A Light in the Road

I also finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”. I first heard of this author last year, when I saw the film by the Coen brothers, “No Country for Old Men”. I was intrigued, and while I didn’t go out and look for that novel, I still somehow appreciated the dark vision that was evident.

This novel deals with a society in which the natural environment seems to have been irrevocably destroyed, and the last few humans are scrambling desperately to survive. A man and his son are on the road, traveling south, looking for some form of haven but having to deal with seemingly impossible odds.

The poetic language is compelling. I was continually intoxicated by the language, and recognized a vividness of image as well as association with memories and reflective stages, in which the thoughts of sadness and loss seem to predominate. This is no happy narrative, no world of sunlight and plenitude and confidence. All these characters are in peril, and they are all lonely and seemingly lost in this world.

What kind of natural disaster could have befallen such that it could kill an entire ocean? Who can imagine the scale of extinction that could encompass the eliminations of whole species of birds, as well as the loss of fish in streams? The characters, and almost all the humans that are encountered, are reduced to scavenging for food, trying to find the last stores of canned goods, and even, most hauntingly, to cannibalism. This is most poignantly demonstrated in the episode with the three scarecrow figures that are seen from afar, one of them a pregnant woman, and the discovery that comes after.

The man is trying to protect his son, and any sense of moral rectitude and hope seems to lie in the love that they express for each other. There is no society any more. Human extinction seems to be the strongest possibility, and the dark tone of this work is echoed by the weather, by the clouds and the chill and the rain and the snow as winter sets in. It is the gloam, if I am indeed recalling a word that would suggest that period before darkness sets in, and yet, the innocence of the child seems to represent the one lonely, consoling light.

Traveling as they do, they come to know each other and to deepen their love for each other. And, as the father says in their rather terse dialogue that is so concise it becomes poetic, they are lucky. Something is sustaining them, even as they risk capture, and torture, and are punished by hunger and solitude and sickness. They reach out to each other, and each gesture of affection represents a moment of hope that stands out in the darkness.

The ending, as one may imagine in a dark work, is one that is in keeping with this predicament. There is no prospect of a happy Hollywood ending, and of a rescue by representatives of a resilient society. The truth is, society is not resilient. Disaster seems to have overtaken everyone on this road, but the journey also obeyed a human imperative. Who can exhaust the meanings of the road? It served to sustain them, and to give hope when there was none.

I look forward to reading more of McCarthy’s works.