Red is a Good Color.

What to say about this week? Well, there was A LOT of homework in all of my classes but the fact is I don't think I have enjoyed my other homework like I have my English. (And I didn't just say that to get on Mr. Mullins's good side.)  But all week I have been reading my independent reading book and oh my gosh it is so good.  I never would have expected this book to be this fabulous.

Bernard Cornwell is definitely not my go-to author.  Let's be honest, he writes historical fiction but since I'm doing a project on revolutions I figured that it would be appropriate.  Redcoat is probably one of the most busy books I have read in a long time.  Recently my mind has been on a young adult novel that releases in 12 days (not that I'm counting), so finding the motivation to read this book was actually quite difficult.  But once I got going, it was hard to put it down.

I am actually almost done with my book (which is actually a good thing since I get to write an essay on it tomorrow) so I'm really sad to see it in.  Throughout the entire book has been constant up and down climax hills that are just driving me crazy and then there is also the fact that there is a love triangle in the book as well as the fight for liberty against the London Lobsters.  But other than that I have to say that this book was really enjoyable and although the information that I was looking for was not necessarily up front and in my face, it was still very useful for my project.

Thank God for Redcoats because if we didn't have them then we would live in a world surrounded by overbearing and obsessed teenage girls who can't focus on anything other than petty romance novels.

Satisfied? I'm not exactly sure I am.

Finishing The Road gave me mixed feelings.  I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the man dying instead of the boy and then the veteran coming and saving him from the cruel world that he was left to live in.  The whole ending seems very odd to me.  It didn't go along with anything the book was previous to the man's death.  The writing stayed the same but the whole idea of someone saving the boy was basically a whole different idea.

Throughout the entire book, we see men and women who have faced a hard and tragic life.  Almost all of them have ended in death or unknown results.  As readers, we can assume that they didn't survive.  The people in the basement, being held prisoner, waiting to be eaten by others. We can assume they died.  Ely, the first encounter the man and the boy have on the road, we can assume that he died when considering his age and lack of food he had.  We can assume the thief died because he didn't have any clothing or food when the boy and the man last saw him.  So why is the boy's fate different.

If the world was truely in ruin and despair then the boy would have never been found and would have died along with his father.  It seems surreal that people with two other children found him and willingly took him in.  Did they have any food to share or did they just want to eat the boy.  Did karma play a role in the boy's survival?  Maybe all the good the boy showed for others changed the balance in the world and the world let him live.  Unfortunately, we will never know because the book ended with an annoying cliff hanger.  So, to say I am unsatisfied is an understatement.

What Happens Now?

THEY MADE IT. The boy and the man finally reached the coast.. but what happens now?  I have been wondering that this entire time while reading The Road. What happens when they get to the coast because if there aren't any fish in the bodies of freshwater then what makes the man think that there is anything in the ocean?

Obviously the ocean represents more than just a big and wide body of water.  However, the question is what?  Is it related to the man's past? Does it represent their survival on the deserted Earth?  Why is the ocean so special to the man?  All of these questions and I have no idea what the answer is to any of them.  

My personal theory behind the ocean is that the man has some connection between the ocean and his haunting past.  Why else would he obsess over the ocean and going south?  Yes, it is warmer but not by much.  The boy freezes his behind off when he swims in the ocean.  The man also says the water is colder than he thought it would be when he swam over to the boat. This leads me to believe that there is something else behind the oceans significance.  

Or maybe the ocean represents his lost wife.  The ocean never leaves him.  The ocean is forced to stay through this entire tragedy that fell upon the earth.  It may be possible that the man wanted to find the ocean not only to stay warm in the cooler months but to remember his wife.  Have something physically there that won't die or leave him.  

These are just my theories but whether they are right or wrong, we may never know. 

The Path toward The Road.

The Road is a very simple name for such a complex book.  This book is so complex and disturbing that it should have a disclaimer on the back reading: "Beware of vivid descriptions of dead bodies and violent events because after reading this, you will never think the same about an apocalypse."  This book has tons of imagery and rhetorical devices and it's amazing how much there is packed into this book.

The disturbing parts of the book is what draws me to constantly pick it up and continue reading past the points that were assigned. It's the human instinct to be drawn to these types of books because it reveals our lives to be better than the characters.  The fact that the author thought to put these characters in a situation such as the one in the book worries me. It makes me wonder what goes through this man's head everyday to come up with the sick and disgusting ways of hunting, eating, and locking up humans like they are animals.  It's almost as if he took the switched the roles of the animals and humans.  In today's society, we keep animals locked up for food but in The Road, it's the humans that are being held as animals.  It almost strikes me as a sick form of satire. The author is making fun or depicting the way we treat these animals in modern society just to survive and have a full stomach.  To put a young boy in this dangerous situation is pushing the limits but its makes this book so captivating.

I'm almost afraid to end it but when I do, I doubt I will be satisfied.