Reflections on the Road to The Road
I first became aware of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road on the subway. I was on my way home from work, and in the seat across from me there was a man sobbing his guts out. He wasn’t in peril, so there was no need to offer help or intervene. The book in his hand was enough of a tell as to what had drawn him to this state. He’d read something incredible. Something that had moved him so deeply that a good old ugly cry in public transit was something he either couldn’t avoid or had driven him to such a place that the exposure of such emotion was simply something he didn’t mind.
This man was not, by appearances at least, the type to engage in such emotional display. He was your average looking dude. Youngish. Ballcap. Gym shorts. Probably has crispy boys with his brochachos while watching the game at the local sports bar. You know the type. These aren’t men typically seen engaging in such depths of public catharsis. And yet this one very obviously was.
The book that had conjured this moment, danglingly limply from his quaking fingertips, was, of course, The Road, and at that moment I vowed I would never read it.
Fast forward to about six weeks ago. Trade the man for your burgeoning literary scholar. And here we are.
I don’t usually find myself affected deeply by novels. Perhaps this is a result of many years of dedicated training (aka dysthemia), but time passed, my goals aligned, and I found myself compelled to break that promise I’d made all those years ago. I had no fear. I’d read Blood Meridian without so much as a twinge. I could handle this.
I was wrong.
For the most part I was okay. I embraced the bleakness, pen in hand, and intellectualized my way around the interminable grey, the desperation, the emaciated hope. But the child. Oh my lord, the child. He was my kryptonite.
The slow slaughter of innocence was too much for me. And while I did not expect to be able to do so: I can now say with certainty the exact line that drove that young man to his public display of sorrow.
Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly. (114)
And just like that, I was that sobbing man on the subway.
The fact that McCarthy does this with prose that can be, candidly, kindof annoying in its simplicity, is forever amazing. That a series of clipped little sentences can move you and your heart so far is incredible. This is why stories are what they are. Something about this story can only work through story. If this was non-fiction it wouldn’t hit so hard.
So even though I broke my promise to myself, what I have earned as penance is a reaffirmation of a love. My love of what stories can do. If strategically arranged snippets of linguistic make-believe can move that young man to break the walls of masculinity — if they can warm my poor frozen heart — then they can move mountains.
So I invite you all to read The Road. On the subway if you dare, but perhaps better somewhere cozy with a loved one to hold nearby. Even if that loved one only ends up being the book itself.