The Road - final evaluation

I finished The Road in two days when I was in Spain with my family this winter vacation. I always read a lot when I am on holidays with my family, and I love that because reading good books is always a pleasure. This book really was a pleasure reading.

I wrote about the book when I had only read a few pages so if you want to know something about the author or the prizes the book has won – just take a look earlier in my blog.

The theme of the novel is the loving relationship between a father and a son. But at the same time I would say that the theme could be about how far people are willing to go to survive. McCarthy often shows the surviving men from their most cruel side. But simultaneously as McCarthy shows people from their very worst side, he also shows them from their very best. The boy and the father are the “good guys” as they call themselves. The “bad guys” are the killers. The theme could be the balance and struggle between good and bad.

The style the book is written in is very poetic. McCarthy uses metaphors and comparisons that force you to stop and think for a minute. What does he really mean by this? This is what separates the novel from all the other books I have read before. He explains things in this graceful and flowing way and makes it impossible for the reader to put the book down. It really is beautifully written. He has also used quite a few difficult words (at least I thought so), but I did not mind because I love a challenge.

What does the book try to tell us? Does it have an agenda other than what I have already mentioned? The question is hard to answer. Ultimately I think that the book is a criticism to people as well as it is a tribute to them.

This picture is from the film – the father and the son are wandering in the god-forsaken country.

After I got home from warm and relaxing Spain I had to see the screen version of the novel. It is the first time that I have seen a film that could even compare itself to the book. The director had incorporated almost every little detail from the book into the film. Magnificent! The only thing that got lost was the poetic descriptions of different things and also the wonderful conversations between the boy and the father. And I had kind of expected that anyway.

My earlier blog post amongst other things said this: My first impression of the book is good and I think I am going to like it. It is strangely written though. There are a few difficult words in this novel but I look them up if I can find a computer. I can conclude that my first impression did not change much as I continued to read. I did like it and I still thought the words were quite difficult.

As mentioned about a hundred times already I thought the book was excellent. I actually thought it was so good that I convinced my father to read it after me. He liked it as well. Definitely a book I would recommend – and the film of course.

Watch the trailer to the film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbLgszfXTAY