Early last year I picked up a copy of what Entertainment Weekly venerates as the best novel in 25 years: Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic fable, “The Road.”
It won all sorts of accolades shortly after its publication, ranging from a Pulitzer Prize in Literature to a movie deal starring Viggo Mortenson.
McCarthy’s story centers on the Man and the Boy, father and son, survivors of an enigmatic world catastrophe that we might assume was nuke-induced.
“The Road” chronicles their journey to The Coast, where they will hopefully discover an equally enigmatic safe-haven. Their struggle is not merely for survival: somehow, the Man and the Boy must learn to nourish their own souls in an ash-coated, disfigured world.
At the same time, I was slogging through H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds,” made infamous by Orson Welles and four film adaptations.
These are two distinctly dismal books. While “The Road” is very gray-toned, “War of the Worlds” paints a red, violent horizon – the world in apocalypse, not after.
What’s most interesting about these books, on the level of literary-devices, is that neither gives its hero a name.
This raises all sorts of troubling questions: What is a name, after all, when all the world, regardless of family or clan, is suffering the same cataclysm? Hardship equalizes all of Britain’s folk in “War of the Worlds,” whether rich or poor. The effect is not that the nation pulls together to fight Mars, but that, eventually, peoples’ identities are gobbled up in the apocalypse.
Here, McCarthy parts ways with Wells’ disparaging, scientific tradition, and dares to give mankind something that Wells’ cannot quite fathom: human dignity.
In giving his readers a story about post-apocalyptic survivors, McCarthy paints a picture similar to that of Wells’ work, of humans scattered by destruction. Yet individuality, and the ability to love a person individually as well as suffer with him, is incarnated in the character of the Man and his love for the Boy.
What distinguishes McCarthy’s book from Wells’? What is in a name, and what happens when these brilliant minds choose to ignore names?
Let’s bring to light the unpleasant facts. Wells and McCarthy are only human, and while their human mistakes should not be the lens by which we view their work, these mistakes will naturally weave themselves into their books.
A socialist, Wells was a sincere fan of what we now call eugenics, or people breeding. It’s a cruel philosophy and damnably wicked. So, what happens to Wells’ characters is not surprising. They are unfortunate that their author is not only cruel to them, but also creatively cruel.
A human being in “War of the Worlds” is an interesting specimen, though his general ignorance of the universe is lamentable – as is his inferior place on the aliens’ food chain. Mankind, once a triumphant race, is compared by Wells to a colony of ants – busy workers under the microscope of superior alien entities.
“Humanity” for Wells is no longer a term of endearment, but one of frankness. Names are not used because they are not relevant. Instead of names, the bulk of Wells’ cast is identified by their social position (i.e. the Artillery Man and the Clerk), and what few characters are named face a grisly demise.
McCarthy forgoes names completely – but not for the sake of critical analysis or animal science. McCarthy’s American mind, which believes in inalienable rights and dignities, does not group humans together like sick animals in a zoo – their unity is certainly not national.
Instead of kicking humans when they are already down, McCarthy lets them starve for want of companionship, and shows the skin-and-bones that remain of his two characters, the Man and his son, the Boy. It is only after they fall that they learn to get back up, instead of groveling under Mars’ heel.
There’s hope in the ashes in McCarthy’s world, however. In that world, people can find their dignity again, even if it has been stolen by the apocalypse. While Wells offers the Clerk and the Artilleryman – titles in a social order of complex ants – McCarthy incarnates the emotional journey between damaged characters that exceeds common eating habits (much less a common habit of being eaten).
His world has less in the way of brilliancy or color – imagine infinite ash on a color scheme comparable to Sweeney Todd – but it’s a brutally hopeful work that shall hopefully beat the prestige given thus far to such frustrated works as Wells had to offer.
What’s in a name indeed? Though the rose without a name smells just as sweet, will it remain just as good?
Thank you, Mr. McCarthy. May The Road live long, and prosper on American bookshelves
