McCarthy's Road to Nowhere A Review
by Eric Shapiro
It is easy to see why The Road, Cormac McCarthy's latest work, is heralded as the masterpiece of the past 20 years by many a charmed book critic. Ostensibly, it has everything that an acclaimed novel should, which is part of the problem. Beneath layers and layers of ornate prose, trussed up metaphors, and Meaningful character interaction lies, well, nothing special. Only book critics and lit snobs, ever willing to ignore genres until they are delivered to their door on suitably pretentious platters, will be blown away by McCarthy's co-opting of well-worn post-apocalyptic clichés.
The gist of McCarthy's plot involves a father and son journeying south in the wake of some unexplained Armageddon. The author neglects to provide any substantial back-story. He is clearly intent on telling a universal tale with characters that are easy to relate to. The world they inhabit is left similarly undeveloped. After 287 pages, the reader can only list a series of vague descriptors: grey, cold, ashy, desolate. Much is made of how effectively The Road creates a mood. This is indeed the case, but 287 pages of mood-setting and little else does not make great literature
A novel need not be complex to be great. Jon Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea both lack deep characters and multi-faceted worlds, yet they are rightfully considered classics in part because they make their points in an economical fashion. They are the polar opposite of heavy-handed in that both authors trust the intelligence of the readers. Every scene and every word is significant in that it serves to reinforce a theme or provide insight into a character. Each narrative persists for only as long as is necessary for it make its point. As a result, they do not wear out their welcome.
In contrast, The Road puts no trust in the reader. McCarthy's previous works are distinguished by an abundance of characters and dense expositions on complex themes. As a result, they were critically acclaimed, but not widely read. It is difficult to see The Road as anything more than a cynical, condescending attempt on McCarthy's part to gain a larger audience. True, there are a number of passages packed with lyrical descriptions of the environment that your average reader would have difficulty comprehending, but these merely serve as interludes (one might call them distractions) to a series of repetitive scenarios. The scenery may shift, but one is essentially experiencing the same scenario over and over again: the father and the boy come upon some new hardship, the boy complains, the father says "I know," and they continue walking. Occasionally the reader is treated to a "touching moment" in which the father gives the son more than his share of food, sacrifices an article of clothing, or performs some similarly selfless action. This is meant to be meaningful, but instead it comes across as cheap and manipulative. To cover up a shortage of ideas, McCarthy appeals to the paternal instinct in a bid for the reader's sympathy. Judging by the overwhelmingly positive public response, his strategy has worked.
If it were a lot shorter, The Road could have been a great novella. At 287 pages, it is a masterpiece of literary pretentiousness. No writer, no matter how adept at crafting beautiful prose, could cram so few ideas into so many pages with any prospect of success.
The gist of McCarthy's plot involves a father and son journeying south in the wake of some unexplained Armageddon. The author neglects to provide any substantial back-story. He is clearly intent on telling a universal tale with characters that are easy to relate to. The world they inhabit is left similarly undeveloped. After 287 pages, the reader can only list a series of vague descriptors: grey, cold, ashy, desolate. Much is made of how effectively The Road creates a mood. This is indeed the case, but 287 pages of mood-setting and little else does not make great literature
A novel need not be complex to be great. Jon Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea both lack deep characters and multi-faceted worlds, yet they are rightfully considered classics in part because they make their points in an economical fashion. They are the polar opposite of heavy-handed in that both authors trust the intelligence of the readers. Every scene and every word is significant in that it serves to reinforce a theme or provide insight into a character. Each narrative persists for only as long as is necessary for it make its point. As a result, they do not wear out their welcome.
In contrast, The Road puts no trust in the reader. McCarthy's previous works are distinguished by an abundance of characters and dense expositions on complex themes. As a result, they were critically acclaimed, but not widely read. It is difficult to see The Road as anything more than a cynical, condescending attempt on McCarthy's part to gain a larger audience. True, there are a number of passages packed with lyrical descriptions of the environment that your average reader would have difficulty comprehending, but these merely serve as interludes (one might call them distractions) to a series of repetitive scenarios. The scenery may shift, but one is essentially experiencing the same scenario over and over again: the father and the boy come upon some new hardship, the boy complains, the father says "I know," and they continue walking. Occasionally the reader is treated to a "touching moment" in which the father gives the son more than his share of food, sacrifices an article of clothing, or performs some similarly selfless action. This is meant to be meaningful, but instead it comes across as cheap and manipulative. To cover up a shortage of ideas, McCarthy appeals to the paternal instinct in a bid for the reader's sympathy. Judging by the overwhelmingly positive public response, his strategy has worked.
If it were a lot shorter, The Road could have been a great novella. At 287 pages, it is a masterpiece of literary pretentiousness. No writer, no matter how adept at crafting beautiful prose, could cram so few ideas into so many pages with any prospect of success.