A.J. Sefton
  • Home
  • My Books
    • Crushed
    • Teon
    • Gulfyrian
    • Catnip and Tuck
    • The Dark Garden
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog
    • Book Reviews >
      • Book Index
    • History >
      • Castles
      • Swords
      • Historical Listicles
    • Archives
  • Shop
  • Home
  • My Books
    • Crushed
    • Teon
    • Gulfyrian
    • Catnip and Tuck
    • The Dark Garden
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog
    • Book Reviews >
      • Book Index
    • History >
      • Castles
      • Swords
      • Historical Listicles
    • Archives
  • Shop
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

Book Reviews

From the classics to the latest thrillers

Picture
Booker Prize Winners 14 December 2018
Milkman
Picture
Historical Fiction i October 2019
The Hiding Game
Picture
Psychological Thrillers 4 April 2019
Sleep

13/3/2018 0 Comments

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Picture
Barren. The story, the landscape, the characters, the diction, the punctuation, the road.
In this post apocalyptic tale everything is bleak and hopeless. Not sure what has happened to America to turn it into this toxic wasteland where the main characters are nameless and cows are extinct. This demonstrates that there is no need for explanation or labels. Everything is futile. But I really would like to know what caused the ash, however irrelevant.

A simple tale about two simple people travelling along a road. There is no food or warmth or shelter, they meet, fleetingly, a few potentially dangerous or vulnerable people doing the typical things folk do for survival. There is nothing original in this story.

In keeping with the simplistic theme McCarthy writes in a minimalist style, virtually no punctuation and lots of short sentences. So much so, that looking at a page is like looking at a poem, which is reinforced with the use of repetition of words, phrases and speech patterns. Once I became familiar with the style it was an easy read, no complex themes that I could decipher and a straightforward journey along the road. I was surprised - but pleased - that there were few internal monologues nor deep thoughts that a book like this tends to include. What kept me hooked was wondering if the man and his son would stay together and keep each other safe, which was the motivation for each of them. The simplicity is oddly refreshing.

This book is low on action, especially for a survival science fiction type story, but high on depressing, gloomy futility. Dark fiction at its best.
​
Picture

Published by Picador, December 2010. Available to buy at Amazon and Waterstones plus all good bookshops.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Book Index
    If you are an author or publisher and would like a book review, please see our submission guidelines.

    Categories

    All Action American Civil Rights Anthology Booker Prize Children's Coming-of-Age Costa Award Crime Detective Domestic Noir Dystopian Extra-terrestrial Fantasy Greek Mythology Historical History Horror Journey Legal Medical Metaphysical Mystery Nonfiction Nordic Noir Philosophical Pirates Poetry Police Procedural Political Psychological Pulitzer Prize Roman Romance Romantic Comedy Satire Supernatural Thriller Time Travel Tudor Victorian War WW1 WW2

    RSS Feed

    A.J.'s bookshelf: currently-reading

    Reservoir 13
    Reservoir 13
    by Jon McGregor
    The Furies
    The Furies
    by Katie Lowe

    goodreads.com
    Bestselling Fiction

    Follow
RevolverMap
© Copyright 2012-2019 A.J. Sefton
   ​Privacy Policy