Cormac McCarthy is said to have given no more than two interviews in the last 40 years. That makes him a media gadfly compared to J. D. Salinger, but he is about to ascend to Olympian heights.
Oprah Winfrey has chosen his spare and glorious novel, The Road, for her book club, and he will soon appear on her show. This is quite a departure for both of them. The Road is an enormous departure from Oprah's last selection, Sidney Poiter's "spiritual autobiography, The Measure of a Man. While she has nearly always chosen thoughtful books of literary merit, none has approached the richness of this one.
The dust jacket flap trumpets, "The searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece." His tenth novel (plus one play) is all the hype says it is; more powerful than No Country for Old Men; more chilling than Blood Meridian.
Oprah Winfrey has chosen his spare and glorious novel, The Road, for her book club, and he will soon appear on her show. This is quite a departure for both of them. The Road is an enormous departure from Oprah's last selection, Sidney Poiter's "spiritual autobiography, The Measure of a Man. While she has nearly always chosen thoughtful books of literary merit, none has approached the richness of this one.
The dust jacket flap trumpets, "The searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece." His tenth novel (plus one play) is all the hype says it is; more powerful than No Country for Old Men; more chilling than Blood Meridian.
The journey began with the father and his pregnant wife. Now, there is just the father and son trudging through a dead country. The journey takes them by the father's childhood home, the ruins of a resort town, and miles of burned out forests. It is cold. Ashen snow falls. The land and all that is in it are dead and without color. They have one another, the clothes on their backs, a cart of scavenged food, and a pistol for protection from marauding bands of other survivors. The pistol has only two bullets. Their goal is to reach the coast. The bond between father and son sustains them, keeps them going.
Not since Charles Dickens' Bleak House has the first page of a novel more adroitly, more powerfully set such an unforgettable and, indeed, an unforgiving scene. "Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. ... (He) looked toward the east for any light but there was none."
It is October, perhaps, time has become lost. They are headed south out of the mountains where they cannot survive another winter. They pass through a fallow land, scavenging for necessities, a chrome motorcycle mirror clamped to their shopping cart so they can keep a lookout behind them. There is no color in the landscape, sere and dead, even the fish are gone from the lakes.
Not since Charles Dickens' Bleak House has the first page of a novel more adroitly, more powerfully set such an unforgettable and, indeed, an unforgiving scene. "Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. ... (He) looked toward the east for any light but there was none."
It is October, perhaps, time has become lost. They are headed south out of the mountains where they cannot survive another winter. They pass through a fallow land, scavenging for necessities, a chrome motorcycle mirror clamped to their shopping cart so they can keep a lookout behind them. There is no color in the landscape, sere and dead, even the fish are gone from the lakes.
"He held the boy close to him. So thin. My heart, he said. ... That the boy was all that stood between him and death." This, in response to his question, "Can you (the father) do it? When the time comes?" Can he have the resolve of Abraham?
The world has been descending into this final circle of Hell for a number of years. People died. People were murdered. All in the name of survival. There was "more punishment than crime" in the earlier days. The only warning was "The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions." The figurative and literal end of the world came to him with more whimper than bang.
McCarthy's language is poetic in its terseness. Every word counts. Every sentence moves the story inexorably forward. Every situation is focused on the twin journeys undertaken. One is their movement toward safety, or, maybe, away from safety. In a world turned upside down, where does safety lie? The other journey is an exploration of a father's love for his son, and his willingness to sacrifice everything for the boy. In a world gone mad, McCarthy juxtaposes the humanity of their love against the fight for survival. That is a fight in which they have to rely on themselves, willing to avoid other potential good guys, to stop up the natural human need for social interaction.
The world has been descending into this final circle of Hell for a number of years. People died. People were murdered. All in the name of survival. There was "more punishment than crime" in the earlier days. The only warning was "The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions." The figurative and literal end of the world came to him with more whimper than bang.
McCarthy's language is poetic in its terseness. Every word counts. Every sentence moves the story inexorably forward. Every situation is focused on the twin journeys undertaken. One is their movement toward safety, or, maybe, away from safety. In a world turned upside down, where does safety lie? The other journey is an exploration of a father's love for his son, and his willingness to sacrifice everything for the boy. In a world gone mad, McCarthy juxtaposes the humanity of their love against the fight for survival. That is a fight in which they have to rely on themselves, willing to avoid other potential good guys, to stop up the natural human need for social interaction.
There is little overt violence in this novel compared to Blood Meridian or No Country for Old Men, but McCarthy's vision of a world gone awry implies more horror than countless gunfights or hangings on the range. The nuclear holocaust has bred a world of near nothingness. The flora and fauna are dead or dying. Few humans have survived, and too many of those few are cannibals roaming the desiccated land with flesh stuck in their teeth.
We did not listen when we saw the results of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We did not listen when Nevil Shute gave us On the Beach in the '50s. Will we listen now? The reality presented in The Road is all too frightening.
No book I read in 2006 was better written or has had a greater impact on me. Read it now and keep track of the television schedule so we can all join in watching Oprah when Cormac McCarthy appears.
We did not listen when we saw the results of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We did not listen when Nevil Shute gave us On the Beach in the '50s. Will we listen now? The reality presented in The Road is all too frightening.
No book I read in 2006 was better written or has had a greater impact on me. Read it now and keep track of the television schedule so we can all join in watching Oprah when Cormac McCarthy appears.
