Friday 15 January 2016

The Road

4770168

Book Title: The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Date Started: January 4th 2016
Date Completed: January 14th 2016
Genres: Dystopian
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Three Star
Final Rating: Three stars
Review:

The problem I have with this book is that really it's good - I appreciate what it sets out to show and the way it gets there - but can I think of a way that justifies it as being the entirety of a book? Not really.

Around the first few pages of this book I noticed how much I enjoyed the writing style: a stream-of-consciousness narrative that was third person and constantly tricking the reader but also showing the mindset eating away at the characters. As I read on I noticed all the clever little techniques that make us feel like we are the people in this dystopia. but when I was reading, I just wasn't enjoying it. What it comes down to is why you read: I, personally, do it because I love it and I enjoy it. That doesn't mean I'm not open to books that are maybe more complex and beneficial in some other philosophical way, but just having a 'clever' book that doesn't actually amount to any message or question is not what I'm looking for.

While The Road is very much about getting the reader to project themselves onto these characters going through these horrible circumstances, the rare events that actually happen are strangely repetitive. Everything that happens either shows how evil the world is, or how kind-hearted the boy is; and everything that happens is pretty much the same situation. Now this would've been completely fine with me had it pushed the characters to change, or had really amounted to anything in the end. But it just kept repeating with no message or development until the end. Likewise, I expected the references to a backstory to somehow influence something, or be significant at some point, but it just faded away halfway through the book and that was that.
Honestly, I had more of a problem with the structure of this book than the bleakness and content. I know a lot of people find the harrowing story quite hard to stomach (and fair enough) but I found the world and story so disjointed I didn't really get a chance to get deep enough in the dystopia to be sickened by it.

I think the initial characters we're given are a really interesting choice, but there is little to no development throughout the whole book. These nameless people are clearly made for the reader to project themselves onto: the innocent child distressed by the harshness of what the world has become, and the adult desperately trying to find it in himself to keep going. Both are things everyone can relate to in our everyday lives, despite being in considerably better situations, and I think the purpose of this book as a whole is to make the reader think while tricking them with a story about two characters going through certain events. It's clever, there's no denying that. But did it make for an enjoyable or beneficial reading experience? For me, unfortunately, no. Part of why I'm conflicted about The Road is that I can see how in theory it works - but when I was reading it it just didn't come across as well.

The pacing wasn't so much the issue as the structure: I can handle long passages going in circles to show how life is for these people, but when the rare moments of action happen I expect them to build up to something as opposed to continually repeating the same thing with no message or influence at the end of it. One thing I will say is don't be tricked by the short paragraphs and font size: this book is a stream-of-consciousness without punctuation for speech and so takes a little more brainpower to keep up with the present. (Again, I find myself noticing the clever little ways McCarthy puts the reader literally into the characters' shoes, but as a reading experience I just didn't really settle with it.)

I appreciated The Road for what it was, but it wasn't enough for me. There seemed to be no point to anything - which, admittedly, is kind of the point. But I read to enjoy and learn, not to be shown how bleak a dystopian setting can be for the sake of it. I still think it's an interesting read, but it needs patience and an open mind.

Image Source - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4770168-the-road

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