Three years ago “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy was introduced to numerous accolades, including winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. Now the book is back at the forefront of public attention thanks to a film adaptation schedules for release later this year starring Viggo Mortensen as the unnamed main character.
The plot of the novel follows a father and son, referred to as “The Man” and “The Boy,” as they travel across the United States after some unspecified, man-made disaster has killed most of the population and left the landscape of the world ravaged and barren.
The man and the boy travel to the Southern Coast in order to find warmer weather and supposedly more survivors, although this may be a lie the man tells the boy in order to give him hope.
Along the way, they encounter marauding bands of cannibals, thieves, other survivors more pathetic than themselves and a 90-year-old man who has been walking since before the world ended and will continue to walk until he dies.
The true beauty here is the relationship between father and son and their devotion to each other.
The man is willing to do anything to keep his son safe, including killing and stealing from other survivors. The boy completely trusts his father but is sometimes terrified by his father’s coldness and practicality. The man believes the only reason left for him to go on is to keep his son alive and is amazed at his son’s compassion in a world where all the common sentiments of civilization seem to have vanished. Throughout the novel he refers to his son as a god, or as the only thing left of God in the world.
Since the book’s release, many critics have commented on McCarthy’s masterful use of language and the extensive vocabulary he seems to employ. Because of this, McCarthy’s verbose style has often been compared to William Faulkner.
While it’s true McCarthy does have an imposing mental dictionary, the book is much more accessible than anything Faulkner wrote.
The sentences are short and declarative. The dialogue is sparse and practical, and although there are many impressive words in the narration, the language is anything but flowery.
With all that said, it is impossible to describe the effect reading “The Road” has on a person. The language is so evocative and immersive the reader really feels trapped in the world of the man and the boy while taking part in their journey in an absolute way.
When one puts the book down, one has to stand up, look around them and readjust themselves for reality. This is helped by the fact that there are no chapters in the book, simply a continuous narrative.
The book is absolutely unique and on a completely different level from most post-apocalyptic fiction. It is easily one of the best and most introspective books anyone can expect to read, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone. In fact, it is such an exemplary novel it raises questions as to how the film adaptation will fare.
The style of “The Road” seems like it would be difficult to translate to any other medium and doesn’t lend itself to most traditional film techniques. The lack of dialogue, the moments of quiet thought and the absence of characters other than the two protagonists makes it seem as though bringing the book to the screen would be quite a task indeed.
But perhaps the message of the novel will survive the transition, and we can look forward to a spirited movie adaptation of “The Road” when it premieres Nov. 25th.