McCarthy, Cormac (b. 1933)

The Road

New York

Alfred A. Knopf

2006

"That he could enkindle in the heart of the child what was ashes in his own."

When he woke again he thought the rain had stopped. But that wasnt what woke him. He'd been visited in a dream by creatures of a kind he'd never seen before. They did not speak. He thought they'd been crouching by the side of his cot as he slept and the had skulked away on his awakening. He turned and looked at the boy. Maybe he understood for the first time that to the boy he was himself an alien. A being from a planet that no longer existed. The tales of which were suspect. He could not construct for the child's pleasure the world he'd lost without constructing the loss as well and he thought perhaps the child had known this better than he. He tried to remember the dream but he could not. All that was left was the feeling of it. He thought perhaps they'd come to warn him. Of what? That he could enkindle in the heart of the child what was ashes in his own. Even some part of him wished they'd never found this refuge. Some part of him always wished it to be over.
(pp. 153-4)

Fire::Kindling Fire::Ashes

Reading

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Vintage, 2006.

12/28/2009