Welcome to our new (and long-awaited) series on Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel, The Road. All four of us are here for this one and here in the first episode conversation explores what it is like to read (or re-read) this book as a parent, McCarthy’s unique approach to world-building and language, why people should read this book even if it’s hard, and much more. Happy listening!
David, I would like to politely disagree with your statement about the style of writing causing people to put the book down. The style was not an issue for me, it was definitely the looming threat of rape and cannibalism. He could have used a different way of writing about it, but it was the subject matter and the scenes that were getting to me.
Heidi, I am so glad that you mentioned starting The Road previously and laying it aside part of the way through. And that you googled what happened to the boy. I seriously considered giving up a quarter of the way through, partially because I feared what lay in store since the first quarter was already intense. I also looked up what happened to the son because I had to know. Due to the encouragement of fellow readers, I finished the book. Thank you for sharing that it wasn’t easy for you either.
I’ll preface this question by saying that I love Cormac McCarthy and believe that he is a poetic genius. However, the opening conversation on the mother in The Road made me think about the other portrayals of women in McCarthy. Do you think the mother’s failure is actually McCarthy’s failure to imagine real women? I agree that her despair heightens the pathos of the novel and the stakes for the boy and his father, but I can’t help feeling like McCarthy doesn’t know how to or doesn’t want to write women who have agency, who exist as real people. Please defend McCarthy! Is he a misogynist? I want to believe not, but I’m struggling with this!
The mother's suicide really made me stop reading and think about how I would think and feel and act in that situation. Could I continue to put one foot in front of the other on the road the father and son are on? It would be so hard. Having struggled with mental illness, I wonder whether I would have the fortitude to continue or would I be swallowed by the twin monsters of depression and anxiety? I don't remember that McCarthy gives us any clues that suggest the mother is struggling with mental illness. And yet I wonder. Is her decision one made with full freedom? I didn't exactly feel sympathy for her, and I don't think the narrative is asking me to. But it was a moment that took me out of the story somewhat and into my own head for a moment and then plunged me even deeper into the story as I imagined myself there more fully, having to find the courage to keep carrying the fire.
I was, like Heidi, scared to read this book. I started reading and was literally not sure I could continue but then I did (because I trust you guys) and then could not stop. I am overwhelmed by how much I find myself retuning over and over all day long to think about it more. There is so much to unpack and just sit with. So, so good. All that being said... you could not pay me to watch a movie of this book. I can't even imagine and don't want to. I can handle the world he creates in my head, but I don't think I could handle it on a screen at all.
Have any of you read "The Parable of the Sower"? The second half is a Road-type story with the main character, Lauren, walking somewhere to escape the devastation. She develops a new religion that is focused on humanity's expansion beyond Earth and starts having followers -- which I think is Octavia Butler's effort to find hope in the situation. In my opinion, it is nowhere close to the book The Road is but it provides an interesting contrasting view of hope.
Thank you for identifying the "symbiotic salvific impulse" in The Road. Before you identified it, I could not explicitly state why and how much the boy's innate understanding of good and evil drew me in. I found the man's effort to help the boy survive and mature inspiring but now I am also inspired by the boy's recognition of morality.
It’s an imperfect analogy but I deal professionally with drug abuse and it’s not uncommon to see women give birth to children with opioid addictions or neglect children to the point of near death because of that addiction. It’s a comparable sort of despair and as with Heidi I struggle to comprehend it.
I just want to say thank you! I could list all the reasons (emergency trip out of state to care for my parents, lots of time alone in the car, brain too jumpy to engage with an audiobook), but this podcast was such a gift at the right time, as it often is. Thank you for sharing with all of us. I’m one of many who feared reading “The Road,” but finished it quickly with awe and gratitude. Thanks for pushing my literary boundaries! I have a lot to be grateful for right now, and Close Reads is high on my list.
The mother and the decision are a brilliant way of facing nihilism. It's easy in the world of the book to point out the lack of meaning and purpose. And so for the father to find it is the brightest spot in the book. She is his foil. He is the hero and she the villain. Hiis battle with her moral conclusions gives depth to the thread of the finding meaning. Without her choice, it's not so stark and I think a worse book.
I would like to ask, does anyone think it is on purpose that the man doesn’t tell his son stories? I just keep thinking that I would like the boy to be told old stories about heroes and monsters and princesses and bravery and all those things. Even stories about the man’s childhood maybe. But we don’t even know what one book the boy had in the cart, we just get his toy “truck”. Something real and concrete and a thing that is already on the road. I guess I just want him to have a bit of childhood still.
Why is this a father and son versus father and daughter? Is this perhaps a retelling of The Odyssey? Just as Odyssey must teach Telemachus how to be a man, to drive out the ultimate suitor: Despair, Suicidal Hopelessness. The mother is an anti-Penelope, with her “whorish” heart. I want to write more but have no time. Have fun discussing…
David, I would like to politely disagree with your statement about the style of writing causing people to put the book down. The style was not an issue for me, it was definitely the looming threat of rape and cannibalism. He could have used a different way of writing about it, but it was the subject matter and the scenes that were getting to me.
Heidi, I am so glad that you mentioned starting The Road previously and laying it aside part of the way through. And that you googled what happened to the boy. I seriously considered giving up a quarter of the way through, partially because I feared what lay in store since the first quarter was already intense. I also looked up what happened to the son because I had to know. Due to the encouragement of fellow readers, I finished the book. Thank you for sharing that it wasn’t easy for you either.
It's been a while since I read The Road, but your conversation brought back so vividly how much I love Cormac McCarthy and why. Thanks so much.
I’ll preface this question by saying that I love Cormac McCarthy and believe that he is a poetic genius. However, the opening conversation on the mother in The Road made me think about the other portrayals of women in McCarthy. Do you think the mother’s failure is actually McCarthy’s failure to imagine real women? I agree that her despair heightens the pathos of the novel and the stakes for the boy and his father, but I can’t help feeling like McCarthy doesn’t know how to or doesn’t want to write women who have agency, who exist as real people. Please defend McCarthy! Is he a misogynist? I want to believe not, but I’m struggling with this!
The mother's suicide really made me stop reading and think about how I would think and feel and act in that situation. Could I continue to put one foot in front of the other on the road the father and son are on? It would be so hard. Having struggled with mental illness, I wonder whether I would have the fortitude to continue or would I be swallowed by the twin monsters of depression and anxiety? I don't remember that McCarthy gives us any clues that suggest the mother is struggling with mental illness. And yet I wonder. Is her decision one made with full freedom? I didn't exactly feel sympathy for her, and I don't think the narrative is asking me to. But it was a moment that took me out of the story somewhat and into my own head for a moment and then plunged me even deeper into the story as I imagined myself there more fully, having to find the courage to keep carrying the fire.
Not sure David should sign off the podcasts for this book with “Happy reading”... 🤣
I was, like Heidi, scared to read this book. I started reading and was literally not sure I could continue but then I did (because I trust you guys) and then could not stop. I am overwhelmed by how much I find myself retuning over and over all day long to think about it more. There is so much to unpack and just sit with. So, so good. All that being said... you could not pay me to watch a movie of this book. I can't even imagine and don't want to. I can handle the world he creates in my head, but I don't think I could handle it on a screen at all.
Have any of you read "The Parable of the Sower"? The second half is a Road-type story with the main character, Lauren, walking somewhere to escape the devastation. She develops a new religion that is focused on humanity's expansion beyond Earth and starts having followers -- which I think is Octavia Butler's effort to find hope in the situation. In my opinion, it is nowhere close to the book The Road is but it provides an interesting contrasting view of hope.
Thank you for identifying the "symbiotic salvific impulse" in The Road. Before you identified it, I could not explicitly state why and how much the boy's innate understanding of good and evil drew me in. I found the man's effort to help the boy survive and mature inspiring but now I am also inspired by the boy's recognition of morality.
It’s an imperfect analogy but I deal professionally with drug abuse and it’s not uncommon to see women give birth to children with opioid addictions or neglect children to the point of near death because of that addiction. It’s a comparable sort of despair and as with Heidi I struggle to comprehend it.
I just want to say thank you! I could list all the reasons (emergency trip out of state to care for my parents, lots of time alone in the car, brain too jumpy to engage with an audiobook), but this podcast was such a gift at the right time, as it often is. Thank you for sharing with all of us. I’m one of many who feared reading “The Road,” but finished it quickly with awe and gratitude. Thanks for pushing my literary boundaries! I have a lot to be grateful for right now, and Close Reads is high on my list.
The mother and the decision are a brilliant way of facing nihilism. It's easy in the world of the book to point out the lack of meaning and purpose. And so for the father to find it is the brightest spot in the book. She is his foil. He is the hero and she the villain. Hiis battle with her moral conclusions gives depth to the thread of the finding meaning. Without her choice, it's not so stark and I think a worse book.
Heidi - I’m with you about the kids in stories.
I would like to ask, does anyone think it is on purpose that the man doesn’t tell his son stories? I just keep thinking that I would like the boy to be told old stories about heroes and monsters and princesses and bravery and all those things. Even stories about the man’s childhood maybe. But we don’t even know what one book the boy had in the cart, we just get his toy “truck”. Something real and concrete and a thing that is already on the road. I guess I just want him to have a bit of childhood still.
Off topic but did I miss when you did Twelfth Night on The Play’ s the Thing?
Why is this a father and son versus father and daughter? Is this perhaps a retelling of The Odyssey? Just as Odyssey must teach Telemachus how to be a man, to drive out the ultimate suitor: Despair, Suicidal Hopelessness. The mother is an anti-Penelope, with her “whorish” heart. I want to write more but have no time. Have fun discussing…
I'm sooooo excited for this! Absolutely loved The Road when I read it last year.