just keep reading...just keep reading...

As I'm reading The Road, I ask myself, "what keeps me from putting this book down and not picking it up again." The story has no apparent plot. You start out following Papa and his son on their journey. In Life of Pi you get the history first; what brought the author to write the book, who is Pi and what was he like before his journey, etc... Also, in The Things They Carried you expect it to convey war stories. I didn't know what to expect with this novel.
The narrative engine for me is our natural curious nature:

• who are the dad and son and where did they came from?
• why are they traveling this 'road' and what may this 'road' stand for?
• what is going on with the world?
• why are they considered the 'good people' verses the 'bad people'?
• who are these bad people...are they people?
• why is there ash everywhere?

I'm not sure I really have any answers to any of these questions. This may be why the book is written in third person. You have a distance from it. You are looking in on this adventure of a boy with his father and you are asked to draw a conclusion as to what you feel about the above questions. By only giving glimpses to the past and short climaxes of encounters with other "beings", the story can be applied to any parts of your life. One of the main things I have drawn from this class is applying parts of a book to your own life. Analyzing what it means for yourself. Many of us haven't been a soldier in war, been stranded in the ocean on a lifeboat with a bangle tiger, or all alone dragging yourself down an ash-covered road. But we are able to use these extreme circumstances to reflect on our own lives.