" I cant. I cant hold my son dead in my arms. I thought I could but I cant.
You said you wouldn't ever leave me.
I know. I'm sorry..." (McCarthy 279)
You said you wouldn't ever leave me.
I know. I'm sorry..." (McCarthy 279)
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Quick Summary (spoiler alert)This book is about a father in son in a post-apocalyptic world, although it is never expressly stated how the world came to be this way, the father and son travel and try to survive in the world they are in. As the book starts there is no major conflict aside from life's circumstances (being the blistering cold, respiratory disease, and starvation), however as the novel continues, the man and the boy travel across the country to the southeast to escape the fear of hypothermia, running into gangs of cannibals and murderers. These conflicts allow the boy to develop and the father to meet his inevitable death.
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Meta-Cognitive ReaderThis book has been one of the slowest books I have ever read, many of the conflicts having to do with coughing blood, getting a shopping cart through rough terrain, and starvation, although there were conflicts of being shot, stealing, and even cannibalism, the minor issues were still favored over these in my mind. This is due to the unique writing style of McCarthy, he allowed it to be seen from the view of the characters and noticed even the smallest of issues. I personally loved this book, it was riveting even while slow.
During the scene from early in the book of having to get the shopping cart under a truck, McCarthy allowed the reader to learn more of the characters and who they are, making this almost seem like a necessary conflict toward the progression of the novel. In the sections of real conflict of dire circumstance, the author gave a perspective of a flashlight almost, seeing just what he wanted you to see while the rest was pushed out, just as someone who had gone through the tragedy would see or remember, this was one of my favorite aspects of the book, although much of it had seemed uneventful, it seemed real and McCarthy did an excellent job of luring the reader into it. This compares to other books of literary merit in his ability to show complex topics, however he does not do so in the same manner, McCarthy uses the characters (and their short utterances of dialogue to show a less complex standard of values, good vs.evil, love, effort, persistence, and enjoyment. |
ReccomendationIf you are a deep individual who loves to see different world views from other perspectives I would definitely recommend this novel to you. It's full of deep concepts, however the author uses the boy to give an uneducated approach to them and show them from an angle not commonly displayed, while using the father to enforce strict morals that should not waiver. The setting of a post-apocalyptic wasteland riddled with ash and death allows McCarthy to exploit the potential deaths of the father and the boy in order to give complex dialogue in a calm, relaxed, and almost repressed nature as displayed by the quote, "I'll talk to you every day, he whispered. And I wont forget. No matter what." (McCormic 286 This was the most complex statement that was said by the boy on his father's deathbed. It is an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone, especially individuals who enjoy post-apocalyptic reads or reads of advanced moral testing.
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Questions
- Why did the author never mention the names of the father and son?
- Why was the shopping cart and the jagged terrain mentioned so frequently?
- What happened to make the world how it was?
- Why were there no quotation marks throughout the book?
- Why did the author choose to have the book end with the first distinctly morally upright character they've seen for the full duration of the book?
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