The Road

Some of our readers may have noticed a certain fondness here at Richmond Readers for post-apocalyptic tales. This post is no different.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a fascinating exploration of a world destroyed by a cataclysmic event that wiped out civilisation and blighted the environment. Like a number of McCarthy’s books The Road is bleak and its characters, the father and son, are engaged on a long, tortuous journey peppered with strange and dangerous encounters. The collapse of civilised life and the scarcity of food is what drives the father and son onwards towards the sea and hope of improved conditions. The lack of food makes their encounters with others dangerous, as roving bands of survivors capture whatever they can as a food source.

The Road raises all sorts of questions relating to hope and survival – how long do you keep going, what’s worth surviving for and what would you do when society breaks down and all the food finally runs out?

This was the first Cormac McCarthy book I read and I could not put it down till I was finished. I’ve since read Outer Dark, one of his older stories, which was strange, unsettling and wonderful in its own way. I highly recommend both The Road and Cormac McCarthy for your must-read lists.

Into the Wild

By Jon Krakauer

 

One day Christopher McCandles gave away his savings, got rid of his few possessions, changed his name to Alexander Supertramp and set out looking for adventure. He spent two years travelling around America before he started the final part of his journey. The experience that he had been building up to all along. He headed into the Alaskan wilderness to live his dream of surviving off the land. A way of life he saw as offering perfect freedom in contrast to the lifestyles of all the ‘plastic people’ who just follow the usual paths through life. A few months later Alex / Chris died of starvation, alone in the icy wilderness that he had dreamed about for so long.

 

At this point I’m going to make a prediction. You the reader probably fall into one of two camps. Some of you are thinking that travelling around America and heading out into the wilderness alone sounds amazing. How sad that it ended so badly. Others agree about the sad bit but think that if someone is going to trek into the wilds on their own then they are asking for trouble. We’re not talking about the countryside here. It’s Alaska. It’s freezing cold and they have bears and other dangerous wild animals.

 

The book is probably more satisfying if you try to avoid coming down too strongly on one side or the other. If you romanticise Chris / Alex as a heroic figure who broke free from a routine life then you miss the darker elements of his story. His choices did hurt other people as well as himself. If you dismiss him as an idiot who went out into the middle of nowhere completely unprepared and got himself killed then this becomes a very frustrating read. That would also be unfair. Jon Krakauer interviewed people who met Chris / Alex on his journey. Selfish, slightly suicidal, foolishness is not the image that we get from the people who knew him.

 

Into the Wild offers controversy and real life adventure. Plus the chance to explore America and the icy wilderness of its furthest reaches without the risks or even getting cold.

 

Of mice and men

I finally read John Steinbeck’s Of mice and men last weekend. I know a lot of people will encounter this book during High School or College but my school in Australia opted to have us reading Jane Eyre and The Crucible along with some more Australian themed stories. I’d been meaning to read some John Steinbeck books for a while and I enjoyed the first of his books that I’ve read.

Of mice and men tells the story of George and Lennie, itinerant farm workers in 1930s California. Life is tough travelling from farm to farm looking for work and the two men dream of one day owning their own place and being their own bosses. George looks after mentally disabled Lennie as they travel, promising him a happy future on their own farm with rabbits as pets. Trouble looms in their newly acquired jobs when a perfect storm of characters come together with disastrous consequences. Tensions flare between the farm hands and Curley, the boss’s son, over work and Curley’s lonely, bored wife.

Steinbeck’s novella (just over 100 pages long, so no excuses not to pick it up) has influenced literature and popular culture since its publication in 1937. Frequently challenged for its language and themes, it was based on some of Steinbeck’s own experiences as an itinerant farm worker and has gone on to be considered a classic.