A Look Back

   First off, I would like to apologize for the lateness of this post, and probably won't have very many readers for this final post. This post I would like to give my final thoughts on the The Road.

   The Road was one of the most unique and interesting novels I have read, and probably my favorite book I have read in school. Cormac McCarthy offers a fresh and depressing take on the post-apocalyptic genre, and creates an original piece out of a unoriginal genre. The type of book that any lover of the genre should read, in order to explore the spectrum of what kind of material the genre can create.

   The greatest aspect of the book is probably how underwhelming the book is. While that may bring about some negative connotations, it's what sets it apart. The characters are nameless and mysterious, they where their hearts on their sleeves. The world is gray and broken, not a colorful mutated wasteland. The underwhelming nature of the story creates a gruelingly realistic story. It makes all the hyper realistic problems that the Man and Boy run into feel that much more impactful and hard. 

   The story is sad from beginning to end. This is one thing that may turn some readers off, but again it makes the story feel that much more realistic. A broken world doesn't create hope or heros, but brings a need for survival and basic instinct, both of which the story offers plenty of. The death of the Man, and the abandonment of the boy is the crown jewel on the story and was a fitting ending in my eyes.

   The Road is a unique take on a very popular genre. It gives a hyper realistic spin to an unrealistic situation and plays it off perfectly. Each page paints a grey and grueling journey of two nameless travelers looking for a mysterious sense of hope. I greatly enjoyed the story and it's fresh perspective, and deemed it AP worthy, and highly recommend it to fellow readers. 

Sad Through and Through

   Having finished The Road, I can honestly say it is one of the most unique and sad books I have ever read. A truly different novel, not just for the apocalyptic genre, but generally as a piece of literature. It gave a fresh writing style that made the story that much more engaging and real.  A detailed and unflinching stream of descriptive consciousness that gave me a picture perfect description of the destroyed American landscape.

SPOILERS AHEAD

   It was also one of the saddest books I have read. The author never flinched away from making things harder and harder for the Man and Boy. Never giving them a break, injuring them, throwing evil their way, all one after the other. But did this make the story any less enjoyable? To put it simply, no. I can see how it may deter some readers, but it felt like the perfect way to write the story. The constant pain and trouble made the story of an apocalyptic world feel real, painfully real. I was able to empathise with the characters when they are sick, starving, or running from cannibals. And when  the Man dies, leaving the boy alone in a world where being alone means death, I felt the pain of his loss. The emptiness and sadness he must have felt, and the true feeling of helplessness were expressed perfectly by McCarthy.
 
 So a question that can be asked now is, was the book AP English worthy? And I would answer yes. The novel offers a fresh and original perspective on the post-apocalyptic genre. It isn't and outlandish and colorful action novel full of loud and impossible characters. It was a novel that gave an unflinching view at the downfall of mankind and the small flame of hope left in it.  Characters are minimal and perfectly impersonal. Nameless travelers that feel lost and unknown as much to the reader as to themselves. The lack of names, doesn't distract readers from their thoughts and actions and creates a sense of intense observation while reading. I have previously stated the author creates a uniques stream of consciousness that makes the story feel like it is in real time and everything that happens to them plausible and random.

  AP English students should read The Road to better understand different authors writing styles. A new analysis of character that doesn't use planted information and names but instead an observation of their actions and thoughts. It offers a fresh new piece to a somewhat stale selection of novels that seem all too familiar to each other. The brevity of the novel makes it a quick read, but also a new challenge to absorb the limited information that a longer novel would offer.

   I thoroughly enjoyed my time on The Road. The story and images it offered will stay in my head for a while and I will remember it as a truly different type of novel. Cormac Mccarthy dragged me on a grueling journey through a hellish America, and crushed my heart in the end. I appreciate the complex simplicity he created in his world and it stands as one the most eccentric, depressing, and beautiful novels I have read.