Earlier this week, I finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I’m glad that I waited a couple of days before reviewing.

The Road is the story of a father and son trying to walk to the coast several years after Earth dies.

CC//jcalyst

My immediate thought upon finishing the book was that it was good and that the ending fit well (though I thought it was predictable).

I enjoyed reading it after getting over the initial difficulties with odd punctuation choices (wasnt versus wasn’t, no quotation marks or markers of who said what); after finishing, I thought, wow, this was a very good book.

Fast forward three days.

I concede that it was a good book, stripped of the “very” for one important reason.

There was no “how” or “why.”

The reader never finds out why Earth died. As a logically driven reader (and writer), this completely baffles me. I found myself caring more as to finding out why the human race is dying and why everything is dead than as to what happened to the main characters.

I’m not saying that my reasons are better than McCarthy’s (hell, he won a Pulitzer for this book). Reasons are an intrinsic part as to why things happen. But what point is there in caring if you don’t learn why you should care?