I can only imagine McCarthy sitting somewhere desolate, isolated, feeling very proud of himself for creating one of the most baffling endings of all time.
By the end of The Road, we know someone has died. By normal clues, you are led to believe that the man has died, but my spidey senses are tingling. I suspect the boy might have actually died. After all, one does not simply walk into mordoor, nor does one simply walk away from weeks of high fever and malnutrition.
As was earlier stated, the boy was incredibly sick just before the death. The author failed to explain how or why he got miraculously better, and I refuse to believe it, honestly.
In addition, the man talks about not being able to go with the boy, which sounds like the boy is dying and leaving him, to me. Granted that he might have been talking about not being able to walk down the road with him anymore, but considering what happens next, I'm led to think that the man is actually saying he can't die with the boy. Or at least that he can't go to the same sort of afterlife.
When whoever dies, the boy is sort of "collected" by another man. Explain to me, though, how out of all the people we've met on the road, all the scoundrels, cannibals, cadavers, thieves, and cutthroats, we have at last one man and an entire family able to survive and willing to take him in. Isn't this what the boy has been dreaming of the entire time? Wouldn't that serve as HIS heaven??
Mostly I can't get past the fact that, once he is dead and with this family, he is told about God. And what's funny is that if he's in heaven like I suspect, he doesn't believe in God traditionally. And that's cool, I'm good with that. But now he's come to worship his "father" and pray to him as if he were a lost God. In a child's eyes, totally understandable.
Not quite sure what McCarthy was trying to say about the rest of society, there. I'm gonna go with something along the lines of "God is dead if you perceive him to be. God is perceivable through each one of us".
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Themes from American Literature
My lack of creativity astounds even me.
My inability to think far enough ahead to post a video I made weeks ago, also astounds even me.
And then there's that moment when Blogger refuses to upload your video. And youtube says it's estimating about 70 minutes to upload.
My inability to think far enough ahead to post a video I made weeks ago, also astounds even me.
And then there's that moment when Blogger refuses to upload your video. And youtube says it's estimating about 70 minutes to upload.
A Rant From A Creator
As a writer, I was intrigued and impressed. As a reader, I was confused beyond any help. The majority of my experience with The Road can be summed up with a single expression, which, for the my future's sake, shall not be displayed on the internet. I CAN tell you, however, that it is a look of deep consternation, which is often mistaken for pain or diarrhea.
Mostly the trouble came from something my AP Lang teacher taught me to think of: which is that no good writer will put something in a novel of this caliber for fun. Everything written is written with a purpose, and they have a goal in mind every time they decide to type. Which is pretty troubling, honestly. Because a lot of my time, with my expression, was spend pondering that very thing.
I couldn't quite grasp every purpose in The Road. I couldn't quite understand the importance of every part. I know there must've been a deeper level to the footprints on the sand, a deeper meaning to the thief stealing their food. There must have been a point to the old man's skepticism, but either it all pointed towards the same earlier easily accessible truths, or I'm challenged in some way. Most of the road's parts seemed to be pointing me towards the same thing: the boy is slowly losing the innocence his father so desperately clings to. Which is all well and good, and makes for excellent story-telling, obviously, but doesn't necessarily warrant 287 pages of small print.
I guess my point is that I genuinely tried to enjoy reading The Road. I feel like McCarthy had some important things to say, and I understood some of them. But I'm not sure that the three things I was able to discern really deserved a Pulitzer.
I have no problem with The Road. I just felt like I was on one nearly as torturous while reading it.
Mostly the trouble came from something my AP Lang teacher taught me to think of: which is that no good writer will put something in a novel of this caliber for fun. Everything written is written with a purpose, and they have a goal in mind every time they decide to type. Which is pretty troubling, honestly. Because a lot of my time, with my expression, was spend pondering that very thing.
I couldn't quite grasp every purpose in The Road. I couldn't quite understand the importance of every part. I know there must've been a deeper level to the footprints on the sand, a deeper meaning to the thief stealing their food. There must have been a point to the old man's skepticism, but either it all pointed towards the same earlier easily accessible truths, or I'm challenged in some way. Most of the road's parts seemed to be pointing me towards the same thing: the boy is slowly losing the innocence his father so desperately clings to. Which is all well and good, and makes for excellent story-telling, obviously, but doesn't necessarily warrant 287 pages of small print.
I guess my point is that I genuinely tried to enjoy reading The Road. I feel like McCarthy had some important things to say, and I understood some of them. But I'm not sure that the three things I was able to discern really deserved a Pulitzer.
I have no problem with The Road. I just felt like I was on one nearly as torturous while reading it.
Rhetoric Study
You'd be astonished at how much one can pull from a paragraph.
Page 54, Cormac McCarthy's The Road:
"No list of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you."
If "whoa" was not the first thing that popped into your head, I pity you.
First of all, please take note of the grammatical structure of the sentences. In my eyes, this is direct representation of a train of thought. A lot of fractures, a lot of pauses, a lot of things that don't technically flow, but seem right because they're representative of the same dysfunctionality we experience in each syntactical lapse within our own patterns.
Secondly, take note of the way each phrase builds on the preceding phrases, in three segments. The first segment starts with "no" and ends with the second "later". The second segment begins with "all" and ends with "ashes", and the third is the remainder. Each segment displays a flowing process, and is then cut rather harshly by the next segment. Overall they form a complete point, each SEGMENT building onto the next, like the individual sentences or phrases build within the segment. So each segment builds up a partial point, and the entire paragraph contains the entirety of his point.
The point, by the way, is that nothing of this life matters anymore. Beautiful things are born within pain and despair, and the father judges that this level of pain and despair (you know, apocalypse and whatnot) was great enough to warrant the birth of something equal in magnitude but opposite in nature: his son.
Page 54, Cormac McCarthy's The Road:
"No list of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you."
If "whoa" was not the first thing that popped into your head, I pity you.
First of all, please take note of the grammatical structure of the sentences. In my eyes, this is direct representation of a train of thought. A lot of fractures, a lot of pauses, a lot of things that don't technically flow, but seem right because they're representative of the same dysfunctionality we experience in each syntactical lapse within our own patterns.
Secondly, take note of the way each phrase builds on the preceding phrases, in three segments. The first segment starts with "no" and ends with the second "later". The second segment begins with "all" and ends with "ashes", and the third is the remainder. Each segment displays a flowing process, and is then cut rather harshly by the next segment. Overall they form a complete point, each SEGMENT building onto the next, like the individual sentences or phrases build within the segment. So each segment builds up a partial point, and the entire paragraph contains the entirety of his point.
The point, by the way, is that nothing of this life matters anymore. Beautiful things are born within pain and despair, and the father judges that this level of pain and despair (you know, apocalypse and whatnot) was great enough to warrant the birth of something equal in magnitude but opposite in nature: his son.
Character Study
It took about a two hours for me to gather my thoughts on this particular post, which, if you know me at all, is incredibly rare. Usually if I'm given about five minutes, I have formulated a game plan for how I want to present the information, and a rough outline of the information I think it particularly pertinent. That being said, I make no guarantees that this post genuinely captures everything that needs to be said, or even all that I want to say about it. It's also not a good sign that I give a disclaimer, in light of the too-high standards I set for myself and the arrogance with which I approach writing.
THAT being said, I think of these two character as archetypal representations. In dreams and in songs have I heard this book, which says to me that these two characters are actually everywhere in life now. With that, I am reminded of my brother's favorite hobby: Tarot Readings. I've learned that each card represents an archetype, which by Dictionary.com's definition is, "a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches". I''m sure you're familiar with the concept.
In any event, I see these two as present in all things. They are more ideas than they are people, to me. Enforcing this notion is the fact that the characters are never described in greater detail than their dirtiness and the man's unshaven face. They are never given names, nor ages.
The Man:
Hopefully, I didn't get your hopes up by referencing the tarot, because I honestly know very little else about it. I can't cite a specific archetype the man represents to me, but rather a collection. Then man is knightly, in my eyes. He's a representative of justice in a corrupt world, but also of judgement itself in that he is forced to make decisions that directly effect the entirety of his view. He is the scale on which things are weighed and measured, but also the purveyor of justice once weight has been determined. Not terribly democratic, if you ask me.
Otherwise, he is also a protector of his child. This is mostly why he reminds me of knighthood. He does the dirty-work, so to speak. When anyone threatens their livelihood, the man instantly steps in and does not hesitate to use force. He stops at nothing to protect his child. There's even a scene near the end of the book, where he gets shot in the leg with an arrow, proceeds to throw himself on the child to protect him, and then fires into the general direction of the arrow's owner. He doesn't stop there, though. He covers the child in protective blankets, and then rushes the archer's perch (arrow still in tact), with the intent to kill. He has, at this point, completely lost all "Blood Innocence", if you believe in such a thing. But he's also strong enough of a force to protect something he believes in, but does not have. That's honor, if ever I saw it.
The Boy:
Dying hope encompasses what I feel for this little boy. He starts the novel an innocent creature, and ends it having lost a father and the innocence the man tried to preserve. He's sheltered physically and mentally for as long as the man can keep him, but he still manages to keep some of the most encouraging qualities of any of the humans we encounter in the novel. He doesn't want to kill anyone. He doesn't want to take anyone's food unless they've already died. He doesn't want to steal. He doesn't want to leave anyone without, when he has none left to give. This is the one worth fighting for. This is the one that a man would endure hell for.
He is inspiration, more than anything. The boy strikes hope in everyone he meets. Every beggar, every lost sole, every thief they encounter is touched by this boy in some way. Mostly because he is the last human left who would die before seeing another perish. He is the last of a dying thing, and it's not just hope. It's compassion. It's love. It's the need to put another over oneself. Cormac McCarthy isn't just saying that for this post-apocalyptic world, either. He's saying that this boy is rare today, now. This boy is a dying archetype, present in all times and all psyches. Or rather, not present any more.
THAT being said, I think of these two character as archetypal representations. In dreams and in songs have I heard this book, which says to me that these two characters are actually everywhere in life now. With that, I am reminded of my brother's favorite hobby: Tarot Readings. I've learned that each card represents an archetype, which by Dictionary.com's definition is, "a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches". I''m sure you're familiar with the concept.
In any event, I see these two as present in all things. They are more ideas than they are people, to me. Enforcing this notion is the fact that the characters are never described in greater detail than their dirtiness and the man's unshaven face. They are never given names, nor ages.
The Man:
Hopefully, I didn't get your hopes up by referencing the tarot, because I honestly know very little else about it. I can't cite a specific archetype the man represents to me, but rather a collection. Then man is knightly, in my eyes. He's a representative of justice in a corrupt world, but also of judgement itself in that he is forced to make decisions that directly effect the entirety of his view. He is the scale on which things are weighed and measured, but also the purveyor of justice once weight has been determined. Not terribly democratic, if you ask me.
Otherwise, he is also a protector of his child. This is mostly why he reminds me of knighthood. He does the dirty-work, so to speak. When anyone threatens their livelihood, the man instantly steps in and does not hesitate to use force. He stops at nothing to protect his child. There's even a scene near the end of the book, where he gets shot in the leg with an arrow, proceeds to throw himself on the child to protect him, and then fires into the general direction of the arrow's owner. He doesn't stop there, though. He covers the child in protective blankets, and then rushes the archer's perch (arrow still in tact), with the intent to kill. He has, at this point, completely lost all "Blood Innocence", if you believe in such a thing. But he's also strong enough of a force to protect something he believes in, but does not have. That's honor, if ever I saw it.
The Boy:
Dying hope encompasses what I feel for this little boy. He starts the novel an innocent creature, and ends it having lost a father and the innocence the man tried to preserve. He's sheltered physically and mentally for as long as the man can keep him, but he still manages to keep some of the most encouraging qualities of any of the humans we encounter in the novel. He doesn't want to kill anyone. He doesn't want to take anyone's food unless they've already died. He doesn't want to steal. He doesn't want to leave anyone without, when he has none left to give. This is the one worth fighting for. This is the one that a man would endure hell for.
He is inspiration, more than anything. The boy strikes hope in everyone he meets. Every beggar, every lost sole, every thief they encounter is touched by this boy in some way. Mostly because he is the last human left who would die before seeing another perish. He is the last of a dying thing, and it's not just hope. It's compassion. It's love. It's the need to put another over oneself. Cormac McCarthy isn't just saying that for this post-apocalyptic world, either. He's saying that this boy is rare today, now. This boy is a dying archetype, present in all times and all psyches. Or rather, not present any more.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Fifth Post
I’m starting to feel like there isn’t a destination on this road. The book is, of course, titled The Road, but I’m wondering if maybe the point is that they never find where they’re trying to go. It seems the little boy is trying to go to heaven, or hell, or whatever, but the man just wants to wander as long as he’s somewhere with his son. The place he’s trying to get to probably doesn’t exist anymore, honestly. He’s probably trying to get somewhere safe.
This is probably something important to keep in mind, honestly. We spend a lot of time in this life trying to get from point A to point B. I don’t blame them. I do this too. We live in a fast paced community, at least I do, and it is natural for us to miss the things we pass by on the way. Which sucks. I actually like smelling roses, if you know what I mean.
But it’s not just smelling the roses, taking in the scenery. It’s actually being a part of it. It’s feeling the people you’re with and accepting who you are in the moment. It’s understanding the direction you’re heading corresponds to the direction your life is heading. Is that where you really want to go? That’s something you can find out. That’s something you can thank McCarthy for.
I know this is a short post, and I don’t have much of an excuse other than the fact that I believe in these statements more than any of the others I have posted. I feel they are more true.
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