Discussion Questions - The Road (optional)

WARNING: DO NOT READ TILL YOU HAVE FINISHED THE BOOK

1. Why do you think McCarthy wrote The Road?
   
   
2. Why did the father choose to survive and not the mother? What did he see that she could not?
   
   
3. What do you think the coast represents (physically and literally)? Why?
   
   
4. One man they meet on the road says "There is no God and we are his prophets." What does he mean by this?
   
   
5. What are the key moments that help push the father to keep striving on?
   
   
6. When does the boy become a man? What does he see that his father can’t?
   
   
7. What do you think McCarthy is saying about humanity in The Road?
   
   
8. What would you do in a world like this? Would it change your beliefs? What would you hope in?
   
   
9. What do you think of the end of The Road? After such a fate, could things be "put back again?" Could they be "made right?"
   
   
10. What do you think McCarthy is thinking of when he speaks of "the deep glens where all things are older than man and hum of mystery?" What does it make you think of?
    
    
11. Rate The Road on a scale of 1 to 5.

The BBC is open

Hi all book clubbers, you are all welcome to add to the BBC blog and if we wish to invite geographically challenged people (ie those who do not live in Bundeena - and yes we all feel very sorry for these people but must use the politically correct title for their shortcomings).

Please remember date change for The Road - April 29

Potential BBC books

Please add, so far books mentioned/possibilities are

1. Ian McKewan - ON CHESIL BEACH

2. Xinran - MESSAGE FROM AN UNKNOWN CHINESE MOTHER

3.  Wendy James - WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

4. Kirsten  Tranter - THE LEGACY

5. A children's bookclub where we invite kids and choose a kids book - Dahl or someone.

The Writers - Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy was born in Rhode Island. He attended the University of Tennessee in the early 1950s, and joined the U.S. Air Force, serving four years, two of them stationed in Alaska. McCarthy then returned to the university, where he published in the student literary magazine and won the Ingram-Merrill Award for creative writing in 1959 and 1960. McCarthy next went to Chicago, where he worked as an auto mechanic while writing his first novel, The Orchard Keeper. The Orchard Keeper was published by Random House in 1965; McCarthy's editor there was Albert Erskine, William Faulkner's long-time editor. Before publication, McCarthy received a traveling fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which he used to travel to Ireland. In 1966 he also received the Rockefeller Foundation Grant, with which he continued to tour Europe, settling on the island of Ibiza. Here, McCarthy completed revisions of his next novel, Outer Dark. In 1967, McCarthy returned to the United States, moving to Tennessee. 

Outer Darkwas published by Random House in 1968, and McCarthy received the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing in 1969. His next novel, Child of God, was published in 1973. From 1974 to 1975, McCarthy worked on the screenplay for a PBS film calledThe Gardener's Son, which premiered in 1977. A revised version of the screenplay was later published by Ecco Press. In the late 1970s, McCarthy moved to Texas, and in 1979 published his fourth novel,Suttree, a book that had occupied his writing life on and off for twenty years. 

He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981, and published his fifth novel, Blood Meridian, in 1985. After the retirement of Albert Erskine, McCarthy moved from Random House to Alfred A. Knopf. All the Pretty Horses, the first volume of The Border Trilogy, was published by Knopf in 1992. It won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was later turned into a feature film. 

The Stonemason, a play that McCarthy had written in the mid-1970s and subsequently revised, was published by Ecco Press in 1994. Soon thereafter, Knopf released the second volume of The Border Trilogy, The Crossing; the third volume, Cities of the Plain, was published in 1998. McCarthy's next novel, No Country for Old Men was published in 2005. 

This was followed in 2006 by a novel in dramatic form, The Sunset Limited, originally performed by Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago and published in paperback by Vintage Books. 

McCarthy's most recent novel, The Road, was published by Knopf in 2006 and won the Pulitzer Prize.

The Writers - Tim Winton

Tim Winton began his first novel, An Open Swimmer (1982), at the age of 19, while on a Creative Writing course at Curtin University, Perth. It won the Australian/Vogel National Literary Award, and he has since made his living as a full-time writer. 

Born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1960, he is the author of several novels for adults, including Shallows (1986), a novel set in a whaling town, and Cloudstreet (1991), the tale of two working-class families rebuilding their lives, both won prestigious Miles Franklin Awards in Australia. A theatrical adaptation of Cloudstreet toured Australia, Europe and the USA to universal acclaim. His novel That Eye, the Sky (1986) was adapted for theatre by Justin Monjo and Richard Roxburgh, and also made into a film. A second film adaptation was made of In the Winter Dark (1988), featuring Brenda Blethyn. The Riders (1995) was shortlisted for the 1995 Booker Prize for Fiction, and also won a Commonwealth Writers Prize. Many of his books are set in his familiar landscapes of Western Australia.

After writing six of his adult novels, Tim Winton wrote his first book for children, Jesse(1988). Other children's books followed, including a series of three slapstick coming of age books (1992-1998), about the 13-year-old character, Lockie Leonard. These are being made into a series for television. The first such book, Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo (1992), won the Western Australia Premier's Award for Children's Fiction. It was adapted for the stage by Paige Gibbs and toured nationally with great success.

He is also the author of two collections of short stories, Scission and Other Stories (1987) and Minimum of Two (1987), and co-author of several travel books about Australia, including Land's Edge (1993).

 

His books include Dirt Music (2001), winner of several awards and shortlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and The Turning (2005), which tells 17 overlapping stories. His most recent novel is Breath (2008), winner of the 2009 Miles Franklin Award.

THE ROAD

Our next book will be Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel - THE ROAD.

The proposed date is Friday April 30 at Stephen and Ildiko's place, 8PM. This should give you time to read the book and maybe even see the film.

I have been putting this read off since it was released as the premise seems so harrowing. It will be good to be able to read it and debrief over wine with others.

Let me know if you can't make this date. Watch this blog for further info and discussion questions.

Postscript: BREATH

Thanks to all who came for a wonderful night - close to 4 hours and nearly all about the novel. I woke up thinking about the symbolism of the names - we forgot about Eva - Eve, the temptress, destroyer of innocence. We discussed Pike and Loonie - any takers for Sando? (Head in the sand?)

BBC followers here and abroad (that includes Cronulla) feel free to give your rating out of 10. I am going to give it 9, I thought it worked on just about every level.