The Road by Cormac McCarthy

This is the second time I am reminded that I am swayed not that much by the beauty of the word as by the beauty of thought. The first time when I was reading William Golding's The Lord of the Flies and this time by The Road, another post-apocalyptic novel.

The Road is a 2007 Pulitzer winning novel by Cormac McCarthy and after reading it I was still thinking what made them award a Pulitzer to this novel. If it is the detailed descriptions and the mastery over words, the right word for the right emotion and the right moment, then yes it should have won an award, whichever that award is I don't mind. But if it was for the great dialogues, then no, for the exploration of love of a father for his son, then no, for the depiction of loneliness in a world destroyed where there is little hope and the only thing to do is to survive, still no.

Like Lord of the Flies, I would rate this novel A+ for the ability of the writer to put into words anything that he wanted to, for drawing the detailed picture of land and people and everything they do. But as far as the thought goes this could have been written by any number of writers, may be not in the same words because hardly anyone would be that proficient with words. Still those who just love the written word should read it to satisfy their appetite for it.