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The Road (Oprah's Book Club) by: Cormac McCarthy List Price: CDN$ 21.00 City Travel Guides Price: CDN$ 15.33 You Save: CDN$5.67 (27%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54 EAN: 9780307387899 ISBN: 0307387895 Label: Vintage Manufacturer: Vintage Number Of Pages: 287 Publication Date: March 28, 2007 Publisher: Vintage Release Date: March 28, 2007 Studio: Vintage Sales Rank: 278 Related Items:
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Editorial Review: Amazon.com: Best known for his Border Trilogy, hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century," Cormac McCarthy has written ten rich and often brutal novels, including last year's bestselling No Country for Old Men, and this year's The Road. Profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose, The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, one of the best books we've read this year, but in case you need a second (and expert) opinion, we asked Dennis Lehane, author of equally rich, occasionally bleak and brutal novels, to read it and give us his take. Read his glowing review below. --Daphne Durham Guest Reviewer: Dennis Lehane  Dennis Lehane, master of the hard-boiled thriller, generated a cult following with his series about private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, wowed readers with the intense and gut-wrenching Mystic River, blew fans away with the mind-bending Shutter Island, and switches gears with Coronado, his new collection of gritty short stories (and one play).Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith. --Dennis Lehane Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
 Rating: - A Dark HopeThis is my first Cormac McCarthy novel and it probably won't be my last. "The Road" is a stark narrative about a man and his son navigating their way south on an unnamed interstate enroute to the coast after some unknown catastrophic event which has grayed the skies, scorched the earth and left very little life. The only people alive are scavengers who pillage, steal and eat children. Now, the uplifting part. McCarthy builds up the relationship between the man and his son providing a glimmer of hope in humanity amidst the destruction around them. The dialogue between the two is absolutely remarkable. The humanism is striking. McCarthy's writing is raw and uncompromising. He likes to contrast extremes: "Human bodies. ... Read More: Rating:  - bleak.... and anything else?Before I begin, let me say that McCarthy's "The Crossing" is one of my all-time favourite books - so I'm a McCarthy fan and was pre-disposed to like "The Road." a lot of other reviews heap praise on the love the father has for the son in this book - and cite this love, with a mixture of faith and hope, as the reason that this book is so powerful. I honestly don't see it (the power - the father's love is evident enough). This book is kind of McCarthy for young adults. His other books tear your soul apart with the triumph of evil over good (Billy has to kill that wolf, and die beneath a highway overpass). Despite the starvation and destruction etc of this novel, it's actually a much lighter book than his other ... Read More: Rating:  - UGH!I thought that since this book was raved about that it would be a great read. This has got to be the most boring book I have ever tried to read....I keep trying to finish it, but, wow...it just drags on and on. What a disappointment! Rating:  - DisappointingI picked up this book almost by accident. At the time, I knew little about the acclaim it has received. After having read it without bias, I really cannot understand what all the fuss is about. Everything is burnt, black and death surrounds them as they walk and walk and walk. The story between a father and son is sort of touching, but I found the book somewhat pointless. The ending was strange too! I've read worse, but not something I recommend those who are choosy! Rating: - HorribleI expected a lot more from Mr. McCarthy. I throughly enjoyed "No country for old men" but this novel, i came in expecting alot and was quite disappointed - it was a task to turn the page most times due to the fact that it was just walking, and walking, and walking and the actions seemed so lathargic. I know the point of the novel is to demonstrate the end-of-the-world perspective but it just made it deathly boring and as a avid reader I was just simply unimpressed. |
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