Our daughter was born in October and I got a copy of The Road during our secret Santa gift exchange and I think I read it the fastest I’ve ever read a book in my life.
I’ve seen a lot of comments and posts about how bleak and depressing it is, but I think a lot of people missed the point of it, or at least the point that I gleaned.
The Road is a book about being a parent, and it is a *hopeful* one at that. Sure, there are scenes of grotesque, macabre brutality but the man’s patience in the face of his son’s unrelenting curiosity in such a world is what really matters.
Through it all his son remains kind and positive and optimistic and the father is forced to handle the world differently than he would were his boy not there- all for him to be wrong in the end anyway.
The Road can be a depressing, grueling slog in a fever dream. It is allegorical for all of the literal and imaginary fears I suddenly woke up one day with. But the kindness of the boy, the patience of the man, and the intent to be good and help people when we feel the urge to recede away is as uplifting to me as the story is depressing.
It’s a book I will share with all of my friends as they become fathers because it is reassuring to know that others feel the same way.
by HaydenScramble
3 Comments
Beautiful post and a great take. McCarthy’s bleak, neo-Western stark contrast between good and evil in a lot of his work can be very gloomy, but that glimmer of hope is usually present if you look for it.
The man coughing shit up all the time finally convinced me to give up cigarettes so I’d be around long enough to see my nieces and nephew grow up.
McCarthy changed the ending to an implausible happier one because he found the original one he intended too difficult to live with as he imagined his young son being left alone in that hellish world.