The Road
The Road by Cormac McCarthy was the kind of book that I would pick up and then put right back down agin. I did this several times. I managed through a couple of chapters but just found it slow and too “wordy”. I felt that the author purposely uses $.25 words to tell his story and that is not for me. Granted I enjoy the challenge of a great story especially when I’m also improving on my vocabulary. But not in the excess that I felt with this book. I would have to constantly have a dictionary on hand in order to decipher the meanings and proper intent of his choice of words. To me, that would lose its purpose since I would have to continuously re-read paragraphs.
I am baffled because I have read several book reviews about The Road and many said that this is the “most readable” of Cormac McCarthy’s works. I however didn’t find it as such. I’ve read a couple of books with this same type of plot but I found The Road slow and confusing. Nothing seemed to grab at me to make me want to continue reading.
There is a new book and movie out called No Country for Old Men. The movie looks interesting and so I’m thinking that the book might be too. So I certainly want to give Cormac McCarthy’s works another chance. And I still intend on finishing The Road at some point. Am I missing something about The Road. Does it take more time to really get into it? I would love to hear your thoughts…
For more book reviews about The Road, by Cormac McCarthy go ahead and click on more book reviews from Amazon.com.
Here is a link to the author, Cormac McCarthy’s web site.
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I’m with you, this was McCarthy’s darkest - and therefore most difficult - book to read so far. However, if you can make it through the initial hard parts, I found it very rewarding overall. But I also like slower moving stories.