The Road

[akennedy73]

WARNING: although not a spoiler per se, this post does mention something about what happens in the book

The story has little or nothing to do with survival, really.

i disagree - although it doesn't address any specifics about survival how-to, it does present an appropriate survival attitude. what does the protagonist do when he sees the light flashes of distant nuclear bombs? he immediately goes into the bathroom and begins filling the tub with water. he doesn't stand around contemplating the horror of his situation - he accepts it and gets to work by securing a source of water. i think the protagonist is presented as someone who didn't prepare for the apocalypse but, because of his attitude, performs quite well in the face of it.

it is an excellent, gripping book. honestly don't know how a movie can be made of it given how bleak it is. i read the entire thing in a day - i was fasting at the time which seemed to add to the dramatic impact of the novel. i think a lot of people can't put the book down - it's that good.

It's a great movie until just before the end -- and then you wonder what the hell you spent all that time doing, and why you can't get it back.

are you kidding? that was one of the best movies in a very long time - I wish all movies coming out of Hollywood were half that good. Then I might actually make it to the theater more than twice a year.

the portrayal of violence in that movie was incredibly well-done - no dramatic background music needed or used to portray violence for what it is - vicious, brutal, and punctuated by nothing other than silence.

 

[ADD]

His style is pretentious.

So sayeth the poster with FIVE self promoting links in their sig line...

 

[Phil Elmore]

are you kidding? that was one of the best movies in a very long time -

Caution, spoilers.




It's a good movie until you get to the end. The end is stupid and pointless, and renders the entire movie a waste of time. More than that, the way the movie end simply draws your attention to the fact that the protagonist in whom you've invested your emotions disappears at roughly the halfway mark, and there's really no reason to care about the characters who are left (except the assassin).

the portrayal of violence in that movie was incredibly well-done - no dramatic background music needed or used to portray violence for what it is - vicious, brutal, and punctuated by nothing other than silence.

While that's true, it also includes a killer whose primary tools are an unlikely (if not impossible) silenced shotgun and an unwieldy livestock-slaughtering bolt gun. This is ugainly at best and kind of silly at worst.

I was enjoying the movie until I got to the end. Then I was just disgusted.

 

[Liam Ryan]

Sharp Phil, you are pretentious personified.
No harm intended but come on, just look at the avatar.
And the cattle gun came in handy for lots of things, he used it to gain entry through about 4 dorrs at least, leaves no bullet evidence, relativley silent, etc.

 

[Phil Elmore]

Yes, how dare I have an opinion on the novel's writing style. What was I thinking? Is there some reason you feel the need to be personally insulting? I can't help it if you were born without a sense of humor, but please don't project your attitudes onto me.

 

[Liam Ryan]

If you could change the movie to make it less pretentious you would, I am just pointing out a way for you to make yourself less pretentious, by changing your avatar.
We can all do our part to make the universe a less pretentious place.

(I now hate that word.)

 

[Phil Elmore]

If you could change the movie to make it less pretentious you would, I am just pointing out a way for you to make yourself less pretentious, by changing your avatar.
We can all do our part to make the universe a less pretentious place.

(I now hate that word.)

I didn't say the movie was pretentious. I said the movie was stupid and pointless because of its ending. I said the writing style of The Road was pretentious, and it is.

 

[Andrew Colglazier]

Caution, spoilers.




It's a good movie until you get to the end. The end is stupid and pointless, and renders the entire movie a waste of time. More than that, the way the movie end simply draws your attention to the fact that the protagonist in whom you've invested your emotions disappears at roughly the halfway mark, and there's really no reason to care about the characters who are left (except the assassin).



While that's true, it also includes a killer whose primary tools are an unlikely (if not impossible) silenced shotgun and an unwieldy livestock-slaughtering bolt gun. This is ugainly at best and kind of silly at worst.

I was enjoying the movie until I got to the end. Then I was just disgusted.

The message of the movie came during the telling, not at the ending. The message of the movie was told from the point of view of the old sheriff... and in the title of the book. The ending was just that, the ending.

Andy

 

[Liam Ryan]

Yeah, if you listen to the voiceover at the very beginning again it makes a lot more sense.

Oh yeah, I meant to say novel.

 

[Pshrynk]

I didn't say the movie was pretentious. I said the movie was stupid and pointless because of its ending. I said the writing style of The Road was pretentious, and it is.

Mehh..... one man's pretentious is another's expressive, creative and constructive.

 

[Phil Elmore]

I have not read the book on which the movie was based. I am commenting only on that film. I did not find it confusing or hard to understand; I found it pointless and a waste of time. Its ending, to me, underscores that pointlessness and reminds the viewer that the protagonist who becomes the focus of the film disappears halfway into the movie. Tommy Lee Jones feels as if he is drifting in and out for the duration of the movie, perhaps occupying another film altogether.

It may well have lost something in the translation. I was not impressed.

 

[Liam Ryan]

Sharp Phil, you should read the book, (I assumed you had for some reason)
There is a crazy knife fight near the end that wasn't in the movie.

 

[Andrew Colglazier]

i disagree - although it doesn't address any specifics about survival how-to, it does present an appropriate survival attitude. what does the protagonist do when he sees the light flashes of distant nuclear bombs? he immediately goes into the bathroom and begins filling the tub with water. he doesn't stand around contemplating the horror of his situation - he accepts it and gets to work by securing a source of water. i think the protagonist is presented as someone who didn't prepare for the apocalypse but, because of his attitude, performs quite well in the face of it.

it is an excellent, gripping book. honestly don't know how a movie can be made of it given how bleak it is. i read the entire thing in a day - i was fasting at the time which seemed to add to the dramatic impact of the novel. i think a lot of people can't put the book down - it's that good.

OK, so there is an overall "survival" theme.... but it isn't a story that one can read looking for survival tips.

The survival message is, IMO, that parents live to make sure their offspring survive.... If parents have to sacrifice themselves to save/extend the lives of their children, then that is what they must do, no matter how slim the odds.

That's what I got out of it.

Andy

 

[Phil Elmore]

Like an inkblot test, one can probably read a lot into the film that is not explicitly there -- though The Road definitely emphasizes the father's sacrifices for his son, and his obsession with caring for the boy (as well as his fear that he may not be able to keep the both alive). This is primarily a book about emotions and mindset -- not in the constructive sense, but in the sense that one is submerged in the psyche of the father as he tells his story. This is not a bad thing. It's a powerful book. I simply dislike its writing style and think it could be more powerful were it written in actual English. (I am a big fan of most of Heinlein's work, but I can't get through The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for similar reasons. I could at least read The Road without too much irritation, even if I disliked the style.)

 

[grindonyou]

I've read the road several times myself and started thinking it would be cool to have a thread with member ideas of post apocalyptic survival idea's. maybe from everyday trips , where you would sleep, look for food ,etc.

 

[Brian Jones]

Folks, Phil has a right to offer his opinion without you guys turning it into personal attacks against him. Perhaps if you looked more deeply, you'd see that a lot of Phil's supposed "pretentiousness" is really self-deprecating humor.

 

[Smash05]

I've read the road several times myself and started thinking it would be cool to have a thread with member ideas of post apocalyptic survival idea's. maybe from everyday trips , where you would sleep, look for food ,etc.

SPOILER ALERT

I don't know about that. The book made me feel like I didn't want to survive. This is looking at it from the outside though, we can say such things from the comfort of our keyboards (or wherever.) Survival has its rationale in I think two things, the biological will to live, and the psychological belief that there is something to live for. The father stays alive for his son, so he has both areas covered. It drives his actions. Contrast that against the mother's actions.
I know that I prepare myself, for my family. If it were just me, well things might be different. Much of what I do, my preparations are about protecting my family, keeping them from harm. I see that in the book as the lynch pin. The book is about survival, but it is survival from a psychological/relationship standpoint - not really from a preparation standpoint. If you can imagine seeing what the boy and his father see, viscerally it is raw, animalistic, and appalling, and not something I would choose to experience. One might find themselves thrust into it, but imagining a permanent state of living within that world is terrifying.

 

[LittleHairyApe]

Folks, Phil has a right to offer his opinion without you guys turning it into personal attacks against him. Perhaps if you looked more deeply, you'd see that a lot of Phil's supposed "pretentiousness" is really self-deprecating humor.

Yup, I agree with you Brian. :thumbup: This is a tough crowd when they start attacking a man's avatar.

 

[Buffalohump]

Yeah, that. Come on Phil, the dude is probably the greatest living American writer. And I'm no literary snob. Stephen King is on my shelf right next to McCarthy.

Gimme a break. Good god Phil... do you even need to be conservative in the novels you read? Maybe he just writes at a level beyond your grasp?



I've read everything that Mccarthy has written and he has become one of my favourite writers. I think his writing style is unique and even necessary in most of his novels... a poetic and austere dichotomy. Once you get your mind around it -- it flows quite well and really adds to the telling of this story especially.

The Road is an outstanding novel, bleak and frightening; deep archetypal images of man's greatest fears -- the collapse of society and the collapse of the social contract -- back to a Hobbesian state of nature -- survival of the fittest and the most vicious. It looks at how and if traditional human relationships can work in this world.

I really recommend the "Border Trilogy" -- All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain -- written in a "classic" yet still stark western romantic style -- horses, cattle, guns, women, Mexico and Texas -- what more could a man want? However he also throws in some deeper more abstract content about the human condition, the nature of evil, the battle between man and nature and man's ever present internal psychic battles.

 

[Buffalohump]

Whaddaya mean, 'actual English'? You mean like the Queen speaks it? What does that have to do with good literature?

McCarthy is hardly an extreme stylist. He's about the same as William Faulkner (an obvious influence) and a lot easier to read than James Joyce. I take it you consider Joyce and Faulkner to be sub-par as well?

Please supply some examples of what you consider to exceptional writing in 'actual English'. Other than Robert Heinlein that is...

I simply dislike its writing style and think it could be more powerful were it written in actual English.