The Road Paperback – Big Book, 28 March 2007

The cover is printed crooked and the edge of it is cutting off part of the D in road and Y in McCarthy. The spine is damaged in 2 places. But the book is amazing as expected being a Cormac McCarthy story.

Tema muito atual.

I’ve never read a book that has more atmosphere and tension from start to finish. Superb writing

I first read the novel and then saw the movie. But the novel is a lot lot better. Words express feelings and thoughts better than visuals. The wife's parting from the man and walking into eternity in the middle of the novel, the man's death in the end of the novel after a dogged attempt to find survival and the hope awaiting the boy finally after the apocalypse are very touching. One of the very good reads.

はっきりは書かれていないが、核戦争後？の全てが灰に覆われた世界。男と小さな少年が南を目指して生き延びる（サバイバル）旅をする。　文章が素敵（詩的？）。ストーリテリングも巧み。最後も感動的。

I was motivated to read this after a facebook friend posted a paragraph from it to describe her feelings about current events shall we say. i ordered it that day and read it in two sittings over two days. Firstly it is hard to put down because it is so beautifully written and because the situation that the main characters are in is so extreme and terrifying that it seems urgent that you keep reading. The world has been destroyed by some unnamed catastrophe. The sky is filled with ash and the sun can't barely be seen during the day. Nights are pitch black and extremely cold. The second sentence of the book tells you that the catastrophe is ongoing and the situation gets noticeably worse each day. This is important. There is no food, no wildlife, all trees and plants are dead and the few remnants of humanity survive by scrounging canned food left over from before the disaster or by cannibalism.Obviously neither of these means of survival are sustainable long term.A unnamed man and his son (described only as the man and the boy) have been living in the mountains away from the depraved cannibals.The man realizes with the world getting colder they will not survive another winter in the mountains and so they set off on a journey to the coast, pushing a shopping cart holding their meagre belongings along a mostly empty road. The man is brave and very resourceful. He is completely motivated by the need to protect his son. The boy was born after the disaster. He knows only this world. He has never known another child. There is no indication that he has ever known anyone but his father and his mother who committed suicide when he was very young.The journey is a long series of hardships and misery punctuated by moments of complete terror and very rare times of relative happiness on those days when they find food or other useful items. Days when as the boy says "we done good." Nights are always as dark as a tomb and miserably cold.If this all sounds very bleak and hopeless it is because it is. There is no relief. They reach the coast but things are no better there. The boy thinks he catches a glimpse of another boy one day and chases after him but can't find him. He obsesses over the other boy and his welfare many times from then on. The man never sees the other boy. They meet an old man named Ely, the only character with a name although it is not his real name which he refuses to tell. Ely tells them there is no God and we are his prophets among other nuggets of wisdom.This all sets up an ambiguous but strangely positive ending. It appears that the best possible outcome the man could have dreamed of for his son actually happens but it is unclear if the narration is reliable at this point and well it is the best that could have been hoped for it is still absolutely awful. What is clear is even as it teeters on the verge of extinction the human race still contains innate goodness and hope for something better either in this world or the afterlife. The ending is profound and beautiful and worth the emotional upheaval the story puts you through. Read this book.