The Road
 First Edition hardcover of The Road | |
| Author | Cormac McCarthy |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Post-apocalyptic fiction |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | September 26, 2006 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 256 pp |
| ISBN | 0307265439 |
| OCLC | 70630525 |
The Road is a 2006 novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. It is a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed all civilization and, apparently, almost all life on earth. The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006.
Plot summary
The Road follows an unnamed father and son journeying together across a grim post-apocalyptic landscape, some years after a great, unexplained cataclysm has destroyed civilization and almost all life on Earth. Realizing that they will not survive another winter in their unspecified original location, the father leads the boy south, through a desolate American landscape along a vacant highway, towards the sea, sustained only by the vague hope of finding warmth and more "good guys" like them, and carrying with them only what is on their backs and what will fit into a damaged supermarket cart.
The setting is very cold, dark and filled with ash and the land is devoid of living vegetation. There is frequent rain or snow, and electrical storms are common. Many of the remaining human survivors are cannibalistic gangs or nomads, scavenging the detritus of city and country alike for human flesh, though that too is almost entirely depleted.
Overwhelmed by this desperate and apparently hopeless situation, the boy's mother, pregnant with him at the time of the cataclysm, commits suicide when the boy is about five or six; the rationality and calmness of her act being her last "great gift" to the man and the boy. The father coughs blood every morning and eventually realizes he is dying, yet still struggles to protect his son from the constant threats of attack, exposure, and starvation. The revolver they carry, meant for protection or suicide if necessary, has only one round for most of the story. The boy has been told to use it on himself if capture is imminent, to spare himself the horror of death at the hands of the cannibals.
In the face of these obstacles, the man and the boy have only each other. They repeatedly assure one another that they are "the good guys," who are "carrying the fire." On their journey, the duo scrounge for food, encounter roving bands of cannibals, and contend with horrors such as a newborn infant being roasted on a spit, and people being kept captive as they are slowly harvested for food. The vast majority of the book is written in the third person, with references to "the father" and "the son" or to "the man" and "the boy."
Although the man and the boy eventually reach the sea, neither the climate nor availability of food has improved. The man succumbs to an illness and dies, leaving the boy alone, though not long before he dies, the father tells the boy that he can continue to speak with him in his imagination after he is gone. The boy holds wake over his father's corpse for three days, with no idea of what he is to do next. On the third day, the grieving boy encounters a man who has been tracking the father and son. This man, who has a woman and two children of his own, a boy and a girl, invites him to join his family after convincing the boy that he is indeed one of the "good guys" like the boy and his dead father. A brief epilogue following meditates on nature and infinity in this altered environment.
Development history
The novel was released by publishing house Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. on September 26, 2006. In his interview by Oprah Winfrey, McCarthy indicated that the inspiration for The Road came during a 2003 visit to El Paso, Texas, with his young son. Imagining what the city might look like in the future, he pictured "fires on the hill" and thought about his son. He took some initial notes but did not return to the idea until a few years later, while in Ireland. Then, the novel came to him quickly, and he dedicated it to his son, John Francis McCarthy.[1]
Literary significance and criticism
The Road has received numerous positive reviews and honors since its release. The review aggregator Metacritic reported the book had an average score of 90 out of 100, based on 31 reviews.[2] Critics have deemed it "heartbreaking", "haunting", and "emotionally shattering".[3][4][5] The Village Voice referred to it as "McCarthy's purest fable yet".[3] In a New York Review of Books article, author Michael Chabon heralded the novel. Discussing the novel's relation to established genres, Chabon insists The Road is not science fiction: although "the adventure story in both its modern and epic forms… structures the narrative", Chabon says, "ultimately it is as a lyrical epic of horror that The Road is best understood".[6] Entertainment Weekly in June 2008 named The Road the best book, fiction or non-fiction, of the past 25 years.[7]
On March 28, 2007, the selection of The Road as the next novel in Oprah Winfrey's Book Club was announced. A televised interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show was conducted on June 5, 2007 and it was McCarthy's first, though he had been interviewed for the printed media before.[1] The announcement of McCarthy's television appearance surprised those who follow him. "Wait a minute until I can pick my jaw up off the floor", said John Wegner, an English professor at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, and editor of the Cormac McCarthy Journal, when told of the interview.[8]
British environmental campaigner George Monbiot was so impressed by The Road that he declared McCarthy to be one of the "50 people who could save the planet" in an article published in January 2008. Monbiot wrote, "It could be the most important environmental book ever. It is a thought experiment that imagines a world without a biosphere, and shows that everything we value depends on the ecosystem".[9] This nomination echoes the review Monbiot had written some months earlier for the Guardian in which he wrote, "A few weeks ago I read what I believe is the most important environmental book ever written. It is not Silent Spring, Small Is Beautiful or even Walden. It contains no graphs, no tables, no facts, figures, warnings, predictions or even arguments. Nor does it carry a single dreary sentence, which, sadly, distinguishes it from most environmental literature. It is a novel, first published a year ago, and it will change the way you see the world".[10] Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "With its spare prose, McCarthy's postapocalyptic odyssey from 2006 managed to be both harrowing and heartbreaking."[11]
Awards and nominations
On April 16, 2007, the novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.[12] It also won the 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.[13]
Film adaptation
A film adaptation of the novel, directed by John Hillcoat and written by Joe Penhall, opened in theatres on November 25, 2009. The film stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the man and the boy. Production took place in Louisiana, Oregon, and several locations in Pennsylvania.[14]
References
- ^ a b Michael Conlon (2007-06-05). "Writer Cormac McCarthy confides in Oprah Winfrey". Reuters. Retrieved 2009-11-28.
- ^ "The Road by Cormac McCarthy: Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on January 19, 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-15.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - ^ a b Mark Holcomb. "End of the Line -- After Decades of Stalking Armageddon's Perimeters, Cormac McCarthy Finally Steps Over the Border". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2007-04-23.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Jones, Malcolm (September 22, 2006)."On the Lost Highway" Newsweek.
- ^ Warner, Alan (November 4, 2006). "The Road to Hell". London: The Guardian. Retrieved March 27, 2010.
- ^ Michael Chabon (2007-02-15). "After the Apocalypse". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2009-11-28.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "The New Classics: Books. The 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2009-06-10.
- ^ Julia Keller (March 29, 2007). "Oprah's selection a real shocker: Winfrey, McCarthy strange bookfellows". Chicago Tribune.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Close (January 4, 2008). "50 people who could save the planet". London: Guardian. Retrieved 2010-02-04.
- ^ George Monbiot (October 30, 2007). "Civilisation ends with a shutdown of human concern. Are we there already?". London: The Guardian.
- ^ Geier, Thom; Jensen, Jeff; Jordan, Tina; Lyons, Margaret; Markovitz, Adam; Nashawaty, Chris; Pastorek, Whitney; Rice, Lynette; Rottenberg, Josh; Schwartz, Missy; Slezak, Michael; Snierson, Dan; Stack, Tim; Stroup, Kate; Tucker, Ken; Vary, Adam B.; Vozick-Levinson, Simon; Ward, Kate (December 11, 2009), "THE 100 Greatest MOVIES, TV SHOWS, ALBUMS, BOOKS, CHARACTERS, SCENES, EPISODES, SONGS, DRESSES, MUSIC VIDEOS, AND TRENDS THAT ENTERTAINED US OVER THE PAST 10 YEARS". Entertainment Weekly. (1079/1080):74-84
- ^ "Novelist McCarthy wins Pulitzer". BBC. April 17, 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-08.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ The National Book Critics Circle 2006 finalists[dead link]
- ^ "Mortensen, Theron on The Road to Pittsburgh". USA Today. January 16, 2008. Retrieved January 7, 2010.
Further reading
- McCarthy, Cormac (2006). The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0307265439
- Cates, Anna (2010). "Secular Winds: Disrupted Natural Revelation & the Journey toward God in Cormac McCarthy's The Road". Internet Review of Science Fiction. VII (2). Retrieved 7 November 2010.
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External links
