yes, you may

First things first: I never would have heard of The Road were it not for this engaging Bitmob article by Tyler Miller on connecting games with other media. He compares The Road to Fallout 3 as both are set in a dreary post-apocalyptic United States. It was this recommendation that brought the book to my attention, and just in time too as the film version has been released in theaters.

Living in Japan as I do, I will not be in a position to see the movie for quite some time, but I did recently complete the book and I found it to be quite moving. I was impressed with how basic the narrative really was, even though the book provoked a lot of philosophical musing about how we define morality and why we live as we do.

The Road is certainly one of those books that, despite its exceptional quality, you can't simply recommend to people with the usual "I enjoyed it." It's a horrible book and by that I mean the story is full of horrible things, not that the story itself is horrible. Frankly, the story is kept to a bare minimum. The reader never learns what exactly caused the apocalypse, only that this man was alive to see it and his son was born afterwards, so the boy's only source of stories about the way things used to be is his father.

That last sentence reminds me of one thing about The Road that got on my nerves: there are no names or quotation marks in the book. There's the man and the boy and since both are male, there's copious amounts of just "he." When they talk their dialogue is not marked with quotes. While it's always obvious when someone is talking as opposed to the narration of the story, the speaker is often ambiguous. This often sent me back a page to re-read conversations to double check who exactly is talking, especially when the man meets other men who are also left anonymous. I can understand the stylistic choice, seeing how names no longer matter and part of the story is about the boy growing up to become his own man, but I'm not thrilled that clarity was a casualty of that choice.

An ambiguous element that I loved was how the story handled morality. The man frequently tells the boy they are "the good guys" and how they need to avoid "the bad guys." While they certainly encounter some outright monstrous people in their journey, there's seldom a stark difference between good and bad in their world. Everyone loots and guards what they have taken as if it is rightly theirs, often with deadly force. The man discourages the boy from helping others, a logical decision (since they have so little) but a harsh one that no doubt means they have inadvertently caused others to die through their neglect.

The world is a very complicated place. We all make choices everyday that could be viewed as right or wrong by others. I eat meat, for example, no doubt to the disgust of vegetarians and vegans around the world. I spend money on frivolities like video games and cable television, funds that would be better spent on my debts or given away to charity. However, these actions as a consumer benefit those businesses who provide these services, and those businesses have employees with families of their own who get paid with a portion of my money.

The Road removes all those abstractions from the equation and still presents a world where every choice is laden with hidden implications. Every morsel of food they scavenge is potentially taken from the mouth of another. The man always tells the boy that the things they find don't belong to anyone, but he has no way of knowing that. He presumes all unclaimed objects as ex-property of the dead, yet when someone takes their shopping cart one night he furiously tracks the culprit and makes him pay a high price for a crime he himself has committed countless times. When the boy tearfully objects, he defends his actions with a limp "that's what he did to us" argument.

The message that I took away from The Road is this: when the apocalypse comes there will be no good guys or bad guys among the survivors. There will only be survivors. The man and his son have no mission and no goal, only a vague notion that they should head south towards warmer climates. There is no MacGuffin in this tale, no object they need to deliver, no task they might fulfill to save the world or themselves.

The man tells the boy they are "carrying the fire," a statement that is never fully explained. My first thought was of Prometheus from Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. The gods condemned him to an eternity of suffering for his crime. I also pictured the Olympic flame as something which is carried great distances by a select few individuals.

While comparisons could be made to those ancient Greek concepts, particularly since the entire planet is suffering in the wake of a cataclysm, I think "the fire" they speak of is the will to live as humans and cling to whatever social order they can. The concept of personal property may have lost out to the rule of Finders Keepers, but the man and his son do abide by certain standards. They do not prey upon the weak, (knowingly) steal from others, nor do they engage in cannibalism. Not everyone in their world adheres to those rules, so the man takes it upon himself to raise his son to respect minimal ethical guidelines while still surviving.

It's hard to picture survival as a "choice" in our world, since I live my life each day without ever questioning the need to continue my existence. Yet in the world of The Road, that choice comes up and there is an argument against life. Why torture yourself to scrounge for every last scrap of food just so you can die a little bit later? It's not a famine or a long winter that can simply be endured until it ends, the world has been destroyed and no one is there to help. Often the man looks at his handgun and wonders if he should end their suffering, especially when they are starving or in immediate danger. I can't possibly imagine putting myself in his position and making that choice, but reading The Road was a way to contemplate such a painful decision.

Lest this sound like a depressing book, I assure you it is the exact opposite. I've had my struggles with depression from time to time. Reading a book like The Road is a head-clearer, a reminder that anyone in a position to read novels in their leisure time is living a life worth preserving. No matter how unpleasant things were for me, it never got as bad as this situation. I'm guessing anyone with the ability to read this blog is in the same position.

So the next time life has you down, grab a copy of The Road. It's not a long novel and by the end you'll be psyched to eat dinner, watch TV or do any number of casual activities. As for me, I think I'll take comfort in knowing that my son has all the food, clothes and love he could ever want.

For a slightly different version of this piece with some thoughts about how The Road might make an interesting video game, check out my Gamer Book Report on Bitmob.com.

Labels: books, The Road