[oilchange]

> I haven't read it myself, but I've seen many report that it was uplifting to them.

Uplifting? There was nothing uplifting about The Road. It's a world without hope. From the description of the forests, seas, societies and families, cormac builds a truly hopeless apocalypse with no hope for redemption or salvation. A world where hope cannot exist.

> Amid the utter horror and hopeless bleakness a parent does everything they can to protect their child.

A father tries to do everything he can to save his son, but ultimately, he fails. It's a world without hope after all. The father dies and a bunch of cannibals "take in" the boy.

It's one of the rare books that I finished in one sitting and then read again a few days later.

[tehnub]

But the love between the father and his son persists to the very end.

Here are some people using the word uplift in their review on Amazon: [0]. There are some negations though ("this book is not uplifting").

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Road-Vintage-International-Cormac-McC...

[oilchange]

> But the love between the father and his son persists to the very end.

So what? Of course the love between a father and son persists. It's only natural. But that's not the point of the book. The book is about finding hope. The father is desperately trying to save his son. To find hope for his son. He thinks there is hope along the coast. That's why they are on "the road". When they reach the coast, they find a leaden sea holding no life. All marine life is dead. They find no hope. There, cannibals that were hunting the father and son shoot the father with an arrow and the father dies. The son buries his father and the cannibals find the boy and "take him in".

> [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Road-Vintage-International-Cormac-McC...

This is just reviews with the word "uplifting". Many of the comments with "uplifting" is just saying it is not uplifting.

"This is an unusual book. There is nothing uplifting here, so don't expect it."

"As uplifting as a charred word void of virtually all-living species. As uplifting as a dead land shrouded in night, blanketed with ash and gray snow, legions of charcoaled corpses ornamenting the highways and hallways. As uplifting as the vicious gangs who prowl the countryside surviving on the last food source - other humans. As uplifting as the Halocaust, Idi Amin's Uganda, or Pol Pot's Cambodia."

Read the book. There is nothing uplifting about it. The only thing uplifting about it is that we don't live in such a world. It's as hopeless a world as you can possibly create. It's a world where the wife and mother of the protagonists goes off into the woods to kill herself rather than face the horrors that await her and her husband and her son. That's how bleak and hopeless the world is. It's a world where the father carries a gun to take out his son and himself in case the cannibals get them. It's a world where the father fails to keep his promise to his son and dies, leaving him to a pack of cannibals. And that isn't even the worst of it. What exactly is uplifting here?

[danjoredd]

What is uplifting is the underlying message. I do not want to write all of it over again, but I wrote my thoughts down here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36316079#36325708

I have read the book, and it is about sticking to your morals no matter how evil the world will become. That is the message of the book.

[oilchange]

> I have read the book, and it is about sticking to your morals no matter how evil the world will become.

What morals? They stole other peoples stuff. They abandoned the poor people in the basement to die at the hands of the cannibals. They "helped" the guy they met on the road but that was due to childish naivety of the son. It was superficial and meaningless help. The book was entirely about amoral animalistic survival than morality. Notice how it was mostly the son who wanted to be "moral". If anything, the book is saying being moral is childish in an amoral world.

If anything, it showed the inability to stick morals. The most important "moral" of the story was the father's promise to the son and his wife, not to let the son fall into the hands of the cannibals. Throughout the book the father promises to kill them both if it came to that. In the end, the father couldn't bring himself to kill the son and left him to the cannibals who were hunting him.

In your response, you say we don't know whether the "good guys" got him or the "bad guys" did. It's obvious the "bad guys" got him. On your first reading, it isn't clear, but after subsequent readings, it is obvious there are no good guys left and the cannibals who were hunting ( or possibly other cannibals ) them got him.

> That is the message of the book.

If that was the message, the book showed how stupid and pointless it was. Not that it was a good thing. If there was a "message", it was that the mother was right and the father was wrong. But that isn't the message either.

Rather than taking the book for it is, people are trying to find a positive message to make themselves feel better. That's a childish notion. Not everything is a disney movie. Not everything has to have a happy ending or a positive message. You don't have to be uplifted or find morality in a book.

[danjoredd]

> It's obvious the "bad guys" got him.

It is not. The man that found the child had a shotgun. He was trying to convince the kid that he had his own wife and child. If he was one of the cannibals, he could have just shot him and got it over with...this is like a six year old we are talking about. Overpowering him, kidnapping him, or just shooting him would be more easy. It doesn't make sense for him to try and convince the kid to join him.

>If anything, the book is saying being moral is childish in an amoral world.

I highly disagree. the man had problems trusting others, for good reason. But the child was a reminder to him WHY it is important to stay good. It ties in with Plato's concept of Eudemonia. Helping others must come with a sense of self-preservation. To save others with abandon is not moral...it is recklessness. On the other side of the coin, having nothing BUT self preservation is cowardess. They represent both sides of the same coin...the boy tugs at the fathers heartstrings to keep him in touch with his morality, and the father has the common sense to keep them alive.

>Rather than taking the book for it is, people are trying to find a positive message to make themselves feel better. That's a childish notion.

Making your interpretation the "one and only interpretation" and dismissing others as "making themselves feel better" is closed minded, myopic, and also childish. While I disagree with your interpretation of the book, I respect it. However the point of art is to attach personal meaning to it. That is not childish...that is human.

Your interpretation is that there is no meaning, and that morality is pointless. Mine is that it is important to do your best in a world that is evil, even if you mess up and don't live up to your own standards sometimes. "carrying the fire" seems like obvious symbolism to me for morality. They don't always carry it...they are sometimes bad themselves. When that happens, the kid gets upset at the dad and there are consequences. The dad develops as a character and decides that giving up and killing them both is the wrong thing to do. Is he right? Honestly probably not. But that is the thing about morality, it is not always black and white.

[oilchange]

>It is not.

I think it is. I gave my reasons in another comment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36326924

> If he was one of the cannibals, he could have just shot him and got it over with

In the book, the cannibals like to keep their "herd" alive in the basement. Remember? Why did they keep their humans alive?

> Overpowering him, kidnapping him, or just shooting him would be more easy.

No. It would be easier to convince him to follow them willingly. Would you rather drag a corpse 10 miles or have the the corpse follow you 10 miles. I can't tell if you are trolling or not? Throughout book, exhaustion and the physical toll play a prominent role - of just pushing a cart, father carrying the boy, etc.

It's getting exhausting repeating the obvious. The conclusion of the book is the father dead and the orphaned boy ending up with cannibals. Exactly what they wanted to avoid and breaking the promise that the father made to his wife. If that is uplifting to you and you find moral value in that fine. I guess if you keep looking for something, you'll eventually find it. Even if it is not there.

[Tronno]

From what I recall, it's not stated that the family who takes in the boy are cannibals. That could be one interpretation, I suppose, if depression is your goal.

But if you take them at their word, they're "carrying the fire", so the story gets a hopeful ending.

Perhaps that's what people find uplifting about it.

[oilchange]

> From what I recall, it's not stated that the family who takes in the boy are cannibals.

It isn't explicitly stated, but it is heavily implied. I gave my reasons to another comment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36326924

> That could be one interpretation, I suppose, if depression is your goal.

It's a work of fiction. Nobody died. Nobody starved. Nothing to get depressed about.

[tehnub]

>This is just reviews with the word "uplifting". Many of the comments with "uplifting" is just saying it is not uplifting.

I noted that when I posted the link. But at least half are saying it is uplifting.

I obviously can't argue further as I haven't read it. I will remark that different people will react to the same material variously uplifted or beaten-down, and neither reaction is less valid (unless they just misunderstood the plot). Personally, I tend to find depictions of nobility and perseverance in the face of imminent doom interesting and moving if not uplifting.

[oilchange]

> I obviously can't argue further as I haven't read it.

You should. It's the best of its kind in my opinion.

> I will remark that different people will react to the same material variously uplifted or beaten-down, and neither reaction is less valid (unless they just misunderstood the plot).

I'm open to people having subjective feelings - like whether they enjoyed it, they found it too graphic, not graphic enough, etc. But uplifting is different. There has to be something concrete to back up the feeling of being uplifted.

> Personally, I tend to find depictions of nobility and perseverance in the face of imminent doom interesting and moving if not uplifting.

But that's the point. It isn't nobility and perseverance in the face of imminent doom. The mother thought it was inevitable doom. The father had hope. It's perseverance in false hope. Nonexistent hope. It's like you seeing a person jump 100 stories from the twin towers and flapping his arms in the hopes of flying and saving himself. Would you say that is uplifting? Of course not. Unless you were being edgy or silly.

Instead of reading silly amazon reviews, go read the book and see for yourself.

[huthuthike]

I disagree with your interpretation of the ending. It felt to me that the family that takes in the boy are not bad people.

[oilchange]

> It felt to me that the family that takes in the boy are not bad people.

What family? You really believe the man and woman who took in the boy had a "family"? A world where boy's own mother abandoned him and his father to kill herself because there was no hope. A world where there are no plants, animals, fish, etc left. A world where a a woman gives birth and then she and her friends cook the fetus over a campfire. You think in a world where there is no food, no possibility of food, where everyone is either starving to death or cannibalizing, that there is a happy family? It's a world where everyone is starving to death. You think "a family" is going to take in an extra mouth to feed?

Did you miss the parts in the book where they explicitly mention how there is no children the boy's age left? The boy desperately wants a friend but there are no children his age left. Except for that one "imaginary" kid he ran into that disappeared. Why do you think that is?

Also, the father and son were being hunted by a pack of cannibals who mortally wound the father. What are the odds that the cannibal hunters caught up to him. What are the odds that a magical good samaritan family stumbled upon him?

When I first read the book, I thought the kid was saved. Then I reread it and boy cormac really made it crystal clear how hopeless that world was.

[huthuthike]

The boy offers to give the man his pistol but the man tells him to keep it. That indicates the man is not trying to trick him.

Talking about odds in a fictional story is misguided. The odds are 100% whatever the writer intended.

[oilchange]

> The boy offers to give the man his pistol but the man tells him to keep it. That indicates the man is not trying to trick him.

Yes and the nice cannibal they killed offered to give them food and shelter. Remember how nice that cannibal was? The pistol was worthless and if I remember correctly, it didn't even have a bullet left. Of course he let him keep it. It's no threat.

> Talking about odds in a fictional story is misguided.

No. It's a matter of determining what is most likely.

> The odds are 100% whatever the writer intended.

Yes. The author wrote everything that led up to the meeting for a reason. Everything the author wrote leads to the man and woman being cannibals. It's pretty obvious. It isn't a children's book. For children, the author explains everything clearly and spoonfeeds you. But for adult books you have to think about what the author is trying to say. Did that world seem like it had any good samaritans that you envision. No it did not. For a reason.

What the author intended is 100% obvious. You don't like it because you childishly want a happy ending. Cormac wasn't writing disney books or children books. If you are still confused and you seem to be, go read his other books. You'll understand what kind of writer he was.

[huthuthike]

It had one bullet left. You should consider that if you don't know these details you might not have solid footing for your opinion of the ending.