# A question about The Road (novel) \*spoilers\* **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 8, 2013, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809 "2013-05-08T16:03:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809/1 "2013-05-08T16:03:24Z")
First off but damn the author depicts one bleak world in this book! I’ve read quite a few post-apocalyptic novels and few are as depressing as this _(Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald is worse!)_. I haven’t seen the movie but I believe it may end differently, my question is, in the book where the boy is found by the male survivor after his father dies is the male survivor the same one his father shot with the flare-gun when travelling through the village? There don’t seem to be many people left and certainly not many couples. It does seem to end on a guardedly optimistic note re the boy joining the family group and a limited recovery of animal-life _(the fish in the mountain lake)_ though I may be misinterpreting the final passage. Also what kind of disaster could have the effects described _(killing off virtually all life, even apparently all or the vast majority of sea-life)_? An asteroid/comet strike is hinted at but not expanded upon. Mad Max made living in a post-apocalyptic society seem kind of fun in a dangerous sort of way…The Road, not so much! ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809/2 "2013-05-08T16:08:36Z")
The best description for the disaster I have heard was that he Earth was stuck by a very large metaphor. ---
**Author:** ![tullsterx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tullsterx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tullsterx)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809/3 "2013-05-08T19:27:06Z")
I didn’t think it was the same guy from the village upon reading. You mean the guy with the bow? Anyway, I believe it was a new group. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809/4 "2013-05-08T21:41:00Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > The best description for the disaster I have heard was that he Earth was stuck by a very large metaphor. OK, what was the metaphor about? I tend to read things kind of literally. > [@tullsterx](#): > > I didn’t think it was the same guy from the village upon reading. You mean the guy with the bow? Anyway, I believe it was a new group. Yes, the guy who shot at them with the bow and who had a female partner. The survivor who rescued them does say they weren’t sure whether to follow them or not. It probably isn’t the same person but given how few people are left its a coincedence that they came across two couples shortly after each other. Kind of glad they finally found other ‘good guys’ at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809/5 "2013-05-08T21:57:14Z")
I don’t remember the fish. That would change the ending a lot for me if there are fish somewhere. Otherwise the boy is just going from dying slowly with his dad to dying probably faster in a larger group with more mouths to feed. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809/6 "2013-05-08T22:06:42Z")
> [@Weedy](#): > > I don’t remember the fish. That would change the ending a lot for me if there are fish somewhere. Otherwise the boy is just going from dying slowly with his dad to dying probably faster in a larger group with more mouths to feed. I’ll quote the final passage below: “Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.” Page 241. Which on re-reading suggests there _were_ fish but there aren’t anymore. Great, and I thought it was ultimately a hopeful story, now I’m depressed again. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809/7 "2013-05-08T22:47:09Z")
It is not a science fiction book, and the nature of the catastrophe is irrelevant to the story of a man trying to protect his son in a world which is no longer supportive. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809/8 "2013-05-09T00:24:30Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > I’ll quote the final passage below: > > “Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.” And this is why I hated this book in a nutshell. 1. “wimpled” is a stupid verb which no one in their right mind would use. 2. Fish don’t smell of moss. 3. How are fish “torsional”? 4. “vermiculite patterns” Really? That are maps of the world in its becoming? Gah, I hated this book sooooo much I threw it against the wall when I finished it. I then gave it to my son to see if I had over-reacted…he also threw it against the wall when he finished it. We subsequently burned it and found at least it had a bit of use on a totally vermiculitic cold day that wimpled with torsional fish. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809/9 "2013-05-09T00:33:39Z")
You teach your son to burn books? ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809/10 "2013-05-09T00:35:22Z")
> [@Bob Ducca](#): > > You teach your son to burn books? Only bad ones.🆒 And he is \>30 so he’s probably beyond my teaching him anything. ---
**Author:** ![David\_H\_Singanas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@David\_H\_Singanas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_H_Singanas)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-the-road-novel-spoilers/657809/11 "2013-05-09T01:44:30Z")
Well the movie must be somewhat different than the book. The narrator starts off with a map of the road to the coast, a pistol with two bullets left, and his son. When they reach the ocean, they sit on the shore and the boy asks " Are there are people like us sitting on a beach on the other side of this ocean?" The father says yes at first then he says no. This infers that the asteroid struck another continent. I don’t think a fish was observed as in the book. But there was a dog on the route to the shore, unseen but heard. Also they are buzzed by a winged insect on the shoreline. Singanas