Nothing on the Road

♬ I walk a lonely road ♬
♬ The only one that I have ever known ♬
♬ Don't know where it goes ♬
♬ But it's only me, I walk alone... ♬

(Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Green Day)

Cormac McCarthy's 2007 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road is an interesting one so far. For one, it has already been made into a movie (which I haven't seen yet, to make the reading just a bit more enjoyable!), and it has become a book not uncommon in schools. It must be pretty darn awesome to get that much attention.

The Road is the story of a father and his son in post-apocalyptic America, travelling to the warmer south to not die in the winter. The dark, cold setting is quite depressing, and God is questioned several times by the protagonists. There is nothing left in the barren wastelands except occasional canned food. The main characters carry a revolver to suicide with when worst comes to worst, and the only thing they really have is each other.
I seriously do not know anything else. That is all I know. What do I mean?

So far, I do not know how the world ended up as the destroyed mass of ashes and debris as it is now. I do not know what time of the year it is (although the 'father' assumes it to be about October). I do not know what these two are afraid of encountering in their journey. I don't even know the names of the two main characters. We only know that there is a road, and it is meant to be followed, in the hopes that there might be something at the end of it. Period.

Yet, in the middle of all this despair, there is but one source of innocence: the son. It's just nice to see the kid asking the dad about the soda they happenned to find, nice to see the little bits and pieces of life that hasn't been destroyed. According to the father, the son was "all that stood between him and death." (29) At least, for me, it helped me relax and catch my breath in between all the desolation.

I'll get back on The Road soon.