Sunday, January 30, 2011

Reading: The Road pages 201-230; By: Cormac McCarthy

    Continuing this book on 201, the boy recently saw a charred baby in a cauldron and is now shaken up by it. The father and boy continuing heading south, but the boy no longer does some of the things he used to do such as ride in the cart. After a little while they come across a stream of water and decided its alright to drink as long as they filter the ash out of the water. Although they did have a plethora of food once they left the safe hold in the ground, the boy and father are now running very low on necessities. Of in the distance barely visible the boy discovers the outline of a house.
    The father decides that they should go and check the house out for food and so the boy follows; however, the boy is uneasy about the decision. When they reach the house the boy is skeptical and is afraid that there will be people there. The father convinces the boy that no one is there and so they go in the house. Slowly they check all the downstairs rooms and realize that they are the only ones there. In the kitchen the father finds some unopened cans of green beans, potatoes, and carrots. He was unsure about whether or not they were poisonous, but due to their dire need of food they decided to cook them and eat it anyways. It turns out they were perfectly fine.They stayed in the house for four more days and then continued out on the road.
    Their journey continues for a few more days, looking in grocery stores for anything useful, scavenging old gas pumps for gasoline, and looking in desolate houses for food. After all these things happen they continue on the road and notice the air is different. The father and boy come around the corner of the road and off in the distance see the coastline. The sea though was gray not as the boy was hoping for he was a little disappointed, and the father apologized that it was not blue. After sitting on the sand for a little while the boy asks the father if he can swim. Puzzled the father replies that it is fine and so even though it is freezing the boy goes in to the water. After coming back out of the water the boy is crying but will not tell the father why, and so the father doesn't question him but instead continues warming him up and built a fire so they could sleep.
   In the morning they continued down the beach until the came to a ship stranded off the coast in the water. The father said that he was going to look on the boat for food and supplies, and the boy wished to go with him but the father told him to wait there. The boy was becoming upset that the father was not listening to him as much anymore.The father went out anyways and swam towards the boat. On the boat the father looked for supplies and found some new clothes that he put on. The father also managed to find some Spanish books, canned food, clothes, and a burner from an oven. With all these things the man jumped back over board to meet the boy back on shore.
    This section of the book was not as exciting to me as the other ones. I felt that it went very slow and even caught myself dozing off towards the end of the section. The one thing that tipped me off though was that the father found a coin and books that were in Spanish. This makes me wonder if they are in maybe Mexico or parts of Texas on the coast. In this chapter it is also quite depressing because the boy is growing father apart with his father because he feels as though his dad is not listening to him as much as he used to. I'm hoping that the book picks up with some more action and the relationship starts to grow stronger again.

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