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The Road – Bookcast #17
The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy
The Road is Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the journey of a father and his young son through a dying post-apocalyptic world.
The Road is about the depravation of humanity and the reasons we continue in the face of despair. This novel is brutal and devastating, but it's also about the rarest of all miracles: Hope.
Read and listen to "The Road" on Amazon!
Want more great books? Check out our MUST READ LIST!
"The Road" Show Notes
0:00 - Intro to "The Road"
McCarthy wrote this novel as an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best parts of humanity. He forces us to confront horrible truths but he also shows us how to keep going even when everything looks hopeless.Intended audience: Anyone who struggles with existential angst, anyone who is (or wants to be) a parent, and anyone who likes dark, brutal stories with incredible writing and great charactersWho won't like it: People who need an upbeat story, people who don’t like poetic, descriptive writing and people who can’t handle explicit descriptions of cruelty and depraved behavior
5:30 - How easy is the book to read?
Difficult. The reading itself is easy; the subject matter is not at all. You’re going to go through some dark, painful experiences reading this book. This is a HORROR novel.Print: 287 pages (6-8 hours to read)Audio: 6 hrs 37 minutes
6:00 - Reviews and significance of "The Road"
6,110 reviews -- 4.2 Stars (Major critique: Readers couldn't handle the bleak, depressing tone and explicitly cruel behavior of certain characters)Currently: #29 Amazon - Contemporary Fiction (entire category)#100 Amazon - Literary Sagas#110 Audible - Science Fiction (entire category)#124 Audible - Literary Fiction (entire category)
7:00 - Book-to-Movie Translation
Matt: Amazing actors, cinematography and tone of movie very much what I imaginedJay: The story is intensely personal and subjective, mostly happening inside the mind of the protagonist. A movie can't capture that experience. I don't recommend the movie.
8:30 - Bio of Cormac McCarthy
Charles McCarthy, Jr, is an American novelist, playwright, short-story writer, and screenwriterBorn 1933 in Rhode Island (He’s currently 87 years old), third of six childrenRenamed himself “Cormac” after the Irish kingHe saw no value in school (although he enjoyed dozens of hobbies) and he dropped out of college twice - first to join the Air Force, then after the Air Force he went back and he quit again. He never graduated.Spent two of his four years in the AF in Alaska where he hosted a radio showAfter college he wrote his first novel, The Orchard Keeper, while he was working as an auto mechanic. It was published when he was 32Although they had varying degrees of critical acclaim, none of McCarthy’s first five novels sold more than 5k hardcover copies.Even though he made almost no money for several decades, he did receive multiple writing grants (including a Mac Arthur “genius” Fellowship in 1981 for $236,000) which helped finance his writing and enabled him to travel throughout the US and EuropeHis first commercially successful novel was All the Pretty Horses (1992) which sold 190,000 hardcover copies. McCarthy was 59 years old.McCarthy speaks Spanish fluently, which he learned while living in Ibiza, SpainQuit drinking alcohol more than 30 years ago. “'The friends I do have are simply those who quit drinking,' he says. 'If there is an occupational hazard to writing, it's drinking."He does all his writing on an old-fashioned Olivetti electric typewriterHe is known for his bleak style of writing in all his novels. As a result, he has been labelled the "great pessimist of American literature."He’s written ten novels, including No Country for Old Men (which was made into the classic Coen Brothers movie that won 4 Academy Awards). The Road (2006) is his most recent novel. He’s also written two screenplays and two stage plays.
12:00 - Major T
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By Wearesuperiormen.comThe Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy
The Road is Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the journey of a father and his young son through a dying post-apocalyptic world.
The Road is about the depravation of humanity and the reasons we continue in the face of despair. This novel is brutal and devastating, but it's also about the rarest of all miracles: Hope.
Read and listen to "The Road" on Amazon!
Want more great books? Check out our MUST READ LIST!
"The Road" Show Notes
0:00 - Intro to "The Road"
McCarthy wrote this novel as an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best parts of humanity. He forces us to confront horrible truths but he also shows us how to keep going even when everything looks hopeless.Intended audience: Anyone who struggles with existential angst, anyone who is (or wants to be) a parent, and anyone who likes dark, brutal stories with incredible writing and great charactersWho won't like it: People who need an upbeat story, people who don’t like poetic, descriptive writing and people who can’t handle explicit descriptions of cruelty and depraved behavior
5:30 - How easy is the book to read?
Difficult. The reading itself is easy; the subject matter is not at all. You’re going to go through some dark, painful experiences reading this book. This is a HORROR novel.Print: 287 pages (6-8 hours to read)Audio: 6 hrs 37 minutes
6:00 - Reviews and significance of "The Road"
6,110 reviews -- 4.2 Stars (Major critique: Readers couldn't handle the bleak, depressing tone and explicitly cruel behavior of certain characters)Currently: #29 Amazon - Contemporary Fiction (entire category)#100 Amazon - Literary Sagas#110 Audible - Science Fiction (entire category)#124 Audible - Literary Fiction (entire category)
7:00 - Book-to-Movie Translation
Matt: Amazing actors, cinematography and tone of movie very much what I imaginedJay: The story is intensely personal and subjective, mostly happening inside the mind of the protagonist. A movie can't capture that experience. I don't recommend the movie.
8:30 - Bio of Cormac McCarthy
Charles McCarthy, Jr, is an American novelist, playwright, short-story writer, and screenwriterBorn 1933 in Rhode Island (He’s currently 87 years old), third of six childrenRenamed himself “Cormac” after the Irish kingHe saw no value in school (although he enjoyed dozens of hobbies) and he dropped out of college twice - first to join the Air Force, then after the Air Force he went back and he quit again. He never graduated.Spent two of his four years in the AF in Alaska where he hosted a radio showAfter college he wrote his first novel, The Orchard Keeper, while he was working as an auto mechanic. It was published when he was 32Although they had varying degrees of critical acclaim, none of McCarthy’s first five novels sold more than 5k hardcover copies.Even though he made almost no money for several decades, he did receive multiple writing grants (including a Mac Arthur “genius” Fellowship in 1981 for $236,000) which helped finance his writing and enabled him to travel throughout the US and EuropeHis first commercially successful novel was All the Pretty Horses (1992) which sold 190,000 hardcover copies. McCarthy was 59 years old.McCarthy speaks Spanish fluently, which he learned while living in Ibiza, SpainQuit drinking alcohol more than 30 years ago. “'The friends I do have are simply those who quit drinking,' he says. 'If there is an occupational hazard to writing, it's drinking."He does all his writing on an old-fashioned Olivetti electric typewriterHe is known for his bleak style of writing in all his novels. As a result, he has been labelled the "great pessimist of American literature."He’s written ten novels, including No Country for Old Men (which was made into the classic Coen Brothers movie that won 4 Academy Awards). The Road (2006) is his most recent novel. He’s also written two screenplays and two stage plays.
12:00 - Major T