The Road - Cormac McCarthy

Book Review

Set in the post-apocalyptic era, The Road tries to explore the very fabric of human conscience. It has been written by a well tested author, known for his subtle depiction of human emotion and character and who is widely acclaimed as on of the best of his time. Cormac McCarthy, like his previous works, has tried to peep into the mind of his protagonist who is alienated from the world because of misfortunes and tragedies in his life, but chooses to carry on the burden of existence. With the depiction of apocalypse and chalking almost the saddest of his works so far, McCarthy has tried to bring about the very opinion he keeps of the world around him. 

The story of the novel starts in an unknown place, with a man and his child, whose name we do not get to know throughout the several months the story is spanned in. They are trying to head south as the winters are setting in. Also, throughout the novel, there is no reference whatsoever to the reason or the means that brought about the apocalypse, apart from the obvious images of grayness ashes used to depict it and the lack of people around. The apocalypse has happened in the lifetime of the man, as he recalls his childhood in and around the places they cross while traveling. The conversations between the child and the man are the only way we communicate with what the child is thinking about and as the time progresses, the child grows wiser and more aware of the situation they are in. Hence, the story can, in a way, be interpreted as a journey in both the literal sense and also in the sense of the boy making a journey from innocence to acceptance. As they travel, they come across a snatcher, an old crippled man, a thief and another man who wounds the father. Ultimately, the man dies of injuries and sickness, leaving the child on his own with nothing but a pistol in his hand.

The book was adapted into a movie with the same title in 2009.

One of the major themes of the novel is parenthood. With the undying love of the father for his son, depicted both in his actions and his thoughts, the author has tried to bring about the strength of the human emotion of love. He thinks of his child as 'the only thing that stands between him and his death', which may incline the reader to think of the child as a emotional necessity for him. But his conversations with the child and his efforts to keep him away from tragic views, keep the reader in good faith that he has hope and desire that one day his child will grow up to be a good person.

The conversations between them depicted conflicting views over simple things like exploring abandoned houses and being left alone or handline the pistol. But, sometimes, it involved complex concerns like helping an old man who was as good as dead or of letting go a person who tried to steal all of their things. The man was sometimes too angry at the decisions he had to make at the boy's requests, but ultimately, he found happiness in fulfilling them.

Another major theme in the text is the isolation. The author has tried to explore the true human side which follows the most basic instinct of survival. In the post apocalyptic time, when there is no food or resources left and everything has been looted and there are not many people alive, humans have taken up the barbaric means of survival, i.e, of killing each other and sometimes, eating each other as food. However, this cannibalism is only a speculation made by the protagonist. The fear of an attack kept them moving all the time, even when they had found a nice place with a lot of food; just because of the fear of being found. The father always kept a gun at his side and when he was not around, he asked his son to hold it. In the later part of the novel, the father is shot by a person in his leg due to the precise reason of fear and skepticism. Everyone is afraid of the other and hence, try to remain isolated from each other.

The symbols of grey color and ash have worked as a reminder to the reader of the apocalypse which has left the land burning. With almost no resources available and people fighting over them, an indirect effort has been made to bring forth a possible situation that may arise due to a global war that we are always at the brink of due to unstable international politics. The author has, in his previous works, always tried to bring forth a notion of alienation from his protagonist, where he is burdened with his past and crawls to his future. In The Road as well, the author has not left this tone of his and has, through the story of the man, put forth the very complexities that govern us and the very decisions we make.

As far as the style of the writing is concerned, the novel can be classified as a modernistic effort in a simplistic way. The reader does not really peep into the mind of the protagonist, which, given the situation he is in, is surprisingly at peace. On the other hand, we hear his innermost thoughts when he is in distress and when he is hallucinating or when he is dreaming. The conversations of the father and the son are largely simple with short sentences, trying to depict that they dont have much to say to each other and they are pretty much content with having each other. The stereotypes that the author defines as 'good guys' and 'bad guys' are largely used to depict the same people, but in different circumstances.

From the point of view of the reader, there is no excitement in the storyline and may seem boring while reading. However, the second half is quite fast paced and it ends beautifully. All in all, a fine read.

He and His Man

An Essay on the Nobel Lecture given by J.M. Coetzee in 2003 while receiving the honour: As a part of a literature course

Link to the Lecture.


Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee is well known for his characteristic style of exploring the human emotions and internal chaos of the process of thinking and decision making. His well known works have all taken place in the saddest and difficult of places like Africa where crime and famine are day to day business. So, it enables him to dive deep to the very basic thoughts of the protagonist and bring out the true emotions that make up a human being. Also, his opinionated stands in his works is clearly evident from the way he makes his protagonist think, in many ways trying to chalk out his own image in them and trying to communicate to the reader about himself. This is not surprising as he has avoided media attention throughout his life, choosing to remain in isolation while his writings claimed praise all over the world. He was awarded the Nobel Prize

in Literature in the year 2003.


He chooses to be open and blunt in his writings, but only to the extent of the expressions of his characters. His use of language and his carving out of symbols and images is very subtle and may seem beautiful at times. He is especially known for his opinion towards the issue of animal rights, where he takes a clear stand of non-violence against them, evident in itself with him being a vegetarian till now. However, the complex human emotions that he portrays in his works show an overall new side of him. His characters travel through paths full of dilemmas which are not artificial, but very natural and arise in almost everyone’s life. It is only after reading them that we remember the incidents when we had a similar one. Also, they portray more or less the choices Coetzee himself had to make in his life, which is otherwise very difficult to know given that he is too shy to speak publicly. Perhaps, this is the reason he chose not to exclaim his views on writing
or his experiences or motivations in his nobel lecture, but tell a very imaginative and creative story about a fictitious characters who observes his life and that of others.


Coetzee talks of Robinson Crusoe, the character from Daniel Dafoe’s novel of the same name. It is about the shipwrecking of Robin’s ship on a remote deserted island and his staying there for 26 years. He is accompanied only by his parrot, who dies eventually, and a black man named Friday, whom he makes his servant. However, Coetzee does not speak of him as a character, but a real person and tells about his life after he has been rescued and while he is living in England. He is reflecting back on his time on the island and he has become wealthy after his adventures on the island have been published by himself. He remains a secluded man who is not interested in his marriage and likes silence. He is not disappointed by the death of his wife and tries not to meet anyone. He keeps writing which is something he has taken up as a recreational activity and at the same time, he keeps reading the accounts and journals sent to him by his man. This man of his unnamed.


Coetzee, through Robin, has tried to unwind a delicate relationship between a writer and his characters. He has tried to say that it is not always that the writer is the master of the character. Sometimes, it is the character itself that governs the thinking and actions of the writer. Robin’s man is also a writer, a journalist. He keeps roaming around the island of Britain and keeps sending journals and accounts of his experiences. He sends an account of a place names fen, where duck decoys are being raised up to lure fowls from Holland and Germany to come to Fen country and then, fall prey to the men who rule fen. This reference clearly brings a major emotion that Coetzee uses in his works. The obvious issue raised is that of animal rights whichare shown to be nothing. The fowls are lured and then slaughtered by the men, and when they do
not find plenty in their own country, they bring them from outside and then do the same. It is in direct relation to the role animal play in most of his works. In many of them, he shows killing of animals by humans and though he does not take a rigid stand on it, the rawness with which he describes it clearly shows his opinion.


The second account sent by Robin’s man is about an engine in Halifax. Men are be-headed on that engine with the use of heavy blade held up by a small pin. The executioner would take out the pin and the head would cut-off. However, the custom had it that after that pin has been removed and before it descends down, if the man whose head lies on the cross-base can leap to his feet, escape the executioner and cross the river down the hill, he will be set free. However, this never happened in Halifax. Robin reflects on the account, thinking that although god’s grace is swift but the heavy metal blade, greased with tallow is swifter. How can we escape it? He tries to think of himself in this situation when he was shipwrecked on the island. Although god’s grace was with him, but when something bad has to happen, it happens swifter than the grace can save you.


The third account that comes across is that of a business man who has a good business in London and who has to travel a lot because of his work. Now, his entire work is ruined because the Thames river of London rises on winters and floods the entire city, destroying his work. He is very poor, and cornered by debtors like crows. Or, let him be a family person in London in the 1660‘s and let his town be swarmed by plague and he has to stay away from his family and he can only call to them, but they do not respond. His entire happiness has been put to an end. Such an account distinctly refers to Robin’s own life when everything of his was distanced from him due to the shipwrecking. He lived away from everything for 26 years. He used to call from the island to the waters but no one replied or listened to him. He considers himself to be the man
who had everything but then lost everything.


These accounts puts Robinson in an interesting despairing situation. He feels that the reporter who is ending in all these accounts is somehow his master whose each account somehow describes his life and the situation he has been in. Or are they comrades who are just inter-wined somehow? He is trying to compare himself with the man of his who seem to be writing on similar lies, both of them re-iterating real stories with similar themes. he longs to meet this man, in flesh and blood and take a stroll with him, but he fears that they will never meet as they are like two ships sailing in the contrary directions, not noticing each other. He fears that they may not even have time to wave to each other while passing.


With the recount of the interesting pairing between Robinson and his man, Coetzee rings out the very dilemma brought about to a writer, that of exploring oneself. Ultimately, everyone tries to find answers, to create characters and stories out of themselves. He tries to ask that is the writer good at his job or the character good at getting the job well done? Although he has tried to being about this essential theme of his lecture through an almost literal scenario and an almost direct question, the unclarity of the answer allows both of the propositions to co-exist and evolve together.

Placement Diaries

It was just another day of the placement season. Although, the actual interviews were almost a month ahead, the grilling and gruelling tsts were breaking the backs of most of the IITians, full of ambition and enthusiasm, but not so full of aptitude and knowledge. Tests came and gone and many of them counted the number of applications left out of the magical number of 40. Although it was not that big a deal, it drilles huge wholes in ones confidence at getting a good job this season.

Facebook and gmail status changed everyday, with the use of brackets and colons increasing rather than the alphabets. The smallness of the fuss people created and the anxiety people were filled with, everyone who was not shrtlisted already in any of the consulting companies thought that the world was over and everyone was applying from everywhere to anywhere. Core companies had not yet opened and visited the campus, usually the unfavourite choice of the engineers of IITD.

In such a scenario, I was once asked by some junior as to how is the placement going and what was the scene this time. I just smiled and said that it had a lot of problems. The graveness of the answer and the smile that followed clearly summed up the situation. The graveness indicated the frustration and the smile indicated the reason behind it. A 7 pointer was doing far greater than any 6.95, a troubling fact for the ones who screwed up in some course in some semester. Probably this is the time when people start to hate each other. Probably this is the time when the cracks break wide open. Perhaps, this is the time when the true colors start to show. Perhaps this is the time when I think myself better and the other worse. Perhaps this is the time when I console others on their face and laugh at them when alone. Parhaps this is the time when friends become just friends.

You come to IIT to get a good job. But you dont come out of it with the same. Awesome becomes aweful. Perhaps thinking is a sin, too much thinking definitely is. But, not thinking is the biggest one.