The Road By Cormac McCarthy

I finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I started this book sometime last week and after being unable to read the book due to work and travel during the workday, I decided to just finish it off over the weekend without and distractions. An what a great idea it was! The book was a great read. Don't worry, no spoilers below.

The story is about a father and a son in a post-apocalyptic landscape of North-America. The boy, born after some unknown disastrous event that has almost destroyed all of civilization knows nothing about earth as it was before. For this young boy there is nothing to find joy and happiness. Everything is black and burnt, covered in ash and the sun is shrouded in a great cloud of darkness. Their lives are filled with fear of death due to starvation, cold, and the threat of groups cannibals roaming the burnt landscape for food. The father's main goal is to make sure that his son is safe, that is his only drive in his otherwise hopeless life.

The most touching part of the story is the love of the father for his child. It is his only will to live and his drive to make sure he is well and safe.

They writing is very minimal but that somehow makes all the imagery so very vivid. It paints a horrid picture of the things the two have to endure and the horrors that they see along the way. There are corpses along the road that they are following that the father cannot prevent the boy from seeing. The face death every day, a lot more exposure to it than any boy of that age should every have to experience.

I also heard that there will be making a movie out of this book very soon where Viggo Mortensen will play the father. I love Viggo Mortensen so I'm really looking forward to it. I don't know who will be directing this movie yet but I am very hopeful. So much could be done with this story!