The Road

This semester we are going to read a book in class. We got to choose between two books and most of us chose "The road" written by Cormac McCarthy. So far, I have only read the first 50 pages and I am still waiting for something to happen. It is about a man and his son who are walking through a burned destroyed landscape. We have not been told yet what has happened to the world. They are alone, but still afraid of meeting other desperate survivors. They are walking south, trying not to freeze to death in the snowy winter. All they have is a gun to protect themselves and a cart packed with some of their belongings and food.

The book is written in a difficult language and I did not quite understand the text until I had read a lot. Usually I would probably just have put the book away because it takes a long time to really understand what they are doing and I still don't know why they are walking. A brief explanation on why the landscape surrounding them are destroyed would make the book more interesting, I think.

When they are walking, they come to their old house and the father's home from the childhood. This gives him flashbacks from the earlier days, and these stories helps to keep my interest in the book, because they are something else than two people walking along a road. The names of the two people in the book are unknown and that makes it hard to relate to the people. That is probably an important decision made by the author, but I think the book would be easier to understand and relate to if we knew the names of the characters.

Ann has told us that the book will be more interesting once you get by the first 50 pages, and I am looking forward to read some action! I will probably write more about the book in the next weeks.