Against a backdrop of wasted landscape and falling ash, McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic tale harshly materializes humanity’s greatest fear of a lawless society governed solely by instinct.
The simplicity and precision of McCarthy’s prose is breathtaking. The story, a gripping narrative about the survival of a species teetering on the edge of self-annihilation, relentlessly carves through the human equation to reveal one man’s ultimate, unwavering love for his offspring.
From Cormac McCarthy’s The Road:
“He’d carved the boy a flute from a piece of roadside cane…and give it to him… After a while he fell back and after a while the man could hear him playing. A formless music for the age to come. Or perhaps the last music on earth called up from out of the ashes of its ruin” (77).
“He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world… Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe… Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it” (130).
“They are watching for a thing that even death cannot undo and if they do not see it they will turn away from us and they will not come back” (210).
