The Road

I love books that are unflinchingly honest. I love it when a writer stares at the disturbing (albeit subjective) truth and doesn't back down. Such is the case in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I have read several books by McCarthy, and he never disappoints me. His writing is phenomenal, his vision compelling.

This particular book is a postapocalyptic glimpse into the lives of a man and his son traveling by foot (along a road, obviously) towards the ocean. Their story is a quiet one, but it's also fraught with conflict and tension. In a world where almost everyone else is dead, these two continue to push on. While reading it, I asked myself lots of existential questions, one of them being "Why go on when the rest of the world has died? What, really, is the point?"

The Road really emphasizes the survival instinct that we all possess - and our desire to be just a little bit heroic. In typical McCarthy fashion, it offers no morals or rationalization. It just drops you into this dying world and leaves you to decide whether or not you would follow the road or abandon it.