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Cover courtesy of GoodReads.com

Book Review: "The Road" offers harrowing dystopian story

The legendary novel, “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, lives up to its reputation. Taking notes from Ernest Hemingway, McCarthy keeps things simplistic and vague.

“The Road” follows the skeletal unnamed characters of a Man and a Boy who endlessly wander the roads of an ash-covered gray Earth.

McCarthy makes “The Road” amazingly timeless. There are no mentions of technology or years, and the vagueness of information gives “The Road” a time period only in the minds of the readers.

Similar to the vagueness of a time period, the plot is equally mysterious. As the Man and the Boy wander aimlessly through a post-apocalyptic world, their only real drive is survival — and so be it, the plot becomes survival.

Only one mention out of the whole novel refers to the events that place the Man and Boy in their situation: “The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions.”

In a dying world where nothing but human life is left, the Man and Boy are trapped in a bleak, meaningless existence, where each is only alive for the other. Falling trees, the rattling of a crumbling Earth and hordes of cannibalistic humans are constant threats that follow the Man and Boy who are challenged to hold on to their own humanity.

Similar to the concept of synesthesia, where musicians relate sounds to colors, my experience while reading “The Road” was a heavy hue of dark matte gray. The book should be read during the wintertime with the album “For Emma, Forever Ago” by Bon Iver dialed down to a four in the background.

To many, McCarthy’s vagueness might seem as though he was taking the easy road when writing, but in this case his vagueness is there to protect the reader from permanent trauma, as a handful of scenes are so disturbing, the vagueness is the only aspect saving readers from putting the book down out of horror and walking away.

“The Road” is a dark, eye-opening look into the relationship between a father and son who try and find meaning within each other when trapped in perpetual meaninglessness. It’s a captivating book that will stick with readers for years after flipping the last page.

Colton Newman is the photo editor and a music writer for the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at photo@dailylobo.com or on Twitter 
@Coltonperson.

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