The End of The Road

As we conclude the book The Road, let us talk about a fitting theme.

Death.

Everyone tries their best to not encounter Death. Everyone tries to avoid Death.

Everyone eventually fails. Everyone dies, and this is precisely why people in general are so afraid of dying, or rather, afraid because they don't know what happens next.

We are naturally scared of the fact that our life could just end. There must be something else to it, right? Maybe. Possibly. We wouldn't know until we died ourselves.

If you think about it, many people start believing in religions to not fear death. To believe that there is something after this life, that there exists another life, another chance, another hope...

Then the question comes up: what would it feel like to die? Will it suck? Will I basically be non-existant for the rest of eternity, for infinity? That's so sad and creepy!

Now, think about this: before anyone came to life, we were basically inexistant for an eternity too (since time goes all the way back and all the way forward). For billions, trillions, zillions, and multiquadrillions of years, you did not exist.

Did it suck to be inexistant for so long? Well, not really.

This is getting too deep and slightly emo so let me insert a random quote.

"Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first."

Holy fun, that looks delicious and moist.

Now back to the real stuff.

When asked the question whether The Road had a deeper significance, Cormac McCarthy said that it's just a story of a father and a son and nothing more. Maybe life is quite similar. Life is a story. A story in which YOU are the main character. Life is a road. A road in which ou continue on, not knowing what you'll find next. Whether you stop or not, the road stretches far towards the horizon. You might never find out what's farther along the road or what's at the end of the road, or for that matter, whether the road has an end.

While you're on the road, make the story worthwile.
Have fun. Enjoy life! Go out there and [ C E N S O R E D ]!

I spy a Jae. Oh wait, they're all Jaes!

Just make sure not to stray from the road though. You're pretty much screwed if you do.

Also, the next post will probably be less deep/emo.

It Used to Be

The last paragraph of The Road could be described as out of place.

Here it is:
"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."

Hmm. It's clearly there for a purpose. It definitely doesn't match up with the style of the rest of the book, and uses significantly vivid adjectives that are not used in any other part of the book (with the exception of dreams). I'll get back to the dream thing.

Well, the trout could be nature, what used to be, what is not anymore. From here we can also infer that the apocalypse was an environmental collapse.

Before men arrived to this world, earth had its own beauty, its own mystery, its own life.
Then we came, and used everything and destroyed everything until things became things "which could not be put back." Now, all these glorious things are but a dream, only to be remembered, only as things that once used to be there but have now been transformed into ashes.


The Road ends with yet another dream, only that this dream isn't a dream. It's real.
Or at least it used to be.

Road Rant

I would just like to know how the father and the sun survived so long without the sun or a steady supply of food. I mean, they started travelling to the south months, maybe years after the actual apocalypse. Did they live on canned food? Oh, that must be it. Canned food makes everything better.

I personally would not have the will or motivation to just survive for that long, especially when there are no company other than your son. Speaking of the son, isn't it weird to think that this kid will learn in terms of surviving rather than the calculus and stuff we learn in school? I wonder if that's a bad thing or a good thing. Probably the latter.

Anyways, I would not survive. I would rather seek immediate comfort, even if that way out were to be death. Actually, now to think of it, maybe not. I wouldn't know until I were in a post-apocalyptic situation, which will probably not happen. Right?
WRONG.

Many parts of the book seem to imply that there had been an ecological collapse (whether it was caused by the apocalypse or the apocalypse was caused by the collapse, we do not know). Sadly, this collapse is actually happening in the world right now.
Look out your window. If you don't have a window, you're missing out on the fun.
Do you see all the grass, the trees, the mountains, the volcano, and the whatever-is-outside-your-window? It might not be there in the next couple of years.


Maybe McCarthy wanted to show us through his simple language and story that the kind of situation shown in The Road could be not just a fictional world, but a real future.

Would you like that? [ YES NO ]

If you selected 'NO', we have something in common and we should be friends.
If you said 'YES', well... I suggest you visit a therapist. Or a psychologist. Or a priest.

So, um...
Protect the earth. Save paper. No more tests.

McCarthyism

After seeing a couple of interviews between Cormac McCarthy and Oprah, I could tell much more about the author himself and his thoughts as he wrote The Road.

Let us start by noting that there are no quotation marks or semicolons. To say the truth, I thought that the abscence of these certain punctuation marks meant something.

Not really.

McCarthy simply sort of 'learned' in his youth that punctuation marks were there to make a text easier. This is precisely the reason quotation marks and semicolons are inexistant, the reason why colons are rare, and the reason commas are uncommon. However, we do see a lot of periods.

Speaking of semicolons, I'm not allowed to use one on a blog post. My English teacher does not want us to use semicolons yet; however, I believe otherwise.
Actually I don't believe otherwise. I just wanted to use it once. WOOHOO!! REBELLION!


Anyways, according to McCarthy, this book was written without actually planning out the plot. He just continued writing the next part if he thought it was good. I actually liked the idea of that, since it matched up pretty well with what happens in The Road itself. No one knows what they're going to find next, but they keep going, stepping on only the firm rocks on the river.
That was a metaphor by the way, in case it just flew over you head.

So what makes McCarthy the great author he is now?
Hmm. I sort of get what the answer should sound like, but I can't come up with a mot juste for it.
I think we need a new word.

Forever Uncertain

Warning: The following blog post will not be logical. Also, it contains SPOILERS.


As anyone reads The Road, one can't help but think, "What is it that took place on earth for it to just die like that?!"
Let us take a few details from the book. The ashes fall like snow, one can't see the sun anymore, there are almost no traces of non-human life, and even the humans are pretty much not there for the most part. Was it a nuclear catastrophe? Was it a volcano? Was it maybe just an ecological collapse caused by the increasing acidity in the ocean?

The answer is that we'll never know. Just as the future is uncertain, the past is also uncertain. Only the present matters. Just like Christmas.

The father and the son always prepared for the future, having a pistol ready at all times in case they needed a quick and easy way out *coughSUICIDEcough*. However, when the time came, the father couldn't do anything. Even on the verge of imminent death, and even under the promise made before stating that he would never leave the son alone in the world, the man doesn't (or can't) shoot his son. You can't know the future until it hits you. It's the now. It's always the now. It has always been and always will be. Now.

Speaking of futures, did you know that there is no future tense in terms of grammar? Technically, there's only the past tense and the present tense. The future tense is just a modification of the present tense. I learned that somewhere, but I don't know where.


Anyways, after the boy wakes up one day to find that the father's body was "stiff and cold," the boy sobs for a while, until some people show up. Of course, after all that the man and the son had gone through, the son doesn't trust them yet.

"How do I know you're one of the good guys?
You don't. You'll have to take a shot.
Are you carrying the fire?
Am I what?
Carrying the fire.
You're kind of weirded out, aren't you?
No.
Just a little.
Yeah.
That's okay."

Just like that, the boy joins the other 'good guys' and decides to leave the dead body of his dad behind. Leaving the past behind, heading towards an uncertain future.

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.