Well-crafted and mercifully short because the trauma was unrelenting and there was no relief. Ending was abrupt, awkward and didn’t fit, almost as if he couldn’t think how to wrap it up. Book club read but I wouldn’t rush to recommend. ( )

A father and son walk through devastation with no hope of better and certain danger of worse. Lots of meaning, but what does anything mean when there is no future and mushrooms and men are all that's left, and not many mushrooms. ( )

This is my second favorite book. I read it three times in one year. ( )

Concebam um mar cinzento, um céu cinzento, relva, árvores cinzentas. Imaginem um lugar obscuro, frio, predominante em cinzas. Encontram-se nas páginas da história de Cormac McCarthy.

"No céu cinzento sob o astro mudo", num mundo onde o mal impera, encontramos a mais completa e profunda expressão de amor nesta obra pós-apocalíptica de Cormac McCarthy. Na qual um homem e o seu filho percorrem, 'A Estrada'.

“ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴍʏ ᴡʜᴏʟᴇ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ᴅɪᴅ.”

Este homem e o seu filho caminham em direção ao sul, percorrendo este território frio, inóspito, coberto de cinzas, em ruínas, arrastando todos os seus pertences num carrinho de compras. Esforçam-se no rasto da sobrevivência e temem constantemente que sejam alvo de algum ataque.
O alimento é escasso, o ecossistema extinto e os bandos de homens famintos vagueiam pelas terras, abordando praticamente sempre de forma negativa os poucos sobreviventes.

“ɴᴏʙᴏᴅʏ ᴡᴀɴᴛꜱ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏʙᴏᴅʏ ᴡᴀɴᴛꜱ ᴛᴏ ʟᴇᴀᴠᴇ.”

O pai e o filho sentem-se tão desencorajados, em todos os domínios e em todos os instantes, e ainda assim são capazes de resistir com perseverança aos terríveis e inacreditáveis acontecimentos de terror que vão atentando.
O que notabiliza o pai e o filho não é a sua habilidade para encontrar comida ou para evitar as mãos de assassinos e ladrões nesta terra saqueada. O que os torna especiais é o seu compromisso pela bondade, precisamente num lugar onde a virtude não se encontra. O homem nesta história educa o seu filho a enfrentar desafios no sentido de se manter seguro enquanto age de forma ética.

“ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴀʀʀʏ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰɪʀᴇ." (...) ɪᴛ'ꜱ ɪɴꜱɪᴅᴇ ʏᴏᴜ. ɪᴛ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ᴡᴀꜱ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ. ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ꜱᴇᴇ ɪᴛ.”

Ocorrem situações de profunda crueldade, miséria, desolação. As nossas emoções, principalmente o receio intensifica-se à medida que observamos a deterioração da saúde dos protagonistas. Sentimos o vácuo do desespero.

Para isto contribui o domínio com precisão do diálogo, fazendo com que se fique impressionado com a perícia do autor em apresentar a forma como o homem transmite a palavra ao filho e o filho ao pai.

O filho foi particularmente bem trabalhado e foi certamente a personagem mais complexa do livro. O autor caracteriza-o como uma espécie de ser divino, digno do mais puro sentimento, pleno de bondade, alheio ao mundo em que se encontra.
Ao longo do livro, percorre sem esforço o caminho dos mais justos. Serve tão bem como meio para enfatizar o tema central da obra, o incontestável valor do afeto acima de qualquer situação.

Um livro impactante, rico em afeto, profundo e muito bem escrito.

I resisted reading this novel as my impression was that its worldview would prove to be entirely too bleak and dismal. Not just the description of the novel but McCarthy's overall reputation preceded it. And now I find it's a story of naive Christianity, of living with love for one's fellow man even in the worst imaginable circumstances, how hope and goodness are the true core of the universe. Well then!

McCarthy takes his time to disabuse me of my preconception. Roving bands of horrific cannibal gangs. All is now gray ash, no living plant or non-human animal life remaining. The boy's mother sounds right when she says in a flashback scene, announcing her suicide to her husband, "We're not survivors. We're the walking dead in a horror film... I'd take him with me if it weren't for you. You know I would. It's the right thing to do." I'm nodding, thinking yeah, I'd do it too.

McCarthy's prose runs existentially bleak:

Everything damp. Rotting. In a drawer he found a candle. No way to light it. He put it in his pocket. He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe.

It's a reverse mystical experience. Instead of a flash of insight into the oneness and goodness of creation, it's a flash of its absolute negation. It's bleak and depressing but it's riveting writing, I really want to keep reading and following this journey from blackest hell (or nothingness, rather).

I race through it and lo, the novel's penultimate paragraph:

The woman when she saw him put her arms around him and held him. Oh, she said, I am so glad to see you. She would talk to him sometimes about God. He tried to talk to God but the best thing was to talk to his father and he did talk to him and he didnt forget. The woman said that was all right. She said that the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all time.

And the novel's final sentence:

In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.

This is not the bleak prophet of despair I'd come to expect. Rather far from it. Then I thought back to how the boy, though always terrified and in fear, is also always begging his father not to hurt or kill anyone, even when attacked and their survival threatened. They come across an old man on the road, and he begs his father to give the man food from their almost exhausted store. A solitary outcast steals all their supplies without which they'd quickly die and they catch him, and the boy implores his father not to do anything to harm the man. He longs to care for others. In this most dire of possibly imaginable environments, he's the ultimate bleeding heart, acting out Christ, in all its seeming practical ridiculousness, despite his fear.

I've read that McCarthy wrote this novel inspired by his love for his own son. It does focus on that love front and center, the terrible choices that love can face, the fierce devotion of a parent to their child. But there's an even bigger love here. ( )