The Road - Cormac McCarthy

[Aspman]

I was in London this week with work and I bought this for something to read.

F^ck me. Don't read it unless you''re in a sound state of mind or you'll be liable to throw yourself out of the nearest window or under a bus. Incredibly well written but so bleak. I've read many 'dark' books but nothing as bleak as this.

The book is set some years after an unnamed catastrophe. Probably 8-10 years. The only clue to the disaster is a memory of the man (never named) where there were several concussions and a glow in the sky and the power went off. It seems he knew what had happened because he fills the bath for water but he never says.
What ever the cause was the effect was that everything dies apart from some surviving humans. All plants are dead, all the animals are dead, all the fish are dead, all the insects are dead. the landscape is nothing but dead scrub and ash from the dead trees burning. It's getting colder (nuclear winter?) so the man takes the child south on the road.

The only others on the road are other nomadic humans and roving gangs of cannibals. McCarthy details in gruesomely practical terms how these people survive. There isn't much to the story, it's the man and his boy surviving on the road. It isn't stated in the story but you know in the end everyone will die and the man and the boy's journey is ultimately futile, but that doesn't matter.

It's a book that really sticks in your head. How the apocalypse really would be. Not a flash and a bang Hollywood style but a long drawn out suffering death over decades.

I've not seen the film, and I do want to see it but after reading the book I wouldn't look forward to it, if that makes sense.

[Panama Red]

The movie was well done, worth the watch..

[Egaladeist]

Sounds like a movie I'd like...especially with Charlize Theron in it

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/

A couple tidbits from IMDB

An apparent CGI aerial shot, which also appears in the trailer, is a digital recreation of actual destruction by Hurricane Katrina to Empire, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. The shot shows large, twin boats on a highway in front of a bridge over the Empire Lock on Louisiana state highway 23. In the movie rendering, a large city skyline appears on the horizon, where in actuality there would be only the rural peninsula of Plaquemines Parish

Errors in geography: When the Man is walking to the ocean pier through the amusement park where he gets shot by an arrow, the entrance sign to the park clearly says "Conneaut LAKE Park."

[Morganlefay]

Wow....good find Asp

I think I will watch the movie....no time to read lately
I just fall asleep.

Another bleak book... one of my favs is "We the Living" Ayn Rand. Read it many many ...many moons ago. one to reread...if I ever get a vacation where I just sit on the beach....and chew books for a week....or 3

MLF

[Aspman]

Yes Eg. I read that they used some still ruined parts of New Orleans as back drops and some of the area around Mt St Helens which must still be looking bombed.

I was thinking about the book and the apocalypse as portrait in it. I think MacCarthy has killed all the plants, either via a bomb or a meteor. All the green algae and all other green plants. That would kill off all the animals in a few months leaving just the hoomans who can use tin openers.

[Egaladeist]

Yes Eg. I read that they used some still ruined parts of New Orleans as back drops and some of the area around Mt St Helens which must still be looking bombed.

I'm not much of a book reader anymore but I do like apocalyptic-type movies...still trying to find screamers on dvd.