The Road - Cormac McCarthy

The Road follows a father and son (both unnamed) as they walk through a post-apocalyptic America (I think), travelling south to the sea and warmer weather. That really is it, no more no less. Everything they have, which is not very much, is loaded on to a supermarket trolley, and they carry essentials in knapsacks.

This is a very bleak, very haunting tale. McCarthy has not explained how the end of the world came about, nor does he go into details about the ensuing fallout; socially, politically or individually. The ash-ridden landscape with all plant and animal life destroyed suggests a nuclear holocaust, but that is just guesswork. What is definite is that some of the survivors have since turned to cannibalism. Even the background of the father and son is sketched out very hazily. All we know is that they have survived for a number of years (the mother gave up the struggle very early and took her own life) and that they are now heading south because they cannot survive another northern winter. The lack of detail bothered me to start with, but once I got pulled into the story, the questions became irrelevant.

The book is a meditation of survival and, as a result, of death. The duo fight starvation constantly. And they fight the fear of the unknown. Every person they meet on the road could be a potential cannibal or a thief. Several times in the book, the two argue over whether they should help another person they come across or whether they should jealously guard their meagre provisions. I found myself arguing this question with myself. What would I do?

I have not read many post-apocalyptic novels so I don't have much to compare this with. Actually I've read just one, The Stand by Stephen King, which was epic in proportion, and vastly different from The Road. I loved the language McCarthy has used - it is a pared down version of English, with no words or punctuation marks wasted. In fact he has completely done away with quotation marks and apostrophes. This takes some getting used to, but makes complete sense.

In one of the flashbacks, the mother urges him to kill their son rather than expose him to the harshness of life and to the possibility of capture by cannibal tribes. The father refuses. At this point I had to put the book down for a while and take control of my thoughts. One of the drawbacks of being a parent is that you can't read anything involving children without getting hopelessly involved!

One thing that spoiled the book for me is the current weather. The sun has finally come out in Wales and the weekend was a scorcher. Great, except that the book is set in freezing cold and the duo have to struggle with the chill every step of the way. I simply could not imagine it. Tip - do not read this book lying on a beach with a gaggle of toddlers building a sandcastle inches away!

I was interested to know that there is a film under production due to release this year. I could not find any videos, but here is a still. I must admit I imagined the boy as much younger, probably around 6 years. The boy in the film looks about 12; how did they survive 12 years?

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Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

Olive Kitteridge is the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize and author Elizabeth Strout's third work. It is an unusual novel, in that it is not really a novel but a collection of 13 short stories. I don't usually enjoy short stories very much, as they seem to finish just as I start to get involved with the characters, leaving me with a sense of incompleteness. But I made an exception for Olive Kitteridge and I'm glad I did.

The stories are all set in a small town in New England, and each is seen through the eyes of different residents. Olive features in all of them, though in some of them she is only mentioned (The Piano Player and Ship in a Bottle, for example). Taken together, they draw a picture of Olive as a person; whether it is a complimentary picture or a derogatory one is up to each reader to decide (the sub-title on the cover is "What will you make of her?" ). Personally I found Olive very disagreeable and brash and I would struggle to spend a lot of time with her. And yet, in the stories that are from her point of view, I couldn't help but feel terribly sorry for her. "She didn't like being alone. Even more, she didn't like being with people." This complexity in her character come through most forcefully in the story Security where she visits her son in New York and ends up having a blazing row with him, all the time wishing inside her head that the argument would stop.

There is a sense of overwhelming sadness in almost all the characters. Most couples are in dysfunctional relationships and most children have unexpressed grievances with their parents. I was most relieved to meet Jane and Bob in The Winter Concert, an elderly couple still in love. When their contentment is threatened by a possible past indiscretion, I almost cried out "NO".

So, what did I make of Olive. I'm not sure if I'd like to be her neighbour or a member of the Civil War group she attends as I think I'd find her too overbearing, but she'd probably make a very stolid relative. As Jane says about her husband Henry, "He loves her. That's how he can stand her."

The book is well worth a read. It is a relatively quick read and easy to digest. I think it would make a good book club read; you can discuss Olive for hours!

If you have read the book, which story did you like best?