Reading Cormac McCarthy is like finding a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur in a coal mine. If you walk through a beautiful park in broad daylight, you likely would never notice it. But if you’re wandering through a pitch dark coal mine with no hope of ever seeing daylight again, that glow-in-the-dark dinosaur is like a galaxy.
I sometimes think the book was written as an formal exercise in a seeing how much an incredibly small bit of positivity at the very end of an entire book of unrelievedly depressing events could be made to seem like a burst of fireworks.
I read The Road once when I was younger, probably about 15 years ago. Now that I'm a father, I don't think I would read it again. One of those books that once is enough. Excellent break down! Look forward to seeing your posts!
Enjoyed your perspective, Alex. The Road looms large in my memory and I saw the ending as a sliver of hope that somehow, slightly, balances McCarthy’s dire nihilism. I read it a second time when a book group tackled it but no third reading, thank you very much. I come often to dystopian fiction, equally relishing (if that’s the word) the grief absorbed from a dark future and the (sometimes) compensating lift from imaginative hopefulness (I’m thinking Station Eleven here). The Road is all the former and I love it. Existentialists need to gaze upon the abyss; then they need to find a way to climb up and out.
I think it's interesting that in McCarthy's eyes, it's not nihilism at all. Because I also read The Road as pretty nihilistic. I will write on Station Eleven at some point in the near future — I have probably as equally conflicted feelings about it as I do The Road. I also prefer stories that are not just about wallowing in nihilism, but it turns out I am pretty picky about what I consider to be plausible ways out of that pit! :-)
As I've read more of McCarthy's novels, it seems to me that a lot of them have themes of apocalypses. The Road, obviously. Blood Meridian is, among other things, about an apocalypse of the native humans and wildlife in North America. The Border Trilogy are about the end of the "the west" and a way of life. I also haven't read Stella Maris yet, but The Passenger features as a theme the end of a family.
While "The Road" is an outstanding (albeit chilling) book....it pales in comparison to "Nuclear War" by Annie Jacobson. The Road allows one to use their imagination as to what went wrong and there appears to be many survivors after some awful event. Nuclear War walks one minute by minute through a nuclear exchange. Unfortunately, this is more relevant in today's world and is chilling. Basically, of the two awful scenarios.... The Road looks like a walk in the park. Pax
I dunno. Jacobsen's book tells a not very credible story that begins with North Korea deciding to commit suicide in spectacular fashion. And then follows that with the US launching a massive retaliatory missile attack on warning because of a single in-bound. Not at all credible. But worst of all was her use of the unproven and still controversial nuclear winter theory to essentially kill off all life in the northern hemisphere over a period of years. Modeling and experience with the Kuwait Oil Fires and other big conflagrations (Canadian forest fires from a summer or two ago) have NOT supported the idea central to the nuclear winter theory of soot lofting. So at best her book is alarmist fiction that ignores just how terrible a disaster a general nuclear war between the US and the Russians/China would be. There's no need to invoke an un-proven boogey-man like nuclear winter to make the unthinkable even more unthinkable.
First what are your credentials and where is your research to make such a comment? Second, she is correct that every war game conducted by the pentagon has ended with a massive exchange. Is she incorrect as to the destruction that would result from such an exchange? If not …how so? Finally do we really care if there is a nuclear winter after such an exchange? Methinks what she puts forth is more of a cautionary tale than anything else.
I agree: I don't think we should be concerned about nuclear winter given the scale of the disruption and destruction that a general nuclear war would cause. Even without nuclear winter, a general nuclear exchange between the US and Russia of the sort envisioned during the Cold War would count as the greatest disaster in human history. Made all the more tragic by being avoidable. As to your claim that every pentagon war-game has ended in a "massive" exchange, I have no knowledge of that except to say that every book and article I have encountered concerning nuclear war scenarios were far more nuanced than that. While it's true most nuclear war-games explore the pitfalls of the escalatory ladder between peer opponents - the scenario described by Jacobsen of a massive flush of the Minuteman fields (all aimed at North Korea?) as a response for a single launch is not borne out by any of the reading that I have done. The idea that a single launch from a secondary player would cause the US and Russia to panic and go full tilt at one another seems over-wrought and over-blown. Her assertions of the massive destruction and the fallout that would result, however, in the wake of a full on exchange between the US and Russia are correct. Nuclear winter? Probably not so much. My background: 30plus years with US Dept of Energy contractors dealing with nuclear matters. Yes: Jacobsen's is a cautionary tale and perhaps a useful one but one that needs to be taken with a bit of clear eyed skepticism.
This might not be the best spot for this comment so I'll apologize in advance...
But, for me, the one of the most frustrating stories of apocalypse and the human reaction to it has to be Nevil Shute's "On the Beach". The depiction that the entire population of Australia (with apparently weeks to prepare) would choose suicide instead of digging in and trying to make a go of surviving until the radiation decays back to tolerable levels strikes me as heartbreaking but faintly silly (in that I don't see how you would get the entire population to buy into exiting Jonestown style).
Most amusing to me: in the Showtime adaptation of the mid-aughts of "On the Beach", the SFX people working on the production of the show evidently provided boxes complete with official looking labels. I found myself wondering what the labels could've said: "Using this product WILL kill you." "Keep away from children unless...y'know." "Take with food to avoid stomach upset". "Call a doctor if life persists." ?
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?
I read somewhere once that the 'clues' and science puts the apocalypse in The Road as a meteor/asteroid impact event, especially in the movie adaptation.
I've read that as well. I had an interesting conversation a few days ago with a friend about this question — what it does to NOT have the cause specified. If McCarthy is true to his word in saying that it is not meant as a social commentary or grander allegory, then the cause of the disaster doesn't matter at all (for him). But if one wants to consider it one of those things, then the cause changes the meaning of the commentary and allegory considerably — a natural disaster, a human-made action, an accident of some sort, a supernatural event, an extraterrestrial event... each of these would really change the "meaning" of The Road quite a bit, if one were looking for that sort of meaning in it.
You're absolutely right. Also, I think a tale works better if the ordinary 'man on the street' character, and by extension the reader/viewer, has no clue as to what's going on. Romero's 'Dead' films do that well and it allows a stronger, more grounded, story to take place.
I was not aware of the Oprah interview or McCarthy's comments. The one time I read The Road, what struck me is the very American, boyish portrayal of nuclear aftermath--essentially a father-son bonding experience full of Boyscout problem solving.
That's interesting. I've been thinking a lot about the cross-cultural approaches to the post-apocalypse, and what they tell us about the cultures themselves. I'll write more on this in the future, but the two places I have the most examples of are from the United States and the United Kingdom — the US ones (at least those made by white males, which is most of them) very heavy on essentially individualistic problem-solving, as you indicate, whereas the UK contributions are usually more focused on the idea that "civilization" is always just a few minutes away from "savagery." It is always interesting to me how obvious it feels when you read something that is from a very different "mother" culture and makes very different sorts of assumptions about what a given story ought to be about, how problems ought to be solved, etc. I hadn't thought about Boyscouts as a way to think about American survival tropes, but it's an apt analogy. (I was a former Boyscout myself, and was obsessed with books like _My Side of the Mountain_ as a kid.)
Good to see this new project starting up!
Reading Cormac McCarthy is like finding a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur in a coal mine. If you walk through a beautiful park in broad daylight, you likely would never notice it. But if you’re wandering through a pitch dark coal mine with no hope of ever seeing daylight again, that glow-in-the-dark dinosaur is like a galaxy.
I sometimes think the book was written as an formal exercise in a seeing how much an incredibly small bit of positivity at the very end of an entire book of unrelievedly depressing events could be made to seem like a burst of fireworks.
I read The Road once when I was younger, probably about 15 years ago. Now that I'm a father, I don't think I would read it again. One of those books that once is enough. Excellent break down! Look forward to seeing your posts!
Enjoyed your perspective, Alex. The Road looms large in my memory and I saw the ending as a sliver of hope that somehow, slightly, balances McCarthy’s dire nihilism. I read it a second time when a book group tackled it but no third reading, thank you very much. I come often to dystopian fiction, equally relishing (if that’s the word) the grief absorbed from a dark future and the (sometimes) compensating lift from imaginative hopefulness (I’m thinking Station Eleven here). The Road is all the former and I love it. Existentialists need to gaze upon the abyss; then they need to find a way to climb up and out.
I think it's interesting that in McCarthy's eyes, it's not nihilism at all. Because I also read The Road as pretty nihilistic. I will write on Station Eleven at some point in the near future — I have probably as equally conflicted feelings about it as I do The Road. I also prefer stories that are not just about wallowing in nihilism, but it turns out I am pretty picky about what I consider to be plausible ways out of that pit! :-)
As I've read more of McCarthy's novels, it seems to me that a lot of them have themes of apocalypses. The Road, obviously. Blood Meridian is, among other things, about an apocalypse of the native humans and wildlife in North America. The Border Trilogy are about the end of the "the west" and a way of life. I also haven't read Stella Maris yet, but The Passenger features as a theme the end of a family.
While "The Road" is an outstanding (albeit chilling) book....it pales in comparison to "Nuclear War" by Annie Jacobson. The Road allows one to use their imagination as to what went wrong and there appears to be many survivors after some awful event. Nuclear War walks one minute by minute through a nuclear exchange. Unfortunately, this is more relevant in today's world and is chilling. Basically, of the two awful scenarios.... The Road looks like a walk in the park. Pax
I dunno. Jacobsen's book tells a not very credible story that begins with North Korea deciding to commit suicide in spectacular fashion. And then follows that with the US launching a massive retaliatory missile attack on warning because of a single in-bound. Not at all credible. But worst of all was her use of the unproven and still controversial nuclear winter theory to essentially kill off all life in the northern hemisphere over a period of years. Modeling and experience with the Kuwait Oil Fires and other big conflagrations (Canadian forest fires from a summer or two ago) have NOT supported the idea central to the nuclear winter theory of soot lofting. So at best her book is alarmist fiction that ignores just how terrible a disaster a general nuclear war between the US and the Russians/China would be. There's no need to invoke an un-proven boogey-man like nuclear winter to make the unthinkable even more unthinkable.
First what are your credentials and where is your research to make such a comment? Second, she is correct that every war game conducted by the pentagon has ended with a massive exchange. Is she incorrect as to the destruction that would result from such an exchange? If not …how so? Finally do we really care if there is a nuclear winter after such an exchange? Methinks what she puts forth is more of a cautionary tale than anything else.
I agree: I don't think we should be concerned about nuclear winter given the scale of the disruption and destruction that a general nuclear war would cause. Even without nuclear winter, a general nuclear exchange between the US and Russia of the sort envisioned during the Cold War would count as the greatest disaster in human history. Made all the more tragic by being avoidable. As to your claim that every pentagon war-game has ended in a "massive" exchange, I have no knowledge of that except to say that every book and article I have encountered concerning nuclear war scenarios were far more nuanced than that. While it's true most nuclear war-games explore the pitfalls of the escalatory ladder between peer opponents - the scenario described by Jacobsen of a massive flush of the Minuteman fields (all aimed at North Korea?) as a response for a single launch is not borne out by any of the reading that I have done. The idea that a single launch from a secondary player would cause the US and Russia to panic and go full tilt at one another seems over-wrought and over-blown. Her assertions of the massive destruction and the fallout that would result, however, in the wake of a full on exchange between the US and Russia are correct. Nuclear winter? Probably not so much. My background: 30plus years with US Dept of Energy contractors dealing with nuclear matters. Yes: Jacobsen's is a cautionary tale and perhaps a useful one but one that needs to be taken with a bit of clear eyed skepticism.
This might not be the best spot for this comment so I'll apologize in advance...
But, for me, the one of the most frustrating stories of apocalypse and the human reaction to it has to be Nevil Shute's "On the Beach". The depiction that the entire population of Australia (with apparently weeks to prepare) would choose suicide instead of digging in and trying to make a go of surviving until the radiation decays back to tolerable levels strikes me as heartbreaking but faintly silly (in that I don't see how you would get the entire population to buy into exiting Jonestown style).
Most amusing to me: in the Showtime adaptation of the mid-aughts of "On the Beach", the SFX people working on the production of the show evidently provided boxes complete with official looking labels. I found myself wondering what the labels could've said: "Using this product WILL kill you." "Keep away from children unless...y'know." "Take with food to avoid stomach upset". "Call a doctor if life persists." ?
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?
I read somewhere once that the 'clues' and science puts the apocalypse in The Road as a meteor/asteroid impact event, especially in the movie adaptation.
I've read that as well. I had an interesting conversation a few days ago with a friend about this question — what it does to NOT have the cause specified. If McCarthy is true to his word in saying that it is not meant as a social commentary or grander allegory, then the cause of the disaster doesn't matter at all (for him). But if one wants to consider it one of those things, then the cause changes the meaning of the commentary and allegory considerably — a natural disaster, a human-made action, an accident of some sort, a supernatural event, an extraterrestrial event... each of these would really change the "meaning" of The Road quite a bit, if one were looking for that sort of meaning in it.
You're absolutely right. Also, I think a tale works better if the ordinary 'man on the street' character, and by extension the reader/viewer, has no clue as to what's going on. Romero's 'Dead' films do that well and it allows a stronger, more grounded, story to take place.
I was not aware of the Oprah interview or McCarthy's comments. The one time I read The Road, what struck me is the very American, boyish portrayal of nuclear aftermath--essentially a father-son bonding experience full of Boyscout problem solving.
That's interesting. I've been thinking a lot about the cross-cultural approaches to the post-apocalypse, and what they tell us about the cultures themselves. I'll write more on this in the future, but the two places I have the most examples of are from the United States and the United Kingdom — the US ones (at least those made by white males, which is most of them) very heavy on essentially individualistic problem-solving, as you indicate, whereas the UK contributions are usually more focused on the idea that "civilization" is always just a few minutes away from "savagery." It is always interesting to me how obvious it feels when you read something that is from a very different "mother" culture and makes very different sorts of assumptions about what a given story ought to be about, how problems ought to be solved, etc. I hadn't thought about Boyscouts as a way to think about American survival tropes, but it's an apt analogy. (I was a former Boyscout myself, and was obsessed with books like _My Side of the Mountain_ as a kid.)