Cormac McCarthy's The Road

[Gigi Vernon]

Loved it. Gorgeous, controlled, poetic writing. Loved the pacing and the structure of the short sections. Loved that the flashbacks have punctuation because punctuation=civilization, and the present post-apocalyptic sections have minimal punctuation=breakdown of civilization. The charaterization through dialogue and the slow revelation of the themes was fabulous. Such an interesting voice. It's been a long time since I encountered unfamiliar vocabulary in fiction.

Grim, though, very grim. It reminded me of one of my favorite movies <i>The Road Warrior</i> though <i>The Road</i> is far more elegant and heartrending.

Extremely suspenseful. I read it before going to bed which was a big mistake. I couldn't sleep because it pushed all my buttons--cold, hunger, darkness, sole survivor in a post-apocalypse world, and zombies and/or cannibals. And McCarthy's cannibals were worse than the usual because they rape you before they kill and eat you.

I couldn't stop thinking about the book when I was reading it and could't wait to get back to it when I got home. When I finished, I went back to the opening and re-read it. I was still thinking about the book days after I finished it.

This was my first Cormac McCarthy. I'm looking forward to reading more.

[Gigi Vernon]

Just finished No Country for Old Men. Brilliant. Although The Road is still my favorite. I'm definitely going to be working through the rest of Cormac's books.

[Mark Samojedny]

Glad I found another Cormac fan here. His books are definitely not the read 'em and forget 'em type. His use of language is much more stark in The Road but I like all of his work. Check out All The Pretty Horses if you have not made up your mind on the next one you are going to read. It is part of a trilogy. Good Stuff