The yearly reading has become almost a religious rite for me. Much like the tragic plays of ancient Greece, _The Road_ provides me a much-needed cathartic release. Every time I get to the end of that dark, emotionally-eviscerating book, I’m sobbing.
While no other book has ever made me cry, when I’m done with _The Road_, tears stream down my cheeks and into my mustache. All I want to do is hold my children and never let them go. If you’ve read the book, are a dad, and have a heart made of something other than stone, you’ll understand. _(If you haven’t read the book, you may want to stop reading this article — it contains spoilers.)_ _The Road_ has been called a love story between father and son, and nothing could better describe it.
The book powerfully puts the beauty and sorrow of fatherhood in stark perspective, revealing paternal love intensely close to the bone. An unnamed father and his son pilgrimage across a dreary, ashen, post-apocalyptic America, pushing a shopping cart of their supplies and perpetually scavenging for their next meal. All the while they’re on the lookout for the “bad guys” — savage tribes of baby-eating men who maraud across the landscape in their jerry-rigged, diesel-run vehicles.
The father is sick and dying. He knows he won’t be around much longer to protect and provide for his young boy. A sense of being “thrown into the world,” as Heidegger put it, pervades the lives of these two individuals, who only have each other to rely on.
Throughout the story, the man experiences moments of soul-deep anguish as he thinks about his son’s future in this bleak and desolate environment. He even contemplates smashing his son’s head with a rock to spare him from being raped and eaten by some filthy and depraved barbarian. Yet at the same time, the man finds hope and goodness in his boy’s innocent sweetness, and thus the strength to continue on.
Along their journey, he tells his son stories of the world before its destruction. He teaches him the physical skills and mental aptitudes needed to survive. But most importantly, the man teaches his son to “carry the fire”: For the man and his son, “the fire” is a metaphor not only for the will to live, but to live nobly.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
