The RoadUnlike movies, the books that I like to pick are very selective. Not everything in the world of fiction appeals to me. Science-fiction is one genre that I usually enjoy, but not the space/outer galaxy/mankind in the future variety, but the the type that blends a science fiction setting with a human element. Very few books are able to do this without being too outlandish. If their science is good, the book itself and the settings are dry. Because books are books, they appear to run away with the settings or the situations, which is ok for a short story, but too much of it and I start to lose interest. Which is why one of my all time favourite books is
The Blind Assassin, a book that blends with perfection a story about a woman's suicide, her sisters attempt to unravel the reason for the act and the parallel tale about a future where a blind assassin falls in love with his victim - in a twisted narrative that blends all three with a very, very surprising and unexpected outcome.
The Road, is only the second such novel that features a science fiction setting, but not the little geeky bits that make most science fiction novels lose their humanity to me. It is set in a Post-Apocalyptic world (that over-used word again...), but this time it feels real enough to be a reflection of our race a few years from now. In the setting are a father and son, who are making a journey across America's burnt, barren landscape. There are entire cities and towns that are devoid of population or food or people. Everyone has died and our two protagonists perceive themselves as the only survivors of this world, making their way to the coast, where they hope to find something - perhaps an escape, perhaps a safe heaven. The journey forms the bulk of the book and the writing is more descriptive than situational.
Author Cormac McCarthy (also the writer of
No Country for Old Men) establishes a unique style that does the bleak outlook of his setting much justice. The spoken conversations are sparse, but the little that is there is elliptical and highly transcendent. Much of it is between the father, a man who will go to any length to protect his son, and his child, a curious little boy with little of his fathers world weary attitude to survive on his own.
The threat of the setting comes in many forms. There are those sent forth by nature in the form of drizzling ash (hinting at a post nuclear fallout), extreme snow and rain, dust, forest fires and everything else that would make tree huggers nod in agreement. There is also the anticipation of not knowing who, if anyone, they might meet on their long journey through every town that they pass. Like he did with
No Country as well, the dialogues evoke a sense of poetic irony. One such exchange goes like this:
How would you know you were the last man on Earth?
I don't guess you'd know it, you'd just be it
Nobody would know it.
It wouldn't make any difference. When you die, it's the same as if everybody else did too.
Unlike other such pop-culture settings (
I am legend etc), there are no surprises about what is in store. You are able to believe with the conviction of the very strong writing that the father and son might die, if nothing else, due to starvation, and that provides enough fuel for the book to move along in a manner that never allowed me to put it down. It is on the strength of its observations and some very powerful literature that the books goes above and beyond the genre conventions expected of it and delivers a haunting, profound tale of the bonds that tie us.
Rating: 5/5
