Book 13 - The Road - Cormac McCarthy

No preamble this time.  I've got too many books to finish and write-up!  Let's go straight to the review.

Book 13 - The Road - Cormac McCarthy

Nobody does desperation quite like Cormac McCarthy.  Whether it's Llewellyn Moss fleeing the relentless Anton Chigurgh in No Country for Old Men, or the father and son wandering through the post-apocalyptic landscape in The Road, McCarthy knows how to paint a portrait of people that have run out of options.  It's almost always a quiet, reserved desperation, though.  One that does not get frantic until it needs to.

Did I mention post-apocalypse?  That's the setting for this book, which I thought a little odd for a book that was written so long after the end of the cold war (2006).  This isn't just a case of single bomb destroying a major city either.  This appears to be full-on nuclear war, and the United States (and presumably the rest of the world), is locked in the grip of a nuclear winter.  The sky is a hazy grey which blocks out the sun.  Ash covers everything, and falls with the rain and the snow.  There is virtually no plant life, I assume because of the lack of sun, but there may another reason (radioactive ash?), because there aren't really any animals either, save the occasional dog.  No plants, no birds, no rabbits, no deer = NO FOOD.  

A father and a son, who remain nameless throughout the book, are traveling south, presumably because they think its going to be warmer there.  They push along a shopping cart that contains everything they have: a few pieces of spare clothing and tarps, some tools, a tattered map, and a meager supply canned goods, all of which they have scrounged along the way.  They are trying to avoid pretty much everybody.  Some of the survivors have solved the food problem by eating other people, and there are gangs of cannibals which travel the roads.  Even if the traveler you encounter has not acquired a taste for human flesh, he's likely to try to steal your stuff, and might even kill or maim you in the process.  They have a gun, but they only have two bullets, and the father is trying to save those for a very special last act of desperation.

The problem with The Road is once you've stripped away the desperation, there's not much plot.  They are traveling south.  They are trying to reach the ocean.  They have no food.  Hey, they found some food!  But that's OK.  This book is more about what a father will do to protect his son, even if he risks losing a bit of his humanity in the process.  He is constantly reminding his son that "We're the good guys, we carry the fire."  But as things get increasingly desperate, the line between good and bad starts to blur somewhat.  

One of the things that bothers me about this book is that it adopts the familiar "Mad Max" view of the post-apocalyptic world:  roving gangs, law of the jungle, etc.  Call me a Pollyanna, but I would think there would be more people banding together for good.  Maybe it's the father's complete distrust of everyone that hides them from us, but one would think that there would be more people trying to "carry the fire."  Then again, maybe they were eaten by the cannibals.