The relationship between the man and the boy is so empathic and heart-warming. It's the most colorful thing in this grey and ashen wasteland of a world. And it's surprising to me how McCarthy does this; he's distilled the relationship to the very foundations of what it is. There's no hugging, no jokes, no smiles or chiding... The world has made them miserable and the desolation of it encroaches upon them but they still have each other and that brings some happiness to both of them.
This relationship is starkly contrasted by the past relationship between the man and the woman, which feels more like a recurring nightmare.
I just finished one part where he's remembering an argument they had
just before she kills herself
. The writing style as he eases into the memory is much more... controlled? normal? Much more traditional and sequential. It's less dreamy than the actual narrative, as if the memory were somehow more real than what the man is currently experiencing. In fact as the memory begins you have no indication of
when this scene is taking place relevant to "the apocalyptic event". It feels like just another one of his cherished memories, at first.
It reminded me of what bad dreams feel like before they turn bad.
Then, gradually, you realize that whatever it was that happened to the world has already happened, and as the woman's intentions become apparent the nightmare starts to kick in and the writing style starts to distort.
At that moment I thought of something the man says to the boy: "We forget what we want to remember, and we remember what we want to forget". And it put the man's remembrance of his wife into an entirely different focus. At first I'd thought he cherished his wife's memory, that he longed for happier times and regretted her not being with him anymore. But suddenly I got the feeling his remembrance was as much about remorse and guilt as it was about love.
I'm starting to suspect that reading this strictly as post-apocalyptic fiction would limit my appreciation of its richness. It seems to me the world's desolation is, partially, a picture of the man's desolation due to the breaking up of his family by powers outside of his control. The only bright thing in his world is his son, and he regrets what happened to his wife every day...
...Of course, I'm only at the beginning of the book
. Let's see how this story progresses.
EDIT: Heck, I seem to have placed this comment on the wrong thread... I think the scene I'm referring to must be beyond page 33 of the book.... It's confusing not having pages in the kindle edition. Is there any chance we could get a post of the kindle locations relative to the pages in the printed book? I'll be happy to do it myself and post it here if anyone has a scan of the book or anything like that which I could use to find the correct locations.