I'm glad to have read it.
It was thought provoking and beautifully written in it's own bleak way.
It's not for everyone though.
Like to say a bit more? I'm just about to start - with three days until the end of the month!
Well.
The Road is about a journey during the worst of times and, as the story goes along, the dreadfulness of it all dawns on you and, gradually with the continuing descriptions you picture the landscape yourself.
The book is beautiful in it's language just as it is terrible in it's content. The thing is, if you are looking for 'incident' or 'pace' then this isn't the book for it. The moments of event and insight, sort of, ripple on and the length of the book, which I thought a little excessive once or twice, is justified because that's part of the point of it. The slow pace and the distance covered is part of the point - which I only appreciated at the end.
The relationship between the two characters is rich whilst the dialogue is quite sparse and the horror of their situation is dealt with quite matter of factly, which is quite shocking at times. I'd say the relationship is a thing of beauty. You get a sense of starvation and hopelessness whilst, of course, the father tries to maintain some sense of 'future' for the child.
You have to wonder, as a parent or just as an adult, how on earth you'd cope with a child in these circumstances, balancing what is the reality with the need to keep walking.
The ending is what you want or suspect it to be. You can interpret it in three or more ways and I haven't made up my mind - I wanted it to be a happy ending but you feel the exhaustion and have to wonder.
I'm sorry that people haven't enjoyed it - or finished it. I can't say it was a bundle of laughs but it was certainly thought provoking and a poetic read. It 'got' me as a parent, of course, both because we live in luxury and security but also because, as children/young people they rely so much on what we tell them about the world and this particular dad did the very best he could to interpret the world faithfully and protect the boy.
