The Road (Oprah's Book Club)

This book received a lot of amateur reviews. But I can't get over the 150 or so negative ones. There were so many I just skimmed and saw that many complaints were lodged against a lack of proper punctuation, which made me smile; I'd be willing to bet my next paycheck that the majority of these folks couldn't write a simple letter to their mothers with correct punctuation if they were paid to do it.
This novel was written the way it was because the author was driven to write it that way, and it works.
It's a story, yes, but it is also a song. It is an effigy. It is a plea. It is a marker in the sand that many will miss after the tide rises to erase it. It is a true story that never happened, but one that easily (and probably) could.
It is the novel as an art. True modern literature.
And despite all of that, a very, very good read.
If you couldn't follow because of the lack of apostrophes then I'm afraid you might have much larger problems than a book that frustrated you.
This book is so good that the writer now has a negotiable space on my shelf.
Because I'm proud of him for remembering that writing stories is an art.

I've been wanting to read this for a long time. This makes you think what the world will be like, if we don't get our act together, and do something about global warming! It also shows the determination of one man, trying to protect his son. I realy enjoyed this book, and am looking forward to the film adaption. It's awesome!!!!

"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy is a gripping, post-apocolyptic novel that brings us the story of "the man" and "the boy" and their struggles to exist.
Nameless, and often times days without food this determined man and his son partake in an oddyssey that few could possibly survive. They are equipped with a knapsack each and a cart full of necessities, as long as it lasts. Along the way, they encounter cannibalism, insanity, and evil in human beings that once were accountants, lawyers etc. They are heading to the coast for whatever reason, a reason I think they don't even know. Just to have a destination perhaps. How long they have been on this journey is not exactly clear.
This novel raises a lot of questions in your mind, at least it did for me. What was this man in the past? How long have they been walking? What exactly happened? What's going to happen when they get to the coast? Is it actually worth surviving?
This is one of the best novels I have ever read and I encourage all who read to read this. It is a very fast read at 287 but it's also spaced generously and the fonts are petty large. Just don't read it on a sunny day, it is not the happiest book in the world.

I wonder when it started being fashionable to write in incomplete sentences? And to abandon punctuation? As though such things were merely unnecessary luxuries from a time before the world was consumed in fire. Just more cloying components of the grey ash of literary convention that Cormac McCarthy seeks to sweep away with his writing. Oh, if only...

In "The Road", Cormac McCarthy portrays a world laid waste by some nameless catastrophe which has consumed all civilisation and destroyed most of the life on the planet. A man and his son journey through the lifeless and colourless world that remains, struggling to survive against the cold, the hunger, the sporadic wildfires and the ubiquitous grey ash that now fills the air, choking out the sun, blocking out the moon and stars, making even breathing a challenge. And, of course, avoiding contact with other survivors like themselves, few of whom are likely to look upon them as anything other than the source of the next meal. One way or another. Following the road that they hope will lead them to somewhere -- or someone -- better.

The book makes grim reading just about throughout, although there is less of it than it may appear -- the print is large and widely spaced and most readers will have it finished within a day of picking it up, I suspect. The only thing likely to slow anyone down is the author's affectation of abandoning the apostrophe and the quotation mark in his writing, making the frequent long sections of dialogue hard to follow in places. Mostly, the book reads like a padded-out screenplay and, perhaps not surprisingly, the motion picture version of the story has already been made. I would imagine that it follows the book closely--which won't be hard given that nothing much happens--and I don't doubt that it will be every bit as grey and colourless as the book. And that viewers will sit riveted from beginning to end. And then go off in search of something to eat...

As a novel, the story works less well, however, for it is not so much a story as a portrait. And although it is never less than engaging and remains believable throughout, with a few instances of quite prophetic insight, it nevertheless left me curiously unsatisfied.

This is easily one of the most disappointing, boring and poorly-written books I have ever read..... really! I could barely stay awake and finish it. I find the glowing reviews curious. Strange, since the other books by McCarthy were very entertaining and well-written. Perhaps the film will work, the book didn't. Not for me.