Yeah, the ambiguity of what caused the disaster that felled the world in The Road IS its chief weakness for me. I understand that from the author's pov it doesn't matter as much - he simply drops his characters into this wrecked world and follows them on their fearful trek. But - for me as a certain kind of reader - the nature and extent…
Yeah, the ambiguity of what caused the disaster that felled the world in The Road IS its chief weakness for me. I understand that from the author's pov it doesn't matter as much - he simply drops his characters into this wrecked world and follows them on their fearful trek. But - for me as a certain kind of reader - the nature and extent of the disaster sets the stage for everything else. And , utimately, every disaster (unless the Earth has been transformed into a second asteroid belt) has its denouement . Recovery will begin in various places as people work to somehow reduce the misery that therir lives are awash in - allow for years to pass - you may see a wounded and transformed world - but intelligence and tool-using will also allow for rebuilding and maybe even thriving. Depicting that in The Road was not important to the author as the story was not supposed to be a credible future history post some terrible but physically possible event (nuclear war, super-volcanic eruption, a BFR impact with less than Dino killing effects) but a focussed story about love and family in extremis.
What I found most chilling and depressing about the book was the fact that all life had died or was in the process of dying--at least that's how I remember it. If there's no food left to forage (or grow) and all the animals are extinct, then what hope is there?
Yeah, the ambiguity of what caused the disaster that felled the world in The Road IS its chief weakness for me. I understand that from the author's pov it doesn't matter as much - he simply drops his characters into this wrecked world and follows them on their fearful trek. But - for me as a certain kind of reader - the nature and extent of the disaster sets the stage for everything else. And , utimately, every disaster (unless the Earth has been transformed into a second asteroid belt) has its denouement . Recovery will begin in various places as people work to somehow reduce the misery that therir lives are awash in - allow for years to pass - you may see a wounded and transformed world - but intelligence and tool-using will also allow for rebuilding and maybe even thriving. Depicting that in The Road was not important to the author as the story was not supposed to be a credible future history post some terrible but physically possible event (nuclear war, super-volcanic eruption, a BFR impact with less than Dino killing effects) but a focussed story about love and family in extremis.
What I found most chilling and depressing about the book was the fact that all life had died or was in the process of dying--at least that's how I remember it. If there's no food left to forage (or grow) and all the animals are extinct, then what hope is there?