“Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire.”
“There is no God and we are his prophets.”
This was the first Cormac McCarthy book that I ever read, followed by No Country for Old Men, and currently Blood Meridian. The diction was the simplest I have yet to encounter, even in comparison to certain Steinbeck and Hemingway books. The book reads with each sentence as its own entity, and dialogue is seamlessly incorporated into the novel's events. The father and son are traveling the United States in a post apocalyptic world. A layer of ash covers everything, suggesting some type of mass explosion. What is even more interesting than the horrifying image of this post apocalyptic world, is the effects that it has on this father and his son, and the various people that they meet in their travels. The father and son become completely dependent on each other because its all they have. To give you an idea of the bleakness and utter hopelessness of their story: the happiest point of the entire novel is when they happen to find a can of old peaches, and the father always makes sure to have at least two bullets left so he could kill his son and then himself if they couldn't handle living anymore. The extent to what humans will do in order to survive is a main theme within this read for sure, and the gruesome means of survival are not for the light hearted. Theft, murder, rape and cannibalism enter this story at various points and leave no room for anything resembling happiness or hope. One of the saddest books that I have ever read that still manages to display the love and compassion that people are capable of, even in the worst of times. 4/5
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