Darkness Implacable - Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'

"No lists on things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes"

After having seen Cormac McCarthy's name bouncing around for the last few years, on numerous lists of 'best 21st century novels', award winning fiction, and perhaps most tellingly lists of 'modern classics', I began to pay attention. Not to mention after hearing about the recent film adaptation of The Road and seeing the adaptation for film of No Country For Old Men in 2008. So, when I came face to face (numerous times) with cheap editions of The Road in charity shops and online, I figured it was meant to be. It was almost as if the book were following me, begging me to read it. (Okay maybe that's bullshit, I just saw it a few times and thought why not?). But all I can say is thank you phantom stalking book. I think I could safely say that The Road has become a new favourite, and is certainly a keeper. One which will remain on my bookshelf for a long time (and which I already have an itching desire to re-read).

As I've come to realise, after reading No Country for Old Men and All The Pretty Horses, The Road marks a departure from McCarthy's usual nouveau-'wild-west' topical field. The Road, then, somewhat uncharacteristically is a dystopian and post-apocalyptic vision of a new America. The novel contains only two main characters, who are referred to as simply 'man' and 'boy'. We follow them on their journey for survival across a barren palimpsestic America, never gaining knowledge of the events whose aftermath cause an annihilation of almost the whole population of America, and for a perpetual snow of ash to rain over the country. As well as simply finding food and clothing remaining from 'old' America, the duo must also face the challenge of avoiding and fighting off other human beings who, in desperation, have resorted to cannibalism. The novel bleakly details the journey of a man and his son along the road. A never-ending road which must be travelled for sustenance and safety.Though do not be mistaken, the bleakness of this journey is not completely overwhelming. Amongst the hopelessness and wretchedness of the post-apocalyptic monochrome America that McCarthy creates, both man and boy show a tenderness towards each other which (astoundingly) defies their awful situation. The massive contrast between outer darkness and inner warmth makes The Road a novel which is capable of creating for itself an air of being in some way 'epic' and a depth of emotional charge which is often surprising considering the minimal character development.

The Road is a novel which could be argued to be much more socially and politically 'contemporary' than McCarthy's other novels, in its capitalisation upon the post 9/11 mindset and the 'era' of terror. Although the fear of mutually assured destruction and the tradition of post-apocalyptic literature reaches back some sixty-five years now, since the first use of the atomic bomb, the arms race that followed, and the Cuban missile crisis in '62. The Road's warning of a barren, empty post-apocalyptic America, as we sit on the brink of a second nuclear era, seems to have become increasingly relevant in the last four years since it was published. As previously stated The Road is somewhat an anomaly in Cormac McCarthy's otherwise testosterone filled tales of life in the deep south. What starts out as a simple tale of two men travelling along a road, gradually blossoms into an emotionally intense and shatteringly beautiful piece of literature.

The text itself is wonderfully crafted in a way which is reminiscent of both Beckett and Coetzee in style and tone (and maybe even content with Beckett). What is striking about McCarthy as an author is the economy with which he utilises his words. It is a text, which in true Coetzee-an style, can at times seem deceptively plain and simple, but is constructed in a way that it expresses a lot more than it can ever be said to let on. Whilst using these frugally concise-yet-complex sentences, McCarthy uses two of Beckett's (arguably) most characteristic literary traits, these being the one word sentence, and his re-arranged syntax, which manipulates the manner and the order in which meaning is released, and constructed. We are confronted with this particular trait in the second sentence of The Road where McCarthy remarks upon the "nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before". The style works well, for McCarthy’s purpose, and serves to highlight the disorder of the 'new life' deserving of a new modified language, and also increases a feeling of uneasiness and vulnerability in the reader, firstly from reading disjointed thoughts, and secondly for the perilous position of ‘man’ and ‘boy’. McCarthy’s one word sentences complement this occasional awkwardness of syntax by creating this punchy 'that’s all there is' feeling. It would be unfair, though, to deride McCarthy's own creation by apportioning his literary achievement to those who have come before him, and not giving him credit for his own endeavouring individuality of style. (A style which rather strangely results in the omitting of apostrophes and speech marks, which can be confusing). Whilst the novel could be labelled as Beckettian in tone, and Coetzee-an in style, it retains a sense of distinct 'American-ness' in a way which seems to function far beneath the text, but is somehow unplaceable.

Nevertheless what is striking about The Road is the sparseness of anything, be it within the actual events of the novel, or within the speech of the characters, (the majority of speech between the boy and man comes in one word entries), or even in the punctuation of the novel, commas reserved for special occasions. McCarthy favours the dead full stop, creating a sense of emptiness and desolation which can be physically portrayed in the text itself, in contrast to the lengthy comma-less sentences which seem in some way to be physically representative of the never-ending road which the duo must travel. It has been a long time since a novel has been capable of making me feel so many things with seemingly so little effort. There were times when I was scared, tense, and even just plain upset. What McCarthy has created on retrospect in The Road is incredibly impressive, considering the plain, dark and empty style. For something so flat on the surface to create something so emotionally contoured on the inside has surprised me. And it is because of this, and its deliciously dark bouts of description that it is a novel which I am sure to re-read soon. And indeed, one deserving of a hearty 5 stars in my books.