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.

Is There Hope?

You're stranded at sea.
Having barely escaped from the devastating crash the boat had with a jagged reef rock, you now sit on a lifeboat, relieved that the dark blue sea had not swallowed and claimed your life.
Upon checking your belongings, you find a wet pair of socks, a battery-dead cellphone, a couple of cereal bars left uneaten, and a flaregun.

Oh, goody! You have a flaregun! Now you'll surely survive! Lucky you!

You shoot the only flare you brought in the gun. The shot zooms across the air, drawing an arc across the moonlit sky, until it ultimately detonates with a brilliant flash. You smile.
One hour... The light fades.
Two hours... Your smile fades.
Three hours... You're worried.
Four hours... CRAP.

That awkward moment when you know you're screwed.
That feeling you get when you know that no one is coming.


When the boy in The Road gets curious as to what the flaregun is supposed to do, the father decides that there's nothing else better to do with it: They're not going to be saved, and no one's going to be seeing it (hopefully).
Once the artificial fire lit up in the air, the boy starts to ask:
"They couldnt see it very far, could they Papa?
Who?
Anybody.
No. Not far.
If you wanted to show where you were.
You mean like to the good guys?
Yes. Or anybody that you wanted them to know where you were.
Like who?
I dont know.
Like God?
Yeah. Maybe somebody like that." (246)

No one will help them now.
They have been abandoned, not to be helped by others, not even God.
There are no more good guys. There is no God.
People are, ironically, "angry at God for not existing." (C.S. Lewis)
In all this darkness and desolation, the fire continues to live.
The fire, the hope, being carried by the father and the son.
Is there still hope?
Yes.

Because pet rocks are awesome.

...Nine hours... It has been so long since you had a sip of water.
You're just so thirsty... You're begging for some water, some Gatorade, some tea, some kind of liquid to quench your thirst.
You're slowly losing hope...
But then you see something glistening in the horizon.
You see a light coming towards you from a distance.

There is still hope.
There is always hope.

Just Okay

As the father and son travel throughout The Road, the two have these little conversations between them. One of such conversation involved them talking about who were the good guys:
"Are we still the good guys?
Yes. We're still the good guys.
And we always will be.
Yes. We always will be.
Okay." (77)

But then think about it: In whoever's perspective, you are the good guy. You're always the good guy. Maybe the other person think's he or she is a good guy too. Then who is the good guy? No one is. Maybe everyone is. There are no good and bad guys. In the end, everyone wants to survive, only that they have different roads to get there. One might be ethically or morally or [something]ly better than the other, but then these are standards that we humans made. I hardly think it applies to a post-apocalyptic situation in which society has collapsed. Everyone's just out there, eating whatever it is they find (canned beans, corpses, Twinkies, and whatever nasty things you have on mind), and our two main characters are not that much different.
I just realized I have no idea what I'm talking about.
It's late at night and we all know our minds are much more cloudy at night for three reasons: One, we want to sleep. Two, we are lazy. Three, we are human.
Oh, actually, the third one sums up one and two, so we only have one reason. Yay for conciseness.

ARGH. I strayed from the path of 'homework done correctly' again.
Sorry. Back to The Road.

I have noticed how most of the conversations between father and son end with "Okay." The son always listens to what the father has to say, always believing him. Are those the bad guys? Yes. Okay. What was that? An earthquake. Okay. Are we gonna die? Yes, but not now. Okay. Go to sleep now. Okay. Stay right here. Okay. Okay? Okay.

The child, who represents the final hope, the last bit of humanity and innocence, believes whatever the father tells him. In this world that McCarthy has created, people just don't know what to believe anymore, or rather, there is nothing left to believe in. There are no beliefs. There is no 'why' for life, there is no 'because' for life... Life just is.

And it just keeps on going.


Okay?


Okay.

Show and Don't Tell

The Road isn't a Shakespeare novel. It is also definitely not Clockwork Orange. What I'm trying to say is that the words are not that difficult, which is probably why it got so famous and widely known in a short time. However, I really have to say, the descriptions are great. It makes me feel like I'm actually in the middle of all that gray.

When I say that the words are not difficult, I'm not saying that there are no new words. In fact, there are many new words that are quite descriptive. Yet, somehow, most of these words appear familiar, and they make sense within context. Here are some of the words:

knapsack - basically a bag. a fancy way of saying backpack.

ligaments - connective tissue... (Eww, gorey!)

litany - prayer with responses that are the same for a number in succession

basalt - the dark, dense igneous rock of a lava flow or minor intrusion

escarpment - a long, precipitous, clifflike ridge of land, rock, etc.

slogged - to walk or plod heavily

cannonading - to attack continuously with or as if with cannon

rachitic - inflammation of the spine

(On a side note, we can sort of infer that the 'father' character used to be a doctor before the apocalypse. He seems to be very well-knowledged and knows specific medical information... stuff like frontal lobes and apparantly rachitics.)

Then, there were words that didn't exist such as:

roofingtin - the tin that a roof is made out of, I presume?

fireblackened - self-explanatory...

sweatblackened - also slightly self-explanatory?

Anyways, the word choices used by Cormac McCarthy is simple yet deep. He always finds a way to describe a scene, whether it be the ashes falling like snow, an abandoned old shack, a dark opaque waterfall, or a guy with a bullet hole in his frontal lobe. He manages to do what most people (myself included) cannot do when writing a piece of writing: Showing and not telling. Basically, when writing literary work, we want to 'show' in a way that the book can appeal to the reader in all five senses.

Just saying. Haha. This book could serve as a great example for descriptive descriptions (no, that is not redundant), a good model for literary writing. I would personally want more colors, if you know what I mean. This book is too gray. Life could always do with some extra colors.

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.