Writing Style

I want to talk a little bit about Cormac McCarthy's writing style because it seemed unorthodox to me. Unlike most novels, The Road was not separated into chapters or different parts. Also he doesn’t ever use quotation marks when characters are speaking. I think this is one way he is able to keep his audience reading because in my opinion not a lot happens in this book and it takes a long time to get into it but you never know where to break from reading. There are section breaks in the form of dots (…) once in a while but besides that it is just paragraph after paragraph. I found this slightly confusing because I couldn’t tell apart reality from dreams and flashbacks with occur very often in this novel. They have to because there are only two characters really and we don’t know the background of the situation at all.

The two characters do a lot of walking and walking and more walking. That is the story line. Once in a while they run into some trouble and that’s where it gets interesting. It makes me wonder how McCarthy was able to string along the readers for all the “in between” parts. I did enjoy the book and at some parts I couldn’t put it down but afterwards it hard to think of any major events that happened. I think it is his wide vocabulary and the way sentence structure that keeps people entertained. It was much different from The Hunger Games which was definitely meant for a younger audience.

An example of his writing is:

“Can the be? Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him towards you. Kiss him. Quickly.”

His short chopping sentences give off the emotion of intensity and fear. All these different things are running through the man’s head at this part and it gives the reader the opportunity to relate because most people have probably experienced choppy thoughts that jump all over the place when you are scared.

Lastly, phrases like “the soul is quick.” What does that mean? So when something like this pops up the reader has to stop and think about it for a minute.

With such an interesting setting and idea I think this book had a lot more potential than came through but yet I still enjoyed reading it and didn’t want to put it down.