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I have learnt the hard way not to read this man. I will follow your advice here to the letter.

Good review - I also did not like this book - you can checkout my bile that a spewed upon it. I think we disagree with the crafstman ship of Cormac. I'm sure he "does" know how to write but the fact that he "chose" not to in this really bugged me. So many of the sentences were so convulated and run-on and poorly structured (all purposeful I'm sure) but it made me read and re-read them 3 - 4 times and that is just plain annoying.

Your review is spot-on. You're right, it has to be allegorical. However, I have no idea what it's an allegory for.

I do not understand your review at all. Every great tale does not have to have some secret meaning. Enjoy a story for what it is...a story. This is a gripping tale of a man's will to survive and protect his son in the most trying of circumstances. McCarthy is a great writer and teller of tales. He was telling a tale...not teaching some hidden lesson.

And Moby Dick was just a fish story.

One star...? Really, Richard?

I found this book very moving. But then again hopelessness and despair is my general worldview, so McCarthy's preaching to the choir here.

It was a tough book to review. If semantics matter, I didn't dislike this book, I hated it. I thought it was a well-crafted piece of poison. I don't mind darkness in a book -- I'm reading Heart of Darkness now -- but McCarthy's book was, in my opinion, darker than it actually intended to be.

Many years after his catastrophe he describes a world completely devoid of natural life, besides those few humans (and, perhaps, a pet or two) that are scavenging on dwindling leftovers. If there is nary a smudge of moss or blade of grass after that much time, then those survivors are doomed. Man's love for his child? Yeah, but the kid's gonna die anyway.

Richard wrote: "It was a tough book to review. If semantics matter, I didn't dislike this book, I hated it. I thought it was a well-crafted piece of poison. I don't mind darkness in a book -- I'm reading"

You are not alone in your opinion Richard, but I fear we are a minority to be sure.

Boredom and detachment sum up a lot of what I felt as well - the dialog, while purposefully simplistic really got on my nerves - if a less known writer would have submitted this work they would have been rejected.

I wish I could sympathize with you and others, such as Robin, who have so thoroughly panned this book. Sadly, I feel you have been presented a masterwork and complained that it didn't make you feel happy in the way that a saccharine-laced airport novel would. I won't bother arguing with you over it, but simply say I feel that you have truly misunderstood a gem.

And I can only conclude from your insulting comments that you are an fool who (a) didn't read my review with any attention to detail (Did you skip the part where I wrote "The author is a mighty craftsman with his prose, and the story is haunting -- but the final result is a foul nightmare, best forgotten," or are you just too idiotic to comprehend it?), and (b) doesn't have a cranium big enough to tolerate differing opinions without being a condescending jerk.

Bryant wrote: "I wish I could sympathize with you and others, such as Robin, who have so thoroughly panned this book. Sadly, I feel you have been presented a masterwork and complained that it didn't make you feel happy in the way that a saccharine-laced airport novel would. I won't bother arguing with you over it, but simply say I feel that you have truly misunderstood a gem."

For the record, I am one of those who thoroughly panned the novel. I don't want saccharine-laced novels. In fact, I usually hate novels that are sickeningly sweet. One of my favorite novels of all time is Beloved by Toni Morrison. It makes me feel like I've been beaten up and left to die. I have a bachelor's degree in English lit and have had to read and write about a large variety of literature. I am also a science fiction fan. My favorite sub-genre is post-apocalyptic fiction. On all levels, I thought The Road was a terrible book. I did not misunderstand it. I understood it all too well. It was a pretentious piece of crap pretending to be Literature with a capital "L".

Also, for the record, no great literature would have had that freaking happy ending that didn't fit with anything that came before.

I feel personally insulted by your comment, Bryant, and I will defend myself and other well-read, intelligent people who hated this book as much as I did.

Bryant wrote: "I wish I could sympathize with you and others, such as Robin, who have so thoroughly panned this book. Sadly, I feel you have been presented a masterwork and complained that it didn't make you feel..."

Well its not like I care only for "happy books" and it is not that this book dealt with heavy or depressing subjects that I objected most. The book was dull, boring. HOw many times can the man and the boy have this conversation.....

"I'm scared"

"I know"

"Okay."

Just because the emperor has no clothes doesn't make this a masterpiece. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and just because I didn't like it doesn't mean I'm not able to appreciate "fine literature". I agree with Sandi It was a pretentious piece of crap pretending to be Literature with a capital "L".

Ok, Uncle Richard, so I thought about your review as I was reading it, and I have to say I mostly agree with you. It certainly is a "festering wasteland of despair." In addition to the depressing subject matter, McCarthy's writing style drove me NUTS. For argument's sake, let's say the terrible sentence structure was crucial to the tone of the novel. Fine. But does the man think he is too good for punctuation? Too good to hyphenate, McCarthy? Huh? Huh?
Anyway, the whole thing was one big drag from beginning to end, and it even gave me nightmares when I slept last night. The only thing that prevents me from giving it a single star, is that the author knows exactly what it means to be a parent. The protagonist knows that the only logical thing to do is murder-suicide. It is better than being harvested for cannibal stew. It is better than slowly starving to death or freezing to death, or both. And yet, when the time comes, he cannot bring himself to kill his child. He will literally walk through hell and back (for all intents and purposes) to avoid their inevitable fate. It's stupid. But that's that I would do, too.
It's a terrible story, and I hated it, but it makes a little bit of sense. So.

Oddly enough, I'm okay with the funky style. It took me a while to get used to it, but it didn't really get in the way. Clearly you shouldn't read James Joyce's Ulysses, I would think. (That link is to the 1-star reviews, which are kinda fun to read).

I can definitely see your point about the parental love aspect, too.

"Many years after his catastrophe he describes a world completely devoid of natural life, besides those few humans (and, perhaps, a pet or two) that are scavenging on dwindling leftovers. If there is nary a smudge of moss or blade of grass after that much time, then those survivors are doomed. Man's love for his child? Yeah, but the kid's gonna die anyway."

The book ends on a positive note. The boy miraculously is found by a decent guy from a band of people who are surviving in the wild. It's been a while since I read (listened to actually) the book but if I remember correctly the man talks about there beings signs of life high up in the mountains... I also liked the analogy with the fire which the man talks about in the book. It seems to me that in this and his other books McCarthy is examining how people can keep alive the good (the fire) in spite of an evil world. That's just my sense of it.

That all being said I gave up on trying to read Blood Meridian :P

I recall it differently. I seem to remember that some of the characters hope that they'll find life in the mountains, and plan on that as their ultimate destination.

But if the unnamed disasters was so extraordinary that even fungi and microbes no longer exist to rot fruit, then I think it such a hope is unfounded. Remember that the atmosphere is constantly transporting microbes throughout the world.

Which is why I think the book is a fraud, and why it doesn't deserve the accolades it received. The kid is going to die because everyone is going to die, and the "ends on a positive note" is just McCarthy lying to his readers.

hehe perhaps. I would have to go look at the book again to get a feeling for that but the way I left it at the time was with a kind of hopeful view. To be honest I find McCarthy to have a pretty misanthropic view of man but I just really enjoyed the prose of the book and its imagery. That's what really stood out for me.

My only evidence of his misanthropy is this book and the Coen brothers' adaptation of his No Country for Old Men. I think the Coens are brilliant, and the movie was brilliant, but I'd come to the same conclusion.

The amount of violence and evil he portrays is over the top. Slasher flicks and horror stories are too over-the-top to be believable, but McCarthy presents his stories as if these things were an everyday occurrence, which I think promotes an unhealthy amount of fear.

As the bathroom graffiti has it:

Dear America,
 Enrage me with FEAR
so I feel justified in my violence.

I think McCarthy is a sick man.

Richard wrote: "My only evidence of his misanthropy is this book and the Coen brothers' adaptation of his No Country for Old Men. I think the Coens are brilliant, and the movie was brilliant, but I'd come to the s..."

I'd agree with that based on the interviews I've read with him. Personally he comes across as emotionally stilted which is what I find in his books, although he does also do interviews very well. It's interesting that academics seem to label him a 'sick genius' or 'a mislabelled genius.'