My son, the Dauphin, is in 9th grade honors literature, and was assigned to read The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Having not read the book nor seen the movie, I borrowed his copy over a couple of days, and read it myself.
He finished the book and completed the assignments his teacher had given, which were a nice mix of questions about the symbolism that McCarthy uses, along with questions about what he would have done in certain situations.
Since he finished the book, I slipped the movie into our Netflix queue, and we watched it last evening.
As you know, The Road is a story about a father and son making their way through a post-apocalyptic countryside. While the exact nature of the disaster that devastated their world is never revealed, either in the book or the movie, it's clear that it must have been some kind of EMP followed by wildfires, and societal collapse.
It wasn't an easy movie to watch, especially for a man with an only son. (My daughter is off at college, and told us recently that she has no desire to see the movie.) My wife felt the same way.
I'm sure others have discussed this book and movie from a preparation viewpoint, so I won't go there.
But I will share one observation from my son. We were talking after the movie about the gun they carried, and how they only had 2 bullets.
My son said, "Dad, now I know why you own four handguns. It's one for each of us."
Indeed.
