeless as what people faced in the real life fear and nightmares that accompany war/concentration camps/death marches etc. There is real horror and fear in our world, and McCarthy boils it down to a single narrative so that each of us can try taste a small portion it.

It is no surprise that the cataclysmic event that caused the burning of the world happened at 1:17, which also hearkens to Book 1, Verse 17 from Revelations.

“And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last.” – KJ

There is a lot to this book and it merits multiple readings.

I feared for the characters so much so that I wanted them to kill themselves before someone else got to them first and tortured them. I have never wished for the “good guys” to end their lives before. I know I have hugged my son more during the reading of this book. It’s impossible not to put your own children in as characters. I swore during the reading that I would never wish this book on anyone, but I already want my daughter, my husband, my literary friend to read it, so we can discuss our own interpretations. Like others who commented, I wanted to know more about how they got to be in this place, and I did find it a bit repetetive at times, but the more I think about it, the more I like and appreciate the story. I am definitely moved by it and feel as though McCarthy is a genius of sorts. I AM a middle school English teacher, and I very much enjoyed the writing.

BUT

Sometimes the writing seemed badly crafted and pretentious. I have gone over it again and again trying to figure out how it won a prestigious literary prize, assuming I missed something.

My main issue is with his incessant use of ridiculous similies like a man with a manufacturing factory of similies inside him or like a man who is like a forest full of cobwebs of similies.

I kept thinking “please stop that, I’m trying to enjoy your story.

To sum up: I loved the story but kept getting hijacked by some aspects of his style.

That’s the mentality of the publishing industry to every single new writer out there.

Is that what it is? A ‘middle school’ mentality?

The only thing more worthless than The Road is McCarthy’s devotees.