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The Road (Paperback)
Short Description for The RoadCormac McCarthy's The Road hit the big screen in January 2010.
Full description- Publisher: PICADOR
- Published: 01 May 2009
- Format: Paperback 320 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: Contemporary Fiction
- ISBN 13: 9780330468466 ISBN 10: 0330468464
- Sales rank: 531
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Reviews for The Road
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Top review
"Dark beyond darkness"
Black, Dark, Ash, Dirty Snow, Cold, Cold Rain, Dead River, Black Sea : This is the colourless palette of The Road. It is a landscape drawn with charcoal, where the nights are "dark beyond darkness", and a permanent pall of soot swirls in the air. With no sun, no moon, no birds, no cows, no living trees (just dead stumps), no plants or flowers, no food - McCarthy has imagined a world that is among the bleakest and most benighted in all literature. The earth has been stripped bare by an apocalypse (we are not told exactly what), and humanity has all but disappeared. Those few who survive manage a roach-like existence, scrabbling among the ruins and descending into cannibalism. How to remain human in such a world ? A man and his little son show how. They head south along "the road" to an uncertain destination, buoyed by a hope that is less than a glimmer, emaciated, starving, sick, always on the lookout for killers. Each is "the other's world entire", and their love for each other -and the boy's compassion for the other wretches they encounter -- is the only bright spark in a book that is otherwise depressing, sad and scary. McCarthy's language is austere and, in its simplicity and power, biblical. But sometimes the language and imagery soar with sublime paternal heartbreak; as a father of a little boy myself, I found such passages difficult to bear. At such moments, quite overcome, I left the book aside, unable to carry on reading. But I couldn't leave it alone for long; I simply had to carry on, as if by doing so I could will the survival of father and son. In The Road, McCarthy has shown what literature is capable of: a deeply human enterprise that helps us find beauty in the unlikeliest places, and that is ultimately life-affirming. by Sugunan Menadea
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