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When civilization is reduced to ash and a few thousand people, there isn't much to go on. There's nothing left to keep you going. Except for a few crumbling roads. After over a year of scavenging, the only thing they know is the road. They just keep following it. The road guarantees that they will not get lost, and they'll have a little more reaction time if they encounter an unfriendly road-goer. After they complete their long-term goal of getting to the coast, they go right back to traveling the road. It's the only constant in this ruined world. It no longer becomes a tedious task, but a way of life. There is nothing waiting for them if they get to the end, it's just there so they use it. They travel it from the northeast, to the tip of Florida, then go west. The've got nothing better to do.

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Even though the saying isn't grammatically correct, it's a perfect representation of the theme of the book. There were ample times throughout the book where hope was lost, but that didn't deter the protagonist. This saying is usually not used in very dire circumstances. Most of the time it's used in sports and things like that. However, the book shows the most accurate application of the phrase. The duo kept moving forward, kept trucking along at slower and slower rates until it was over. They did not stop moving until they physically could not.

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It ain't over 'till it's over.

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Finding food in a postapocalyptic world isn't very easy. Crops can't grow due to the amount of ash in the air, blocking the sun. Any animals left aren't very easy to farm and/or are in scarce numbers. The only possible way to obtain food is to find foodstuffs canned before the catastrophic event happened. Any house left standing is pillaged by everyone who comes across it. The luckiest of survivors would sit down to a can of cherry pie filling, or cold green beans. Whenever the two protagonists would eat a fine meal of year-old canned food, they would toss the can into the woods, far enough that they couldn't be tracked easily. These cans will most likely sit there for hundreds of years. These old scraps of tin are the only things keeping them alive.

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This quote almost perfectly describes the mindset of both the characters and the reader all throughout the book. There are numerous instances throughout the entire book where all seems lost. The only reason the book continues is that the father perseveres through the hardship and basically a miracle happens. Even the reader is forced to think about this. There were multiple instances where I stood back and realized that there is no hope. Even when they were doing well, the whole journey seemed pointless, where were they going? What is their ultimate goal? Even if they did settle down and stop moving, there was no point. There's little sun to grow crops with, and no animals to domesticate and breed. Throughout the entire book, there best bet is to give up. The father doesn't want to go down without a fight, and thus keeps on trucking until all hope is lost.

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"He was beginning to think that death was finally upon them and they should find someplace to hide where they would not be found" (McCarthy 129).

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Although Keir Graff's book review is overall a well-crafted and helpful review, there is definitely quite a bit of exaggeration. The harshness of the planet isn't nearly as bad as it could be. There are still ubiquitous trees and shrubs, and the sun still shines. Even though the temperature has been drastically reduced, the best weather is closer to fall than it is to winter. The review also mentions that every scrap of food has been looted, even though the main characters were able to eat two whole meals a day for over a year, just by scavenging. Sure they're not living a life of luxury, but the environment could be worse. Besides the miniscule exaggeration, the review gets its point across well and makes sense to someone who has already read the book.

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Booklist: A man and a boy, father and son, each the others world entire, walk a road in the ashes of the late world. In this stunning departure from his previous work, McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, 2005) envisions a postapocalyptic scenario. Cities have been destroyed, plants and animals have died, and few humans survive. The sun is hidden by ash, and it is winter. With every scrap of food looted, many of the living have turned to cannibalism. The man and the boy plod toward the sea. The man remembers the world before; as his memories die, so, too dies that world. The boy was born after everything changed. The man, dying, has a fierce paternal love and will to survive--yet he saves his last two bullets for himself and his son. Although the holocaust is never explained, this is the kind of grim warning that leads to nightmares. Its spare, precise language is rich with other explorations, too: hope in the face of hopelessness, the ephemeral nature of our existence, the vanishing worlds we all carry within us. McCarthy evokes Beckett, using repetition and negation to crushing effect, showing us by their absence the things we will miss. Hypnotic and haunting, relentlessly dark, this is a novel to read in late-night solitude. Though the focus never leaves the two travelers, they carry our humanity, and we can't help but feel the world hangs in the balance of their hopeless quest. A masterpiece. -- Keir Graff