The Road: The Grim Journey of the Father and his Son
How fitting it is to have picked out The Road from the family bookshelf on a whim as a bedtime story; without any prior knowledge of its premise, I somehow found myself reading not only one of the most lauded novels of the 21st century but perhaps the most notable Father-Son fictional narrative to be printed during the same period, and only a few days before Father’s Day I would add. The Road is a winding and lurching read, featuring only glimpses of true depravity to keep readers perpetually anxious regarding the actions of our willful survivors. Of the myriad recommendations I could offer prospective readers, I ask they they above all do not complete their homework prior to opening to page 1 and would go so far as to ask those reading this piece not to continue to this next paragraph (but check back after reading, please).
Having only the Coen Brothers’ film adaptation of No Country for Old Men to rely on as picturesque of author Cormac McCarthy’s writing, I was certainly stricken with how powerful line breaks and pauses can be without needing the help of the big screen. What McCarthy penned so brilliantly is sequence after sequence of actions-to-outcomes, whereby the Father, titled the Man, and his Son, titled the Boy, repeatedly commit to their decisions with no extended dialogue regarding the risks and consequences at play. Given the unprecedented circumstances of this post-apocalyptic armageddon, the two almost always find themselves at a fork in the road, with neither route having been traveled. McCarthy took full advantage of this chaotic unfamiliarity, offering vague indications that he would drive his two protagonists into harm’s way regardless of caution. Seemingly written to lead us readers to our own mistaken conclusions, most actions result in the benign and few carry near-death experiences. In any case, McCarthy never failed to ensure each outcome was unpredictable.
McCarthy’s written dialogue, often erratic and ping-ponging from the Man to the Boy and vice versa, demonstrates how a bond so close, so dependent from one to the other, requires little more than a few words back and forth. No need for monologues or drawn-out life lessons that today’s fathers always seem to expound. Nor is there a meal-flinging tantrum that today’s children never fail to unleash. Despite either (anti)hero’s reservations, whether it is the Man’s decision to explore a new zone or the Boy’s duty to assisting the wretched, the two always come to an understanding, as Father and Son, with little more than a simple “Okay” confirmation. Perhaps McCarthy hopes those of us with families realize a truth: those with whom we build our bonds are sturdiest when these same bonds transcend the material world.
Perhaps The Road’s greatest misdirect appears as the Man and the Boy find themselves just about in the clear, ostensibly safe from the tattooed cannibals that roamed the very highway they traversed. The Boy appeared to be the first to give out before reaching their Promised Land, never without care from his loving father. And then, just as the Father was on the cusp of finding a remedy is he stunned with an arrow, barely surviving his assailant’s attack as he returned fire. Following their escape, the Man and the Boy appear to exchange roles. Through painstaking days stretched to eternities, the two continue trudging on end, yet the boy now carries a revived energy and determination that the Man no longer is able to offer. As The Road approached its ending, I became steadily convinced their life forces were inversely related, one feeling replenished as the other was drained. But upon the Father’s death, the Boy, so young and without guidance, refuses to leave the Man’s corpse for 3 days before a self-proclaimed “Good Guy” appears as his Deus Ex Machina. As much as I want to believe in the Boy’s salvation, I cannot put out of mind the likeliness he was not saved, let alone found, after days without nourishment, that with the spirit of the single father went the spirit of the son as both slowly lost their cognitive abilities. This, I feel, was McCarthy’s intended message: as much as we look to save and be saved by our closest ones, none of us can truly stave off time nor its leeching effects, all along the painful journey on the Road of life.