The Road

There should be a word to describe the feeling you get when you finally read the book that has been tumbling around in your mind for more than a year, that story that has been torturing you, imploring to be put on to paper, but vanishing the minute you raise a pen in your fingers. A feeling concocted by the people you have met in your mind who suddenly come to life in the pages of a book written by someone else.

That is what I experienced when I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Except it wasn't the exact same feeling because his story wasn't exactly mine.

His Pulitzer Prize winning novel is grey and bleak, yet full of the color of emotion. Set in a post-apocalyptic hell, his story makes us witnesses to the ruin of civilization. The enigmatic quest of a father and his young son is filled with a desperate sadness and undying hope.

It was an easy but slow read. One that gave me the perception of tottering along a never-ending road myself. Through its simplicity, McCarthy has achieved in his story an acuteness akin to reality, and created characters live and heartfelt.

This fits into the cabinet of 'Modern Fiction'. To anyone unfamiliar with this style of writing, expect no story, no ghastly climaxes in plot development, no end. This is one of those books that is a mere experience. One that you will feel yourself- the cold, the hunger, the hopelessness.

But to be completely honest, I won't say The Road is one of my favorites. I enjoyed it, a lot, but not immensely. May be, just may be, it was because I lacked the discipline to read it in one go. Or perhaps the realization that my writing will never compare made me a bitter old lady.