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Meggan Narvaez

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Meggan Narvaez is currently reading

Hamnet

by Maggie O'Farrell (Goodreads Author)

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11 hours, 47 min ago

Meggan Narvaez is currently reading

The Road

by Cormac McCarthy

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Reading for the 5th time

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Meggan Narvaez said: " I think most of the readers I've met who've tackled this book either love it or hate it. Those I've talked to who don't like it think it's depressing or slow or they don't like McCarthy's writing style (most notably, his deliberate omission of punctu I think most of the readers I've met who've tackled this book either love it or hate it. Those I've talked to who don't like it think it's depressing or slow or they don't like McCarthy's writing style (most notably, his deliberate omission of punctuation in dialogue - I think there's a reason he leaves it out). Others misread it - one person thought it is about climbing Mt. Everest. That one confused me.
I'm one of those readers who love The Road. The first time I read it (last summer), I felt an aching sadness for the man and his efforts to protect his boy, not just physically, but to protect his innocence in a world without it. It is a book about what could easily be considered a worst-case scenario. The setting is a nameless place, but clearly one in a not-so-distant future in which those who've survived the first several years after nuclear destruction are trying to live - others more humanely than others.
I'll agree that it's not a "feel good" book, and yet, upon rereading the book this summer, looking for the beauty and hope in the novel, I was surprised by how much I found. As a parent, I think this is not just about the man and boy's journey down a literal road, but their journey to understand each other and their roles in their world of ash, hunger, loneliness, and heartache. It is a journey in finding out who they really are when faced with questions we will, hopefully, never have to answer for ourselves. It is an allegory for life, in which the literal aspects of the novel represent truths about human existence. Allegories rely on symbols and this novel is rich in symbolism - the tarp, the Coke can, the grocery cart, just to name a few - that help McCarthy force us to question our own humanity and courage when everything we know has been stripped away.
I understand that to some, this book is scary (a nightmare of the future). It scares me, too. I hope I never have to live through what the man and the boy in this book live through. But this book also gives me hope. Hope that, even in the darkest of times, I could be a "good guy" and there are, indeed, other "good guys" out there. ...more "

Feb 11, 2025 07:13PM · see review