Not Really Worth It

Continuing in my reviews of post-apocalyptic novels, we come to a modern one, Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The book's viewpoint is unremittingly bleak -- a man and his son wander through the American southeast, trying to reach the ocean. A nuclear war several years before have made life so unlivable on the planet that nothing will grow -- the sky is devoid of birds, and animals have either died or been hunted to extinction. People are living off whatever they can scrounge from canned goods to, well, each other. The man and the boy are "the good guys" -- they do not kill or eat people.

To me, the book goes so far to paint a bleak picture that it goes too far, and at points descends into self-parody. I remember asking myself, "When are we going to get a baby roasted on a spit?" and, lo and behold, a few pages later, we get a roasted baby on a spit -- headless. I have found Cormac McCarthy's work to be bleak and soulless, and in that respect, I was not disappointed.

From a practical point of view, the book is too bleak to be worth it -- in McCarthy's post-apocalyptic view, there is no survival strategy, nothing to figure out, and no point to it.

I provide a product link, but really can't recommend it.