The Road
I didn’t watch the film The Road when it came out and I still haven’t seen it yet. I’d have bought it at a popular high street music / film shop the other day, only at 15 pounds it couldn’t compete with The Shining. It was right next to it and cost only 3.
I have read The Road as a book, though. And, as much as I wanted to see the film, please be warned: it was not everything I thought it would be. In fact, part of me wanted to go straight back to the beginning when I finished. I wanted to read it again and see if I’d missed something, because that was how it felt.
Let’s get the summary out of the way: a boy and his father make their way across post-apocalyptic America. The place is a mess and so are they. The world is a shambles, well and truly. They survive day to day, fearing contact with other humans–scared that they might become the next meal. Think big empty cities and sleeping in biodiesel storage tanks every night.
I loved the story; Cormac Mccarthy has written a fantastic, disturbing, sucker-punch of a book. The problem for me is variety. Throughout the book the story rarely deviates from the depressive state of mind that the two main characters live in at nearly all times.
Another thing which I found hard to get to grips with was the style. Favouring almost totally punctuation-less text throughout (there is rarely a comma in sight), the first few pages – where I believe a reader should be absorbed in to the story to the point of not wanting to put the book down – drag a little.
But seriously–what do I know? This is finding fault with the finest details, really. If the book is depressing then that is probably a good thing. The subject matter is important and the theme is nothing to joke about. In terms of ramming home how lucky most of us are, the book does itself proud.
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