On “The Road”

Some would say Cormac McCarthy’s subject in his new novel is as big as it gets; namely, that “The Road” is about the end of the civilized world. However, I saw it about being something even bigger than that (!)… the relationship between a father and his son.

OK, he has written a spellbinding account of the dying of our planet and it really is a bleak and “turn-paging” adventure as two pilgrims (man and son) follow a raod to nowhere.

I should add at this stage that after reading the book, I also saw the movie and I thought it was an excellent adaptation: it left very little out and was absolutely true to the book. As you may have guessed, I loved them both.

We are shown a world in which the only colour that we see is in the unconditional love between the father and his son. Other than that, fire and firestorms have consumed forests and cities, and from the fall of ashes and soot everything is gray, and the waters are black.

McCarthy has been known to espouse the topic of death in his novels, and death reaches very near totality in this novel. Billions of people have died, all animal and plant life, the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea are dead. The survivors (not many) of the barbaric wars that followed the apocalyptic event wear masks against the perpetual cloud of soot in the air. And the remaining few people left are predominantly found in cannibalistic gangs who are constantly searching for their next “meal”.

But for me, the context (or the backdrop) of novel played second fiddle to what I thought made the book the success it is… and that is the amazing relationship that one man has with his son. A man in his late 40’s and his son, about 10, both unnamed, are walking a desolated road and it is through the voice of the father that McCarthy delivers his vision of end times. The son, born after the sky opened, has no memory of the world that was. What we are told (and what continues to be the moral dilemma that exists even at the end of the book) is that the boy’s mother committed suicide rather than face starvation, rape and the cannibalizing of herself and the family, and she mocks her husband for going forward.

And therein lies the rub; was she right, or was the father? Cormac  describes such a bleak and hopeless world that we can’t help but think the mother may have made the better (and probably more merciful) decision. But who could take their own child’s life? Even in the worst of times?

And that’s the beauty of father. He’s a man with a mission and in his own words (when he shoots a thug who tries to murder his boy) he tells his son: “My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you.”

McCarthy does not say how or when God entered this man’s being and his son’s, nor does he say how or why they were chosen to survive together for 10 years, to be among the last living creatures on the road. The man believes the world is finished and that he and the boy are “two hunted animals trembling like groundfoxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.” But the man is a grafter, pushing himself and the boy to the edge of death to achieve their unspecified destination, persisting beyond will in a drive that is instinctual, or primordial, and bewildering to even himself.

The tale is as much about what an adult does for his child as it is anything else. It questions the traditional “protective” role of a parent and paints for the reader a picture of parenthood that is unique and unforgiving. The love between the father and his son – expressed in their quicksilver conversations – is what makes an otherwise dismal-to-the-point-of-unreadable tale accessible. Money and gold mean nothing, nor do government, education, books, politics, history, friends, home. The pilgrimage is plotless but it races with tension, a sequence of enemy encounters or sightings, the perpetual danger from the killing weather, huddling under blanket and tarp, endlessly gathering firewood, confronting mysteries the dead world presents to a man seeking (and finding) water and food in the deserted houses, barns and boats that survived the firestorms. The father is ingenious and unconditional.

I finished the book unsure of how to feel. I was deeply upset by this post apocalyptic work, in which goodness was hard to find. Yet the father and son, brave and loving and good but tongue-tied on what they were to do or what they were to become, gave me reason to read on. But what was the reason for this unlikely couple of survivors to keep going? Of that, Cormac is unclear. Was it of the boy’s becoming? Or his mission to redeem a dead world? Nothing is said. I (and others that I know who have read the book) could only think of our children on completing the book. Sad, but true.

If you’ve read it, let me know what you thought. If you haven’t, give it a go and tell me if you enjoyed it. Good luck.