The Road: Movie vs. Book

I found I was equally disappointed with the movie version of The Road as I was by the book itself. The movie did however hold pretty true and close to the book. It left parts out and added in more details to make the movie make more sense. As well as adding in more detailed and descriptive flashbacks. A huge difference was that the movie was narrated by the man, where is the book is in third person omniscient. Having the movie narrated by the man actually made the story easier to follow and I actually liked it a lot more. It was a little hard to watch at times, seeing the very disturbing scenes is very different from reading them. Visually the movie was pretty powerful, the whole film had a very grey and foggy tint to it, making it seem like a real post-apocalyptic world. The only things that had color were fires, and the food, which seems symbolic in a way. The things that are keeping the man and the boy alive are the things that radiate color. Overall I did like the movie as a visual element, but I was still disappointed with how it dragged and its predictability (part of that was the fact that I had read the book, but still..). Both the book and the movie had a lot of potential, but I was ultimately let down. 

Quotes from The Road

“He’d carried his billfold about till it wore a corner-shaped hole in his trousers. Then one day he sat by the roadside and took it out and went through its contents. Some money, credit cards. His driver’s license. A picture of his wife. He spread everything out on the blacktop. Like gaming cards. He pitched the sweat-blackened piece of leather into the woods and sat holding the photograph. Then he laid it down in the road also and then he stood and they went on” (McCarthy 43-44). 

This scene almost brought tears to my eyes. This billfold was a metaphor for the world before the apocalypse and for the man’s life before the apocalypse. He was throwing away everything that was his old life and that was the old world. By throwing out his billfold and leaving the picture of his wife behind, the man had let go of his old life, of his dead wife, of everything that the world used to be. It was really a turning point in the story for the man. 

“This is what the good guys do. They keep trying. They don’t give up” (McCarthy 116). 

All throughout the book the boy and his father called themselves the ‘good guys’. The man said is was because they carried the fire. They were the good guys setting out against the world and the ‘bad guys’. I think it is one of their reasons for carrying on. And a way for the man to remind the boy that they need to carry on. 

“The world soon to be largely populated by men who would eat your children in front of your eyes and the cities themselves held by cores of blackened looters who tunneled among the ruins and crawled from the rubble white of tooth and eye carrying charred anonymous tins of food in nylon nets like shoppers in the commissaries of hell” (McCarthy 152). 

I really liked this description of the new world. I thought this was a pretty good summary of what this world looked like, of the way things had twisted and changed, the way the people had twisted and changed. 

“They ate slowly out of china bowls, sitting at opposite sides of the table with a single candle burning between them. The pistol lying to hand like another dinning implement” (McCarthy 176). 

I loved the imagery in this scene. The boy and his father sharing a meal together, a candle between them, eating out of china bowls. It seems like a nice image, and then there is the gun, a reminder of what the world is really like, of what the man and his son really face. 

“Out there was the gray beach with the slow combers rolling dull and leaden and the distant sound of it. Like the desolation of some alien sea breaking on the shores of a world unheard of. Out on the tidal flats lay a tanker half careened. Beyond that the ocean vast and cold shifting heavily like a slowly heaving vat of slag and then the gray squall line of ash. He looked at the boy. He could see the disappointment in his face. I’m sorry it’s not blue, he said. Thats okay, said the boy” (McCarthy 181). 

They finally make it to the coast, and it did not look like it once had. The man had always described it to the boy as this beautiful place with blue waves and a clean sandy beach. What they found was grey muddied water and a trash covered beach. It was just as destroyed as the rest of the world. 

“Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery” (McCarthy 241). 

This was the ending quote of the book. I thought it was an interesting way to end the book. From a broader point of view, rather than from the boy’s. Not exactly an hopeful ending, but not a depressing one either. The world would never be as it once had been. 

Review of The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Trapped in a post-apocalyptic world, a boy and his father travel through the barren wasteland that was once the world we know today. They travel down ‘the road’ knowing it will eventually bring them to the coast, and hoping it will bring them to a better place. The clothes on their back, a shopping cart filled with blankets and food, and a pistol for protection are the only things they carry. They live in a perpetual fear of running out of food, freezing to death, and being found by the cannibalistic people that now roam the ruined world. Struggling to beat the oncoming winter and stay alive, they pillage through the half burned homes of the dead. On their journey, they encounter other survivors, some good, and some bad. Fighting to keep alive they do “what the good guys do. They keep trying. They don’t give up” (McCarthy 116). Will the coast hold a brighter future for them? 

I have to say I was disappointed with this book. I had only heard good things about this book, and I found it to be not as enticing as I had hoped it would be. There were so many questions I had about the book. I was really curious about what had happened to bring the world to the wasteland it was. Very little is revealed about what brought the world to this current state, there were some allusions to disease and vast fires, but no blatant explanation. The way the book was written also lead to some confusion; no quotation marks were used and the dialogue was not followed by who said it. Overall I found the story very slow-moving, repetitive, and confusing. 

I would give this book a 6 out of 10. Like I mentioned, I had high hopes for the book when I started and I was left with disappointment and a lot of questions. I would recommend this book for those who enjoy reading about post-apocalyptic worlds and journey stories. However, this book is not for the faint of heart, there are many highly disturbing scenes throughout the novel. I did like this book though because it of its simple themes. More than anything this is a story about survival and human nature. 

Paint a picture of your favorite food...

     The bitter but sweet scent slowly wafts throughout the house and into my room. My nose follows it out of my room and carefully down the stairs into the kitchen. On the counter, a small chocolate cake sits waiting for me. The chocolate frosting is spread about on like a coating a freshly fallen snow, slowly dripping down the sides of the cake like water dripping from a leaky faucet. The aroma tingling the insides of my nose and bringing a smile to my face. Just looking at the cake I can taste the warm frosting and soft cake made with bittersweet chocolate, I can feel it fill me up with a small delight. I cannot wait any longer. It is cake time. 

There are seven doors...

I would want to take the door to Wonderland. Though Narnia, and Hogwarts would be very tempting, Wonderland would be my choice. There are a lot of reasons why I would choose Wonderland. The first reason for Wonderland would be because there really aren’t too many people, there are mostly animals and other creatures of sorts. Another reason I would choose Wonderland is of course because everyone is completely insane. I love the way people talk in Wonderland, it seems to be nonsense, but in fact it makes more sense than most realize.

I would spend my days taking tea and joking with the mad hatter. I would play hide and seek with the Cheshire cat, who would obviously win given the fact that he could easily hide from me. I would sit on mushrooms and blow smoke rings with the Blue Caterpillar. 

I chose Wonderland also because of it’s immense beauty. The flowers, the color, everything about it radiates beauty. And everything is alive, the flowers there can sing and dance, chess pieces can talk, animals wear clothing and carry pocket watches. I don’t see any of that happening here.  

I would get lost walking through the forests and gardens and mazes and nothing would matter. I would play croquet with the red queen, and host a ball with the white queen. And then if I ever wanted to go home, I would find the rabbit hole and climb back up, not that I would ever want to return to this boring horrible world, but I would at least allow myself that option. I would choose Wonderland because it is a land of Wonder. 

Quotes from Revolutionary Road

*Warning: Contains Some Spoilers* 

“He felt as if he were sinking helplessly into the cushions and the papers and the bodies of his children like a man in quicksand” (Yates 59). 

     Watching Frank’s downfall was really sad. He loved April, he wanted to be true to her and get along with her, but their relationship was slowly falling apart. I thought that this quote really explained what Frank was feeling and going through.  

“You’ll be finding yourself. You’ll be reading and studying and taking long walks and thinking. You’ll have time. For the first time in your life you’ll have time to find out what it is you want to do, and when you find it you’ll have the time and the freedom to start doing it” (Yates 114). 

April says all this to Frank about wanting to move to Europe, and I think it was all just talk. April is a very strong character and strives for her own independence. For her, moving to Europe is the only way she could ever be self-reliant and work a job. She presents this to Frank, I think, as a way of manipulating him. Trying to convince him that Europe would be what he wanted too. 

“‘I’m pregnant, that’s all.’ ‘Jesus.’ His face obediently paled and gaped into the look of a man stunned by bad news, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it that way for long: an exultant smile was already struggling up for freedom from his chest” (Yates 219). 

I saw this as a huge counterpoint in the story. April is very opposed to having this child, and Frank on the other hand is very excited about it, but trying hard not to show it. He knows April doesn’t want to have this child. April is upset because it is going to ruin their plans to go to Europe and the nonchalant way she presents this is almost painful because as the reader I know the way it is affecting her. 

“‘I don’t love you and I never really have, and I never really realized it until this week, and that’s why I’d just as soon not do any talking right now” (Yates 293). 

The blatant and plain way April says this to Frank is so heart-wrenching and sad. I love April’s honesty, but sometimes I think she was too flagrant about it. She is really hurting Frank and she acts like she doesn’t care. 

“But from there on Howard Givings heard only a welcome, thunderous sea of silence. He had turned off his hearing aid” (355). 

I loved this ending to the book. I had never expected the story to end this way, I never expected the story to end with the Givings lives instead of the Wheelers. I loved the way the book sort of ended in a silence, since there is a lot of yelling and shouting throughout the story. Overall not the ending I was expecting, but I loved it even more because of that. 

Review of Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

*Warning Contains some spoilers* 

Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates, is a story of love. A story of love lost, unrequited love, and love rekindled. It is the 1950s and April and Frank Wheeler have been married for years, and live on Revolutionary Road with their two young children. Frank works in the city at a boring office job, while April stays home, cleans the house, and cares for their children. On the outside they seem like the perfect model family, but underneath it all Frank and April are in a constant battle against each other. April has become indifferent with Frank, continually giving him the cold shoulder, arguing, and spending night after night sleeping on the couch. Frank has his own matters. He feeds into April’s arguments, and yet on the inside, he just wants to get along with her. Frank also begins an affair with a secretary from his office. April doesn’t exactly remain true to Frank either. Even with their constant feuding and fighting April comes up with the plan that they should move to Europe. She hopes that she would be able to work a day job and that Frank could stay home to be able to do the things he never had the time to do before. Just when they are preparing to leave, something happens that could change the course of their marriage and their lives, but will they have the strength to fight through it together? 

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was painful at some parts to see the way Frank and April could betray each other so guiltlessly. I also thought it was very interesting the way the author tackled some very controversial topics like affairs, marriage issues, and abortion. Even more interesting that he wrote this book in the 1960’s about the 1950’s. Overall I loved the characters in the book, the story itself, and finally the ending that I did not expect. 

I would give this book an 9 out of 10. I really enjoyed it, but there were a few slow parts that made it hard to continue sometimes. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys love stories because this one does not have the typical happy romantic ending to it. It is not so much a love story, but a story about love and about life; about how two people in love can fall out of love just as easily as they fell into it.