Logan Briand Final Thoughts

 The Road by Cormac McCarthy proved to be a very interesting read for me even though I am not a fan of reading. I found that the stylistic choices kept me engaged with the book and even made it feel like a quicker read. Throughout the novel, I had noticed many significant details that I would usually not notice. By the middle of the book, I already had a sense of theme as well as the overall meaning of the novel.

I enjoyed reading this book because the meaning was to never give up or to never lose sight of yourself or your hopes and dreams. The book was also very dark in tone as well as the mood. This allowed me to easily relate my life to the lives of the main characters. Through significant challenges that I have faced myself, I was truly able to put myself in the shoes of the characters. This kept me going when reading because I always wanted to know what would happen next.

I feel the book was very well written even though at times, the fragmented ideas could cause some confusion. I like the idea of not having chapters as well as not using quotation marks because it allowed me to bring in my own thoughts and to figure out who was actually speaking. I also enjoyed the way the characters were introduced in the fact that they had a deeper meaning than what was actually told to the reader.

If I were to critique a certain part of the book, I would say that I wish the book started out a little faster. The book took a long time to truly get started and dragged in the beginning but once it started to pick up, it never stopped. I also would say that there are times when the mood is so dark it can be hard to read but it is also a good set up for what is to come. 

Overall, I feel that I picked the right book for me as I was actually interested in the book. McCarthy is very clever in his setting and word choice as well as his dark setting. I found it easy to relate to the novel and understand everything that was going on. 

Logan Briand Meaning of Work

 In The Road by Cormac McCarthy we notice how a society that is entirely new without a touch of the past can break people as well as ruin the lives of other. In this futuristic world, almost zero percent of the previous world remains and a young son and father must survive.

When reading, I noticed three main things that everyone who reads this novel should take away. The first I noticed is that love will triumph in the end. The son and father were constantly facing adversity through their journey but by their love for each other, they fought to stay alive because they were all each other had. This is important to take away from the novel as it is still very relevant to this day. The lessons that love can teach us, may help us push through the hardest of times.

Perseverance is also one of the three main take away's from this novel. Whenever a challenge was given to the father and son, they found a way to push through it. In this world today, to many people give up when they face challenges and this novel shows why you never give up. This remains true to this day because we can all persevere through the toughest of our times and keep hope alive as well. This showed me that no matter what life throws you, in the case a new society, you must make the best of it.

The third biggest take away that I had from this novel was to have a relationship with god. In this novel we notice how the relationship with god impacts the son and father and how god keeps them going. There were many biblical references in this novel which is an occurring thing in most AP books as we have seen the references in the Handmaid's Tale and other readings. I believe that this relationship is how the father and son are able to truly push through.

This novel has some similarities compared to other books we have read but it also has some slight differences. The novel that I would compare The Road to the most would be Handmaid's Tale. The biggest thing they have in common would be the fact they are in a futuristic problem and posed with a problem and must come up with a solution in order to escape. The main difference that I would note however, is that Handmaid's Tale is one in which one was forced to conform to society and one was forced to defy the new society. These books have many similarities when it comes to biblical references as well as the overall themes in the book.

   

Logan Briand Why AP

 When looking at the road as well as beginning to read it, I did not feel particularly confident in the fact that it was AP worthy. The only way I knew it was AP worthy was because of the fact that it was an option for this project.

The way the book is written is simplistic and very easy to read as well as short in length. This made me feel that reading was easier than a normal novel that we would read in this class. As I continued to read however, I slowly noticed the reasons that this book was an AP level choice.

The reason this novel is considered AP worthy is due to the deeper meaning that the book contains instead of the surface level ideas that many would pick up from reading the book. The book takes place in a futuristic world and parallels the before and after when talking about the challenges of the new world. The challenges that the man and son face would seem to be just one after another with nothing in between but yet these challenges mean more than just what they appear like on paper. These challenges show how the past and future are not alike and how one must survive by doing anything that it takes. While it seems this book mainly revolves around a plot, I believe that this is not the main focus of the novel and that the main focus is the deeper meaning and bigger picture.

In AP worthy books, we also notice many different tactics used by an author compared to a normal novel that seems to just move chronologically throughout. The author, Cormac McCarthy, uses many different tactics ranging from intense imagery to the use of flashbacks, as well as a parallel in time comparing two entirely different times and worlds. The journey along the road while introducing characters brings in an interesting feature because the characters each stand for something which many would not see. This is the main reason why this book is of literary merit and AP status.

 If someone who were not in this class were to read this novel, it is very likely that they would miss the deeper meaning in the novel versus someone who is reading it for a class. While the style appears to be simple, the meaning of the work is far from simple giving it the title of AP worthy.  

Logan Briand Blog Post on Characters

 In the novel we notice two main characters throughout. We are introduced in the very beginning of the book to a man and boy. They are never named but only referenced to as the man and boy. They are all each other has and they fight in order to keep each other alive. The man feels that it is a god given power for him to protect the kid at all costs and will do anything to do so. The boy is a strong kid who pushes through terrible evens to support his father even if his father doesn't know that. He does not want to remain alive if his father is not with him and the same goes for his father. While they are the main characters while traveling a road after a disaster, there are other smaller characters along the way that are included.

We learn that the wife of the man, mother of the son, has been missing and they have not seen her for a long period of time. They are not sure what has happened since they were separated as she had left when the boy was very young but it is presumed that she is dead. We see through the flashbacks of the man that she no longer understood the world around her and became very distanced from the world. She had wanted to take the boy with her but the husband had refused. She had made it clear she no longer wanted to be around anyone and decided that she should die alone.

Another small character we learn about is a person who had been struck by lightning on the road. The boy wants to help the person who had been struck by lightning but yet his father refused to do so saying that they had nothing that could be given in order to help the man survive. This gives us the idea of the pain and sadness everyone is going through in this world and how people must do everything for themselves in order to survive.  

While continuing on the road, the man and boy meet someone else. While none of the characters are referenced by a name in the book, this man is referenced as a man in a truck. The father has not spoken to anyone in years but yet this is the first man that he had talked to. When the man in the truck grabbed ahold of the boy, the father reacts fast and shoots him in the head and kills him. This shows that they will do anything that it takes for survival regardless of the consequences that may come with their actions taken.

We also learn about the people that the man and boy are running from which are people who rape, kill and various other actions. The man and boy see the actions that these bad people, the road agents, are when they witness the killings first hand which shows the way they are desensitized to things that nobody should be. While I am sure there are many other smaller characters, these stuck out to me most due to the way they impact the story overall as well as the man and boy. 

The book has started to become very interesting and I am excited to continue reading to find out what will happen next. 

Logan Briand Blog Post (Style)

 Wile reading the first half of The Road by Cormac McCarthy many things stuck out to me regarding style. The biggest thing that I notice is the fact that there are no chapters throughout the entire novel. I find this to be fairly odd as I have never read a book without chapters in it. While it has proven to be a fairly easy novel to read due to the way the book is set up in the sense of short paragraphs. This was a change that I did not think I would adjust well to but I actually prefer this type of a book. Usually, when I read a book with chapters I tend to scout how many pages are in it and most of the time decide to not read that chapter. With small paragraphs, I continue to read and feel more involved in the book and have enjoyed reading thus far which is not common for me as I am not a fan of reading books I can not choose.

Another thing that I find interesting that was a smart style characteristic used by the author is not naming the main characters. Throughout the novel they are mainly referenced as the father and son. I find this to keep me engaged more than hearing a name because I like to match the description the author gives with what I think is happening in the novel. This gives me the ability to form my own opinions on the characters without feeling one is more important than others. In addition to just the writing style itself, I enjoy that the author brings up past events relating to the time before a catastrophic event occurs. This allows me to connect the past and present which is normally my issue when reading this type of novel. 

Through the first half of the story, we notice that it is more often that the father is speaking but yet there is no dominant character. This leads me to believe the story is written in the third person point of view which allows us to see the reactions of all the characters and not just a particular one. While the book is not one that is complex to read and understand, I find that with the third person point of view as well as a writing style that can be all over the place sometimes, it is more interesting than one that just follows a timeline because that is what most novels do. While at times it can be hard to follow,  I have enjoyed reading the book this far. The page breaks make it seem as though I am not reading as much as I am and the view point makes it an interesting novel to read.

If I had one complaint for the novel to this point, I would say that I am not a fan of the way the author writes dialogue as it can be hard to follow who is speaking when there are no quotation marks around that dialogue. This book has mainly kept my interest due to the aspect of the short paragraphs, making it easy for me to go back and reread certain sections to grasp a better idea of the speaker and how it relates to the part of the story I had just been reading. In addition, although it has picked up now, I had initially felt as though the story took a while to actually get started and was particularly dry in the beginning. Other than these minor details that take away from the book, I am excited to continue reading to find out what will happen next.