Some Ponderings on The Road

So first I think I should make it clear that I haven't finished The Road yet, but I am getting very close, and also very frustrated. I just want to know what happened to the world, and what caused it, and just....why. I guess it could be some sort of nuclear war or natural disaster (I don't know), but the fact that they haven't seen the sun in years is throwing me off. Honestly, all I can think about is one of the theories about why the dinosaurs went extinct (when a meteor hit and kicked up so much dust the sun was covered and it was freezing cold and plants died and the planet plunged into an ice age, you know.) It would just be so much more interesting to read if I knew whether McCarthy was making a statement about the danger of humans and carelessness to ourselves and everything on this planet or not.

Another question would be: why don't the man and the boy have names? I realized that it was odd early on in the book, but it really stood out to me when they met the old man on the road and he introduced himself as Ely (even though he was lying anyway). He never asked for their names at all, as if it didn't even matter. Are they intentionally anonymous, just for the purpose of symbolism? To mean that at times like that, when your only goal is survival, your identity doesn't matter anymore? It just seems rather ironic, because the relationship between the man and the boy is obvious (father and son) and their personalities shine through anyway. They care for each other more than anything else in the world. They are both selfless toward each other, and the man even puts the boys life (or rather, his lack of suffering before death) before his own. Their personalities still show despite their namelessness, like when the boy runs down the road or goes for a swim or laughs when the cart flies down the hill. The man dreams of the life he had and the dangers of the present day, and his role as a father is the main influence over his actions. The boy is brave, patient, selfless, and loyal, and the father is protective, innovative, logical, and desperate. They may be nameless, but they are far from generic. In contrast, almost all of the people they meet on the road are generic, and often go undescribed, other than being identified as men or women.

Anyway, moving on. The lack of punctuation (including apostrophes and quotation marks) is.....well, it's interesting. I watched an interview that McCarthy did with Oprah where he explained why he wrote that way (simply for the purpose of making his literature simple and straightforward), which I understand. But there have been times when I have had to go back and reread dialogue sections because I lose track of who is talking. The man and the boy speak so similarly, because the boy is so mature. It would be interesting to know how old the boy actually is, since he doesn't often act like a child but his father still treats him like one.

Additionally, the coast. What would motivate the man to travel to the coast? I was under the impression he was hoping for warmer weather there and a better chance of survival, but they have just arrived there and from what I have read the climate seems to be the same, if not drearier. The boy was clearly hoping for some salvation or rescue and was disappointed when there was none, and I guess that may be why he was crying when he came back from swimming. He realized what he had hoped for all that time didn't exist, and the only difference now was that there was nowhere else to go. Unfortunately many other people seem to have ad the same notion as the man did, because more and more often the man and the boy encounter "the bad guys" on the road as they approach the coast (of the Gulf of Mexico?)

The boy refers to himself and his father as "the good guys" because they "carry the fire." I just don't understand what he means by that, because he has seen that even the "bad guys" carry fire, and he made this statement about himself even after his father had dropped the lighter in the horrific cellar and they had no way to light a fire at all. I just....I don't understand. Just putting it out there as a thought.

I've given up on interesting segues at this point. How is the boy so smart? He talked about Mars and he knows how to read the map (although that isn't quite as shocking) and he can read. He even talks about God sometimes. How could a young(?) boy in the middle of an apocalyptic catastrophe have time to learn how to read and develop religious beliefs? Wouldn't such a terrible situation take those beliefs away? In so many Holocaust documentaries, Jewish survivors speak about their faith being taken from them, because they didn't believe that their God would allow them to be in such a situation. How then, can this boy, who was born into chaos, believe in something as wonderful as Heaven, when one of the best experiences of his life was drinking a Coca-Cola on the floor of an abandoned supermarket?

Lastly, who is the woman in the man's dreams? Is it his wife who took her life? Or is it some siren, luring him to death? I mean, there probably is no real answer, but it is interesting to think about nonetheless.

Anyway, there are just some of my musings on the road. Obviously this book has a theme about savagery becoming instinctive once the restrictions of society disappear and desperation takes over, similar to the theme in Lord of the Flies. However, instead of a small group of children being isolated from society on a small island, there are adults left to wander in a dying world.

Driving in Silence

It's scary.

You can hear all the weird noises your car makes, and you constantly think "What was that? Oh god I'm about to break down in the middle of the suburban countryside oh god."

You can hear all the leaves in the road skittering around and rustling when you go around curves, and everything just feels so fast, especially in the dark.

When you're sitting at stoplights, if there's anybody else around, you can sometimes hear their music, and it's just so weird because you feel like you're invading their privacy, even though you're doing the same thing you've always done and sitting innocently in your car in adjacent lanes. But then you start thinking (I was at the longest light ever ok) and you feel like they're listening to you too, even though you are sitting there in petrified silence. So then you wonder, what are they hearing (besides their loud music)? What are they thinking about?

And it's scary.

When you have the radio on, there's always some song you've sung along to with your friends or presidential ads you've analyzed in government class. There's commercials for concerts to go to, sales to take advantage of, charity events to contribute to. There's talk shows by the hosts that seem so familiar, even though if you think about it (which I didn't, until just tonight) you don't know them at all. You probably don't even know what they look like.

But once that radio is turned off, all of those connections are gone, and it's just you and your car and whatever is on your mind. When else do you get a chance to be completely alone like that? 

Your thoughts are so vivid and powerful when you drive in complete silence, in the dark, in an unfamiliar patch of woods in late fall. You realize the things that are most important to you, because you think of them first and dwell on them the longest; not because someone else bought them up or reminded you, but because you thought about them yourself.

Maybe knowing yourself is the scariest part.