With all the fuss about the world ending in 2012, I figured it would be a good idea to read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy before the year ends. I heard of McCarthy as the author of Blood Meridian, whom the likes of Jessica Zafra enjoy very much and when I saw his name on a novel with an all black cover except for the words 'THE ROAD" printed in red, I immediately picked it up. It turned out that McCarthy really is not for the average reader that I am. I have to elevate myself to a thinking being to appreciate his style. In a McCarthy, you don't just react to the happenings and twists in the plot. It is not a page turner in the sense that you just want to know what happens next. Instead, you immerse yourself in the world he creates and leaf through the pages because you want to feel more. I want to call it as curiosity of what you might be capable of feeling, rather than curiosity of what's in store for the characters.
Reading the first paragraphs can make you feel like you want to throw the book away. But all you need is elevate yourself from your usual reading attitude that serves reading mangas and tagalog pocketbooks well and you'll get through. Pretty much like Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
The book did not explicitly mention the cause of the apocalypse (why America, or the world, was burned) but I figured it might be because of a natural phenomenon (eg solar flares reaching Earth) like the one in the film Knowing starring Nicolas Cage. One thing though, McCarthy is very good at describing the world he created and its stark contrast to the world of the man and his son "sustained by love."
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