My favorite aspect of the Road as audiobook was the emotional aspect. You know the father feels like he needs to protect his son at all costs, and this little boy who still has an adorable amount of hope and innocence in him that is not stifled by the brutality of the world they now face. This narrator was able to portray the two characters' unmitigated hope and fear in a way that was heart breaking and profoundly deeply personal. And reflective.
Audiobook version of the Road can be found here: The_Road (Audiobook version)

The father-son duo's journey is tense and suspenseful and the audiobook keeps you on the edge of your seat. The narrator's engaging voice pulls you right into the dangers and extreme hardships they face. From the desperate encounters with other survivors to the threats the man and boy must confront, the story remains incredibly taut and enthralling.

But "The Road" is more than a post-apocalyptic fiction. It's a commentary on love, survival, and the human spirit. The audiobook takes this exploration one step further and makes it incredibly difficult to detach yourself from the profound emotions that their desperate situation brings out in a person.

If you are looking for an audiobook that will provoke thought, this is it. Both intellectually and emotionally challenging, "The Road" is a moving narrative underscored by the eloquence of the narrator. It is a highly convincing and evocative rendition of the plot that should not be missed. This is audiobook that will redefine your understanding of humanity and leave you pondering the common thread that binds us together, even when all hope is lost.

Excuse me please while I cover my face with my hands and quietly sob.

In a scorched and dangerous post-apocalyptic America, an unnamed father and son scavenge for food, look for shelter and try to avoid bandits and people who’ve resorted to cannibalism. The two, pushing along their rusty cart, travel the road simply because they must. The alternative is death.

I admire the fact that there’s no explanation about how the end of the world happened and why certain people survived. There are a couple of flashbacks, but they have to do with human relationships, not some plague, and have a dreamlike quality about them.

This is my first Cormac McCarthy, and it took a while to adjust to his writing style. There are no dialogue quotes. Sentences are often verbless. Contractions have no apostrophes. The language is poetic yet not flowery or excessive.

Initially, I found the novel painful to read. It was so bleak and unrelenting, and the characters had no goal except survival: finding that next stash of canned goods, locating oil for a lamp, finding blankets to protect them from the cold, making sure their shoes held out.

Ultimately, the love between father and son gives the book its heart, and offers up a bit of hope to the reader. The man must, through example, pass on his knowledge and humanity to the boy. But in a way the boy teaches his father just as much. None of this is remotely sentimental.

By depicting a barren universe where nothing grows, McCarthy is surely asking us to appreciate the mysterious bounty of the earth.

A moving and timeless post-Thanksgiving theme. And an unforgettable book.

A MASTERPIECE!!

A very emotional read. I loved the movie, watched it years ago but the audiobook is even better, I think. One way to find out!

Il mondo è al suo crepuscolo, grigio e morto. I pochi sopravvissuti si aggirano come zombi sulle strade fangose. La società è un ricordo del passato.
Dimenticati gli agi e le ricchezze la vita rimane il bene più prezioso, un tozzo di pane e un sorso d'acqua non contaminata il tesoro più ambito.
Un padre tenta di proteggere e far sopravvivere il suo piccolo, un altro giorno.

Due viaggiatori, padre e figlio in viaggio per la sopravvivenza attraverso un mondo devastato, simile ad un incubo.
Le angosce e le paure che il "padre" affronta, allo scopo di mantenere in vita la sua creatura si riversano con tutta la loro forza e brutalità sugli ignari e stupefatti lettori.
Mai in tutto il racconto vengono pronunciati i loro nomi, ormai senza alcuna importanza, solo sopravvivere ne ha, giorno dopo giorno.
La speranza unico combustibile per fare un altro miglio.
Brutale, sconcertante, alienante e stupefacente.

-----------------------------
The world is in its twilight, gray and dead. The few survivors wander like zombies on the muddy roads. Society is a thing of the past.
Once comforts and riches have been forgotten, life remains the most precious asset, a crust of bread and a sip of uncontaminated water are the most coveted treasures.
A father tries to protect and help his little one survive, another day.

Two travellers, father and son on a journey for survival through a devastated, nightmare-like world.
The anguish and fears that the "father" faces, in order to keep his child alive, pour out with all their force and brutality on the unaware and amazed readers.
Never in the entire story are their names pronounced, now without any importance where only surviving has it, day after day.
Hope as the only fuel to go another mile.
Brutal, disconcerting, alienating and astonishing.

My mind’s eye viewed this grim affair in stark Black and White.

A man and his son must keep walking across an apocalyptic landscape of melted roads, burnt homes, and ash covered towns. Horrific, grotesquely twisted corpses, with mocking smiles, also line the way.

There are other survivors of whatever preceded this event – most with the desire to steal or even devour others – food is scarce.

The writing here stands out. Yes, it’s sparse and to the point, but it’s also compelling. It drew me in like very few reads have done before. The description of the landscape was so real I could smell it. The suspense and abject despair described by McCarthy is palpable. But the grim reality of the situation, didn’t allow me to see any colour. Just black, grey, and white. In a way, that was enough.

For me, the true star of this book is the relationship between the father and son as their skeletal forms, push their shopping trolley towards the coast, in search of something, I don’t know. I loved the bond between the pair. Father was so, so patient with his little boy, never getting tired of his questions and constant need for reassurance. The little boy was a hero. Thinking about him makes me feel like crying – so brave, persistent, but still just a baby. His compassion goes to show that kids come completed kitted out with compassion, it’s growing up, and the adult world that strips it from us.

I was rivetted by this pair. Their exchanges were enough to break my heart.

Can I ask you a question?
Yes. Of course you can.
What would you do if I died?
If you died, I would want to die too.
So, you could be with me?
Yes. So, I could be with you.
Okay.

I loved this book. It is one of my all-time favourites.

5 Stars

Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

Two Shades: A Story of Black and Gray

Bleak is an understatement.
Brilliant is fitting.

You love McCarthy or you hate him.

There is no God and we are his prophets.

Terror. Stark naked, clear as the day and indelible in its intensity. Terror that turns its unflinching gaze on you, commanding you to quake in your boots and disintegrate into pieces. This book is that kind of cold dread that seeps into your blood like insidious venom and drains away your strength in a steady, agonizing trickle as you read along. The horror of being stranded in a world, where the living live on either to become sustenance for other survivors or to hunt and feast on fellow brethren to survive, becomes as real as the morning sunlight pouring in to your room through the gauzy curtains.

The trouble with dystopian fiction (literary and otherwise) is that if you have read one book from the genre you have pretty much read them all. And the rather unabashed confession I have to make in this regard is that I have read quite a lot of them - this is the 'guilty pleasure' I am not really guilty of indulging in once in a while. But when the focus of the discussion on dystopias shifts to a universally read book like 'The Road' then opinions range from acerbically negative criticism, a patronizing, reluctant pat on the back to disappointed neutrality and effusive praise. Cormac McCarthy's prose has also garnered less than enthusiastic responses from quite a significant number of reviewers. I suppose some thought his metaphors to be too flowery for their taste. While the rest have found him to be repetitive and dull.

Fair enough. But I did not.

To bring to life a world, where there's nothing left to do except scrounge around for nourishment, it is obvious the author will be hard pressed to elaborately detail the act of unscrewing a jar top and drinking from it. The monotone adopted while chronicling these trivial actions conveys the chilling truth of how much gravity is being accorded to affairs considered undeserving of even a passing mention in a former way of life.

Thus, I refuse to join in the chorus of complaints. The very visceral and undiluted reaction the narrative elicited from me as a reader, caused me to refrain from belittling McCarthy's gift for utilizing the same old genre tropes to offer such insightful commentary on the human condition. And despite its bleak and nihilistic leanings, 'The Road' surprised me with its deft handling of a subject as sensitive as a parent-child relationship, a theme that is often explored in many fictional narratives but with varying degrees of success. More than any tear-inducing gimmickry, the relationship depicted here bears a frighteningly close resemblance to how things are in reality.

Our two unnamed vagrants, a listless father-son duo, who move down this seemingly endless road strewn with the debris of a world long gone and the echoes of a way of life no longer preserved, seemed to me to be representatives of a large majority of humans. The father acts as a kind of misery-sponge, enduring the brunt of all the vicissitudes of fate that await them on this cruel and unforgiving peregrination, while shielding the son from the same. And as the toil of this godforsaken journey wears the parent down to the point of no return, the child is familiarized with the brutalities of the world at large and gently shown the ways in which one can side-step all the unpleasantness and maintain an existence without challenging authority in any form. Isn't this what a majority of humans have been seeking to accomplish on an infinite loop? 'Survive and don't ask for trouble in any form.' is the motto etched onto the blank slate of our minds since childhood.

All the horrors lying in ambush for this father-son pair, starting from chance encounters with roving bands of cannibals to combating the evident threat of starvation and the bitter cold which freezes them to the bone, can be taken to be allegories of all the challenges of living that individually all of us have to contend with. The metaphorical road is just another minefield where one can never foresee the kind of evils one wrong step may unleash. All the lawless laws, by which the world is governed once the formerly established edifice of order and organization has crumbled to dust, are deeply reminiscent of the relentless cycle of injustices institutionalized by our so-called 'civilization'. Just as the weak are preyed upon and devoured alive in this dystopia, the downtrodden and oppressed are victims of a sort of economic cannibalism enshrined in the 'laws' of our reality.

The scales are tipped ever in the favor of those who wield power in some form; in this dystopia it is the possession of a weapon, in ours it is the ownership of wealth.
n  

"The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all."

n
It disturbs me how near invisible the line of separation between an imagined dystopia and a real one is.

Two lonely figures appear out in the sparse, dark landscape walking by in the gloom going forward to oblivion probably, never resting until they find the nebulous nirvana; which may not be. A man and his boy both remain nameless throughout the book, hungry, tired, dispirited, wearing rags living if this is the proper word, trying to survive a world changed forever ... a bleak atmosphere where the strong kill the weak looking for any food...animal, vegetable or human, nothing is more paramount than getting a mouthful of nourishment no laws no parameters. The disaster that ended civilization is never explained some kind of plague? Man- made or natural does it matter either way...The father wants to move down the road from the excruciating cold of the snowy mountains urging his son unceasingly to reach the sea on what was California, but not anymore. Former cities never given their old names, rivers likewise what's the point, the dead places will never arise again. Meeting the few people trying to exist but trusting no one, the strangers steal everything, and leave nothing behind but mayhem, the only importance is to keep on breathing...the others are very expendable, even human flesh can be edible. The father loves the son, yet he doesn't believe in the goodness of beings, unlike the boy who sees the sufferings and wants to help the unfortunate. Still the dad knows the consequences himself of chance encounters , some people are of dubious nature. They destroy without feeling, slaughter or be slaughtered is their belief and get out of the way, the unlucky. No birds in the sky, fish in the sea or animals roaming the terrain , an eerie ambiance which brings depression to all as the desolation prevails. The rains come down soaking the two as they push their shopping cart with little inside but mud hinders, water temporary stops the hopeless journey, illness causes much misery lying on the freezing wet ground, entering homes which have seen better times grabbing the essentials however unappetizing it looks. Sleeping in the woods with fruitless trees hiding from the bad guys as the boy calls them, empty stomachs skinny bodies that weaken in each succeeding gray day, death around each corner. A classic in this genre the writer shows that this Earth is very unfeeling it does not care if the human race lives or dies. The question may be asked what price will humans strive for in order to continue, is the strong the future and the less sturdy buried in the past...

"n  They trudged all day, the boy in silence. By afternoon the slush had melted off the road and by evening it was dry. They didnt stop. How many miles? Ten, twelve.n"

This is the first book by Cormac McCarthy that I have read, and I enjoyed it. From the very beginning The Road struck me with its minimalistic, yet sometimes difficult to make your way through, and sometimes brutal language.
Anyone who decides to read this novel must be prepared to come across a number of uncommon and weird words. However, I would say, if after reading a few pages of this book its gloomy plotline and ‘strange’ language do not alienate you, you will probably end up loving it.

This is a story about the post-apocalyptic world where ashes, dust and smog are everywhere. Only few people have managed to survive some incomprehensible global catastrophe that happened several years ago, and now they constantly have to face challenges on their way. Finding food and drinkable water is the most formidable one among them. One hopeless day gives place to another, and there is hardly any chance that things in this world might improve.
While the majority of human beings and other living creatures disappeared from the Earth, bridges made of concrete remained intact.

This is a story about love and tenderness between two people, a father and his son, a boy aged 8 or 9, who do not have anyone in this world except for each other. They are travelling through scorched and barren lands. Wandering from one place to another, they are trying to find some food that will permit them to hold out till some new food supplies are discovered. They have only one ultimate goal which helps them tolerate the awful weather, when it constantly rains and there is nothing around but ashes and mud. The man and his son are heading south in order to reach the ocean, which symbolizes beauty and the future to both of them.
Even in such terrible circumstances, life goes on for these two wanderers, who are able to enjoy coffee and biscuits in a warm shelter discovered by accident. They are trying to remain humans at all costs, even in the most desperate position. Despite having a gun, the man is not going to resort to stealing from other people, let alone hurting them to get hold of their supplies.

This novel also tells us about a long and usually difficult journey which our life is. After all, we have only the present moment at our disposal, the past has already gone and the future is still unknown. At the same time, this unusual story does remind us that we have to keep trying and not give up, even if circumstances seem extremely unfavorable to us. In this sense, this 'dark' pessimistic book has an optimistic touch to it.

A man and his son trudge wearily through a barren post-apocalyptic landscape. It’s bitterly cold and desolate, everything grey under a thin patina of dirty ash. We don’t know what’s happened to the world but we know it’s been catastrophic.
We don’t know who the man and boy are, but we do know that the man is terrified for his son’s future, and that their bond is the only good thing left.
The feeling of creeping unease and fear is palpable.
Shadowy, misshapen towns occasionally appear in the distance, but they always prove to be empty, wind blown and stripped bare.
What glimpses there are of fellow survivors are nightmarish.
I thought at first the odd joke, ironic turn of phrase or even marauding zombie would be welcome to lighten the load, but I was wrong, this is a short book and the common dystopian thriller tropes weren’t needed.
The Road is a searing, incredibly powerful novel with a gripping narrative and an emotional gut punch that’s hard to shrug off as you close the book.
Its a modern classic and a bleak warning against the myriad ways in which we can destroy the world around us.
This definitely isn’t a feel good novel to shake off the pandemic blues, but I’m happy I’ve found Cormac McCarthy and I’m excited to read more.

Apocalyptic
Cormac McCarthy’s best selling book The Road tells the story of a father and son warily travelling across post-apocalyptic America, hoping to reach a place of sanctuary. The atmosphere drapes the reader in a throbbing dread for the characters’ lives and the acute anxiety of a father to keep his son safe. Cormac McCarthy uniquely and unexpectedly creates a mesmeric story out of pure gloom and hopelessness. Everything is stripped away, including the names of the man and his son. The writing style is concise, and the dialogue is short and clipped, adding to the scarce sense of existence.

The environment is dreary and lifeless, where nothing grows, and the only way they can live is by finding food stores of canned or dried goods from homes long abandoned. Other survivors have resorted to cannibalism, and the two must be constantly aware of the dangers and risks as they travel, The Road. The father’s greatest fear is of dying and leaving his son to the mercy of scavengers.

Our emotions and fear are heightened further as we watch the father’s health deteriorating as he starts to cough up blood. The reality of leaving his son is fast approaching, and we feel the emptiness of despair. Should he use his pistol to kill the son rather than leave him alone? The decisions and torments are palpable.

With everything brought to its bleakest and most depressed state, the deep, unconditional love between the father and son screams unreservedly. The ending won’t disappoint and will resonate with you long after you’ve finished.

This novel is a classic in atmospheric horror writing! I would highly recommend this book.

This is a very dark book. It is a sort of a post- apocalyptic western told as a long, somewhat poetic nightmare.

It is about a man and his son who survived the Apocalypse (some sort of a global fire, not many details are revealed) . They wake up each day walking towards the South hoping to live another day. Why are they going south? The only reason stated in the book is the hope that it would be warmer. Every day they face death, starvation, disease, extreme cold, hopelessness. There is no long term goal, only the need to survive but not with all cost. The man and the child are „the good guys” and they are trying not to hurt other human beings, even if sometimes it is impossible. The are constantly on the run from hordes of cannibals which are hunting any survivor.

All the world is grey, unknown, the toxic ash is everywhere. There are some glimpses of the past that offer slight information on how things came to be but not much.

The prose is very repetitive, there are very few concrete details with not record of time. The repetitiveness might help to introduce the reader into the bleak, hopeless atmosphere but, in my opinion, does not make the book an attractive read. There is a lot of small conversation between the man and the boy which is almost the same every time. „We have to get going”, „Are you ok?”, „I’m ok”, “I’m scared”, “it’s ok, don’t be scared”. The dialog is not separately marked and you have to guess who is saying what. Not that it actually matters.

I think that this repetitiveness of the banal dialogue and of some of the descriptions was the main reason why I could not enjoy the book too much. I did not manage to care about the characters or to get involve in story. The language is poetic in some parts and there are some interesting abstract comments about life and death but otherwise it failed to impress me. All I felt was the cold. The author made a good job making me feel cold all the time while I was reading the book. That probably happened because the weather outside is also bleak and cold and in sink with the atmosphere of the book.

I sort of feel guilty I did not like this book more as I know it is seen as a masterpiece. However, I am willing to read more by the author.