A RANTING

which has no business in criticism, but I'm not criticizing, I'm justifying

Anyone who claims a work a “classic” or “best of” barely a month after its release is suspect. So, here's my justification within the guidelines of this lists' criterion page: while The Road has not withstood even the slightest test of time at this point, it certainly falls within the boundaries of fantasist literature. My list is a compilation not so much of the particular works at hand, but of the minds that created them. And Cormac McCarthy is one of the few great American writers producing today, though not of this brand of literature until now. As a result, it is important from a critical point of view to place him within an historical and categorical context, as Art does not exist within a vacuum and any meaningful inspection must at least nod to similar creations of the past as well as its position of influence in the future.

That said, I would like to further segment The Road in the sub-genre of EOTW (End of the World) or post-apocalyptical novels, narrowing the parameters even more rigorously as a work outside the authors' normal field of operation. The idea here is to remove it from the company of Matheson's I Am Legend, King's The Stand, McCammon's Swan Song or the hundreds of other primarily SF & F writers and place it next to Huxley's Brave New World, Shute's On the Beach, Frank's Alas, Babylon, and, yes, even Boulle's Planet of the Apes. As my criticism unfolds, I think you will see that The Road, in a more cerebral sense, will always run closer to Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea than Stewart's Earth Abides.

© copyright 10/29/2006 by Larry Crawford