Cormac McCarthy - The Road

Pros: Hmmm...
Cons: Less than appealing, unoriginal

Oprah Winfrey has brought much joy to my life in the way of reading, as many of her popular ‘Book Club’ selections have remained in my heart and soul since the day I read them. Wally Lamb wrote two masterpieces, She’s Come ...

Pros: Story of love and hope against all odds; writing style
Cons: None

I don't always get to watch the Oprah Winfrey show but I happened to see it when she named "The Road" her book of the month. McCarthy is one of my favorite modern authors, so I immediately bought the book. One of the reasons I like McCarthy so much is ...

Pros: powerful, sad, thought-provoking, and chilling
Cons: a frightening post-apocalyptic view

The Road - Cormac McCarthyIn some not so distant future the unnamed man and boy shamble slowly across a bleak, ashen landscape, headed toward the shore of an unnamed sea. They are two of the last survivors, a pair of dying ...

Pros: Beautifully written, tender themes in the midst of horror, father-son relationship.
Cons: Some shockingly violent scenes...

Since becoming a father in 2002, I've noticed that there are particular stories...particular genres...that I can't stand watching in films, or reading about in books.  That genre is anything that puts a child--especially a boy--in peril.  Those ...

Pros: touching father-son relationship, the boy's altruism, McCarthy's writing
Cons: lack of quotation marks takes some getting used to, despairing backdrop

During my recent long (yet all-too-short) weekend in Massachusetts with my friends Erica and Art, the subject of movies came up often. As all three of us consider ...

Pros: Great story telling, themes are well developed, interesting and quick
Cons: None

This last year of high school I was forced into something I didn’t necessarily have the time for but now that I look back on it and the books I read, it’s safe to say I actually enjoyed being bullied into my school’s Book Club. Now, while I didn’t ...

Pros: The writing, the messages contained
Cons: Some "rules" of grammar are tossed aside, intentionally.

This is a different kind of tale, as there is almost no story, as defined by a linear series of significant events, leading to a conclusion. What story there is: a man and his son travel across a post-Apocalyptic America, probably southern California, ...

Pros: The Book of Revelations circles back into the five books of Moses before our eyes.
Cons: I got lost in it. It could have gone on forever.

We don't (and we won't) know how it happened, but the world has pretty much ended; and now we are following a nameless man and his nameless son through a nameless country that we can only guess (based on what we observe, in relation to a ...

Pros: Plot, control, authentic father, young son discussions.
Cons: Nothing.

Imagine after the Fifth Symphony, Beethoven (whose hearing at that point allowed him to play the piano like the master he had always been) wrote a very simple, 4 minute piece of music that even a child would be able to play. Anyone could play the notes, ...

Pros: Believable
Cons: Unrelievedly horrifying with only the faintest glimmer of hope at the end

Here is how Harper's magazine might review "The Road" -- by the numbers.  The last three numbers are of necessity speculative:Number of people the man talks to (excluding God): 6Number of named places in the book: 2Miles covered by ...

Pros: An exquisite gem of a novel by one of the greatest writers of American literature.
Cons: None whatever.

"The Road" is a work of stunning, savage, heartbreaking beauty. Set in the post-apocalyptic hell of an unending nuclear winter, Cormac McCarthy writes about a nameless man and his young son, wandering through a world gone crazy; bleak, cold, dark, where ...

Pros: Portrays what the world might come to.
Cons: Dialogue a bit too sparse and repetitive.

In the opening chapter of his book Dynamics of Faith Paul Tillich notes the following about the nature of man. He writes that “Man, like every living being, is concerned about many things, above all about those which condition his very ...

Pros: Everything.
Cons: That one first-person paragraph is a bit unnecessary...

They passed through the city at noon of the day following. He kept the pistol to hand on the folded tarp on top of the cart. He kept the boy close to his side. The city was mostly burned. No sign of life. Cars in the street caked with ash, everything ...

Pros: A quick-reading novel that seems more like a short story, compelling, terrifying, beautiful.
Cons: None.

I have been reading the The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which is the most recent Oprah’s Book Club selection. To prevent anyone from saying anything negative about Oprah Winfrey, let me remind you that she is a legend. Lots of people ...

Pros: Amazing how so few words can convey so much. The dialogue is chillingly effective.
Cons: Reading this will make you feel bad for a long time.

Whew! THE ROAD is a draining, exhausting, bleak, gut-wrenching, bleak, fast-paced, bleak novel. Did I mention it was BLEAK? The book is 279 pages and they fly by. I think I read the book in 4 hours...I could hardly make myself put it down. I wouldn't ...