| The Road |
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| Reviewed by Harmonious Living | |
| Wednesday, 02 April 2008 | |
    Author: Cormac McCarthy An apocalyptic view of a post global warming future this hauntingly beautiful novel will chill you to the core. The story revolves around a father and son making a long arduous walk along a seemingly endless road searching to escape the nuclear winter that has engulfed a now lifeless planet. We are never told exactly what happened to the world but it is apparent that a nuclear winter has throttled the life out of all but the most stubborn and luckiest of survivors. Could this be an insight into our future, the final impact of climate change on Earth’s inhabitants, it is certainly one possibility. In this lifeless nightmarish world the sun is blotted out giving everything a dull grey hue, whilst the moonless night leaves all sightless. The country they travel through is littered with nameless ghost towns, skeletons of life long since expired dot the wasteland, nothing grows. A few other humans are encountered on the road but apart from them the world is a desolate and very lonely place. The bleak narrative, with the absence of any speech punctuation marks, adds to the cold desperation and the numbness the two characters have towards their situation. It is masterful writing. One of the core themes is the struggle that the father and son constantly battle with whilst holding onto their humanity. Life and death decisions need to be made without losing sight of their strong sense of needing to ‘do good’. This is particularly prevalent in the boy, who despite all the horrors around him still posses the hopeful innocence of youth. In him the future lies and it’s heartening to know that he still carries the spark of goodness within him, that despite it all goodness and hope can still be found in the most desperate of situations. McCarthy won a Pullitzer Prize for this novel which considering the terrible beauty of the carefully crafted story is no surprise. It will move the coldest heart and make everyone who reads it stop and ponder just exactly where life of this planet could be headed. It’s a gripping read but one that takes courage to start let alone finish. |
This is the powerful story of the author's struggle with Multiple Sclerosis and how a healer's unusual prescription of mindful altruism - to 'give away 29 gifts in 29 days' - ignited her energy, her happiness, and invited more abundance into her life.
