The Road

I have a thing for end-of-the-world novels and films. Part of it is a hangover from studying sociology, seeing how the author sets up communities or relationships after whatever disaster has caused the end of the world as we know it. Another part is just that it's a stretch to try to imagine letting go of everyday comforts, losing all your friends and family, seeing if you have it in you to operate on a survival level.

There are many lame stories, not thought through well or that rely on happy endings. But there are great ones - Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, On the Beach by Nevil Shute, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip K Dick (which became Blade Runner).

But I have never read one as disturbing, as haunting, and finally as devastating as The Road by Cormac McCarthy. You can almost feel the physicality of the disaster, and the emotional and spiritual repercussions just rip through you every few pages. Despite the horror though, and there is plenty, I could not put it down. There is no way to predict what will happen, either on the next page, or at the end. And the writing - it's incredibly spare, but the imagery is abundant.

Stephen Schenkenberg (see blog on right) wrote me just as I was writing this, here is part of his reaction from his blog:

"Never before have I been this devastated by a book. I felt gutted as I read it. If you desire art that affects you physically, apocalyptic visions described with crushing beauty and masterful economy, I know of no other book to point you to."

The story centers around a man and his boy making their way south years after an apocalyptic event which is not described in detail. Here is an excerpt:

"In those first years the roads were peopled with refugees shrouded up in their clothing. Wearing masks and goggles, sitting in their rags by the side of the road like ruined aviators. Their barrows heaped with shoddy. Towing wagons or carts. Their eyes bright in their skulls. Creedless shells of men tottering down the causeways like migrants in a feverland. The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all."

Ever is no time at all.