by Cathryn_Conroy: I am on a quest to read the winners of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, which is the only reason I read this book after reading the publisher’s rather harrowing plot description:
“A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.”
Apocalyptic novels are a tough read at any time, but especially now. Still, that Pulitzer Prize quest thing.
Yes, this novel by Cormac McCarthy, which won the Pulitzer in 2006, is difficult, distressing, and depressing. But it is also an extraordinary book with majestic, spare writing that seems to mimic the gray, bitterly cold, and ash-covered American landscape in which the novel is set.
But there is hope in this truly hopeless, devastated world, and it is found in the love between the father and son and what they do for one another to survive.
Something has destroyed the Earth, including virtually all human, animal, and plant life. What that something is is never disclosed. A man and his little boy have survived, and they trudge day by day to get to the coast where it may be warmer. It is tough going. They are almost always cold. And wet. And hungry. And the man has a bloody cough that comes on in spells and utterly consumes him. But the most dangerous part of all is avoiding other people because many of those who did survive have become sadistic cannibals. So the man and his son—neither of whom is ever named—must travel so no one sees them to avoid being captured. They live in fear every day and every night. The sun is gone. Everything is covered in ash. And it is so so cold.
But the man tells the boy—inculcates it into him, actually—that the two of them are the good guys. And they “carry the fire,” which means they are honorable, upright, and moral people. That is the crux of the novel, it’s real purpose: the battle between good and evil, and in this book good wins as seen through the eyes of a compassionate, benevolent child who has never known any other way of life.
The ending? It is heartbreakingly sad, but there is a glimmer of hope, a shard of light.
