La carretera

Escrito por Cormac McCarthy

Narrado por Víctor Manuel Espinoza

*Premio Pulitzer 2007*

Una demoledora fábula sobre el futuro del ser humano, destinada a convertirse en la obra maestra del autor.

La carretera, novela galardonada con el premio Pulitzer 2007 y best seller literario del año en Estados Unidos, transcurre en la inmensidad del territorio norteamericano, un paisaje literalmente quemado por lo que parece haber sido un reciente holocausto nuclear.

En un mundo apocalíptico donde llueve ceniza, un hombre y un chico cruzan a pie el territorio norteamericano en dirección al sur. El hambre es mucho más que una preocupación diaria: es la medida de todas las cosas, y las bandas de caníbales asolan el país convertido en un yermo donde solo la barbarie ha echado raíces. El amor de un padre por su hijo es, sin embargo, la única luz de una tierra que ha perdido a sus dioses. Quizá el fuego de la civilización no se haya apagado para siempre.

La crítica ha dicho...
«La carretera añade matices sutiles a la visión posapocalíptica que tiene McCarthy de la existencia humana. […] en la radiografía que hace McCarthy del alma humana aquí hay un punto de fuga que se abre hacia la posibilidad del bien.» Eduardo Lago, Babelia

«Javier Marías, preguntado por si él era candidato al Nobel, respondió que si alguien merecía ese galardón era Cormac McCarthy.»
Enrique Murillo, El País

«Junto a Salinger y Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy es el otro eremita de la narrativa norteamericana. No se deja ver, apenas fotografiar, nadie saber ahora mismo por dónde pisa. De los tres autores de culto, para mí es el más grande.»
Robert Saladrigas, La Vanguardia

«Esta novela está llamada a ser una de las grandes obras de la literatura universal.»
Diego Gándara, La Razón

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Penguin Random House Audio
• Traductor: Luis Murillo Fort
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 21 jul 2022
• ISBN: 9788439741091

Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy was the author of many acclaimed novels, including Blood Meridian, Child of God and The Passenger. Among his honours are the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His works adapted to film include All the Pretty Horses, The Road and No Country for Old Men – the latter film receiving four Academy Awards, including the award for Best Picture. McCarthy died in 2023 in Santa Fe, NM at the age of 89.

Comentarios para La carretera

[rkosarko-360552 · Calificación: 1 de 5 estrellas]

Bleakness porn.

[spoko_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

In a way, this book is responsible for my aversion to post-apocalyptic lit. I saw the movie adaptation of this when it came out, and of course knew that it came from McCarthy’s novel. The movie is bleak, to say the least, and I’ve thought back to it literally every time I’ve even considered watching or reading another piece of dystopian fiction.

So having decided to give the novel a shot, I’m surprised at how much I enjoyed it. “Enjoyed” might not be quite the right word, but it’s pretty close. The writing, obviously, is powerful & well executed. The characterizations are also suprisingly robust. I found myself really absorbed and, despite all reason & evidence, hopeful. The tenacity and strength inherent in this man and his son are impossible to deny, and hard to avoid catching.

I can’t deny that the novel earns its reputation for desolation & bleakness. But as a whole, that was not the effect that I found it had on me. I actually did enjoy it.

[jklugman_2 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Just an absolute brutal read. there was a point where I had to stop reading the book in the evening and instead read it earlier in the day, as it was disturbing I could not sleep. McCarthy really transported me to this alien, desolate world and I wanted to see what happened.

[rena613 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This book was really difficult to rate. I agree with the positive reviewers and the negative too. But overall, the book was well-written and had a poetry to it.

It's true that the lack of punctuation was annoying, but I think it was to show how bleak the situation was, that the characters are so weak physically (and mentally) that they could barely speak. You can see that the "big" words were mostly used for descriptions, not in the words of the speakers.

Some commented that the true nature of the disaster wasn't specified, but based on the ever-present ash, it seems like it was atomic bombs. In the book it mentions a bright light and a shockwave (I think). Also, at one point they get to a major city and it says how the highway leading to it was buckled with melted cars (and people) and then the tall buildings were melted and tilting. So it makes sense that the bombs would have targeted bigger cities and the small towns they passed through didn't have that degree of damage. Yes, everything was burnt, but not melted like in the big city. There would also be weather changes with several bombs. The constant ash falling, whether in snow or rain, would last for a long time. The sky was dark even during day (they couldn't see the sun) and the extreme darkness at night (no moon or stars visible) indicates something really severe. The lack of sunlight would also lead to cooler temperatures, which also explains why there was so much snow, even as they went south.

Some also wondered where exactly in America this was taking place. I was thinking southeast, since they first travel through mountains as they go south. It has to be smaller mountains, since they couldn't cross them otherwise, so maybe Appalachians. Also, once they reach the coast, they find a boat that originated in Tenerife, which is part of Spain, which in turn leads me to believe they're probably in Florida or one of the other Gulf states at that point. But what is left vague for me is if this was a US disaster or if it was global.

The ending seems to be hopeful. The woman cares for the boy.

What bothers me the most is the assumption (and the author is not alone in this) that when something horrific happens, we humans will degenerate into something worse than animals. I like to believe that in general, we're a lot better than that, and that there would be a majority of "good guys". In the real world, we see much more of people helping others (like during natural disasters) than those who take advantage. One hopes, anyway....

[tajohnson_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This book should come with a warning on the front cover..." Reading this book may cause you to experience an emotional roller coaster...", I did and I recommended it to some friends and they did too. This book will keep you reading wanting to turn the page but at times so afraid for the main characters you don't want to turn the page to find out what happens but you have to keep reading, you laugh with them, you cry with them, you feel their every emotion while they travel and survive day to day in a post apocalyptic world sometime in the future. If your a parent you may get so much more out of the story. I don't think I would have taken such an emotional roller coaster if I were not a father about the same age as the main character. I really empathized with him.

[word.owl · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

At first, I found McCarthy's prose style pretentious and irritating, but once I began to care what happened to the man and the boy, all bets were off.

I lay on the brown couch in my bleak gray basement. Gray like the ashes of a dying civilization. The couch comfortable. The blanket tucked around me. A spoiled American brat who doesnt know true suffering. This book is torturing me, I say to the room. Are they going to die?

No, they're not going to die.

Because they're the good guys, right?

Yes, they're the good guys.

Okay.

The parody version of The Review has already been done. The exhausted hilarity. The dead horse beaten into dust. Something about macadam. I'll have to look that one up. I'll has an apostrophe, but wont doesnt. The irish cream necessary for me to complete The Review. Swirling into my gullet like a cyclone flushing its way into loathsome space. The soul of a dying penitent reaching out for his nonexistent God.

The mystery of the apocalypse. Why werent humans destroyed too if all of the animals were gone? The setup. The unanswered questions. The burning forests, the mostly-intact houses. The jarring, ill-fitting ending.

Query: Why did I like this book?

In all seriousness, I liked the book because it gave me hope. Maybe people who have very sunny lives (or very gentle hearts near to the surface, like my husband) don't want to deal with all the darkness. Maybe I don't even need such darkness in my entertainment, the "tragedy porn" as another reviewer aptly put it. Maybe it's wrong to equate my recent (and very first-world) suffering with a post-apocalyptic survival story.

Yet, equate it I do, as a metaphor if nothing else. This story simultaneously shames me with its tattered characters struggling to live and uplifts me with their assertion that life must continue one step at a time, for the sake of love, if for no other reason. Isn't love the only real meaning there is?

[chaws_24 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Poetic and thoroughly depressing. I prefer post-apocalyptic fiction with more shotguns and yelling.

[faedemon · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

can't say i was a huge fan of this. it's like... there were a few truly profound moments sprinkled among a nothing narrative trying to be a collection of profound moments. there wasn't enough substance to this book. it wasn't bad! but it wasn't particularly good, either.

[smashbasile · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

I wanted to like this more, but I just didn't feel connected to the characters. I also think not know they why really contributed to the lack of 4 stars.

[kalliegrace · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

4.5, this is probably a 5 star book but the topic is so soul-sucking I just can't give it that. I love the writing, very straightforward. The bleak scene before you contrasts with the tender relationship drawing you on.

[gr_grigsby · Calificación: 1 de 5 estrellas]

Horrific. Zero redeeming factors.

[hcubic · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This dark postapocalyptic novel still haunts me. My wife says the same thing. Won a Pulitzer Prize for good reason.

[quirkylibrarian · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Well-crafted and mercifully short because the trauma was unrelenting and there was no relief. Ending was abrupt, awkward and didn’t fit, almost as if he couldn’t think how to wrap it up. Book club read but I wouldn’t rush to recommend.

[quondame · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

A father and son walk through devastation with no hope of better and certain danger of worse. Lots of meaning, but what does anything mean when there is no future and mushrooms and men are all that's left, and not many mushrooms.

[treebeard_404 · Calificación: 1 de 5 estrellas]

So much of nothing happens in this book. There's no character development, and precious little character exposition. The situation (whole world, including plants and animals, is dying) is given no explanation and precious little coherent thought. (Why are humans still able to have babies if animals aren't? ) I kept reading/listening to this thing hoping something would eventually happen. I was thoroughly disappointed.

[tangotango-1 · Calificación: 1 de 5 estrellas]

Just like "The Martian" seems to be a novel for the computer game generation where mulitple problems are thrown at the protagonist which he masters one after the other (as they appear) without any inner development or reason, this reminds me a lot of the setting but only with a bleak ending.
Bad situation - find some little fix - next problem - next little fix, but slowly the situation is getting worse and worse and we know it will not end well.
So what shall the reader think about it?

[jbaty_5 · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

Walk, push a cart, "I'm hungry.", look for food, "be careful," hide, walk more.

Bleak is okay with me. Boring is not. Points for style, though.

[mmparker-213929 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I avoided this book for years because of the movie, but after enjoying All the Pretty Horses, I thought I'd give it a shot.

It's very peculiar to me that anyone would make a movie out of a Cormac McCarthy novel. With the language stripped away, they seem to be pretty standard genre fare. His prose is generally quite spare, his dialogue is plain but lifelike, his action scenes are terse. But he seems to relish explaining the humble, everyday deeds of his characters, and using precise but obscure words for mundane things like furniture ("chifforobe"). I wouldn't blame anyone for finding it tedious, but it strikes a chord with me. It's humane.

[pilgrimjess · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

In a burned out America a father and his young son, struggle to make their way south and the coast, supposedly, to safety. They have no idea what, if anything, awaits them there. The entire plot is bound up in this march along the road, seeking out a place of refuge from the various threats. The landscape is destroyed, nothing moves save the ash on the wind and cruel, lawless men with only a pistol for protection. They must simply keep walking.

They travel through a wasteland in a state of near starvation without so much as a hint of true hope in the future but it's hope that keeps them moving forward. The Man maintains hope for his son, repetitively telling him that they are the “good guys” and that they are “carrying the fire.” It’s clear that the Man has lost hope in the world, he is haunted by memories of the past but, that’s not something he’s willing to share with his son, as a father myself this is an easy thing to imagine.

"You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget"

The Man uses the phrase “carrying the fire” as another way of ensuring his son that they have a purpose in life and that they aren’t suffering for no reason. They have to carry hope, kindness, and morality with them through their lives because others aren’t. The “fire” of human goodness is at stake. The Man sees it when he looks at his son in a way I believe will resonate with readers everywhere.

The Boy is presented as a figure of hope throughout the novel, The Boy is kind and helpful to a fault. When the two meet an old traveller named Eli, the Boy, despite The Man’s attempts to stop him, gives him food from their supplies. Eli is without gratitude for this incredibly selfless act, but The Boy does it anyway. The Boy becomes a symbol of what humanity used to be and Its at moments like this that makes it clear why The Man is willing to do anything to ensure that his son survives.

"Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden."

The book is filled with the torments of a post-apocalyptic world but, it’s also filled with a great deal of love. It's love that keeps The Man and The Boy bound to one another.

This is a book that I'm struggling to rate. On one hand I felt that is was overly long and in need of some serious editing. The Man and the Boy are on the verge of starvation just before stumbling on a hidden cache of food a few times too many and they have too many meetings with 'the bad guys' than I felt was strictly necessary. But I also admire the author's writing style and feel that it conveys a very powerful and moving message. I believe that readers will relate to the Man's will to survive against the odds for as long as possible so as to ensure that his son has a future.

"Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave."

[robfwalter · Calificación: 1 de 5 estrellas]

I despised this book. I found it pretentious and over written.

[jonbrammer-788089 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Reading people's negative reviews of this book, I am aghast at the things the reading public choose to complain over! OMG I hate the punctuation! Why did human beings survive and nothing else! etc. etc. ad nauseam.

Dudes, maybe the human beings KILLED everything else after the apocalypse that destroyed society! Or have you ever heard of the concept of nuclear winter? McCarthy's post-end of the civilized world actually seems well-reasoned for all of its vagueness.

Anyways, you are missing the point. This is a tale about morality and the relationship between parent and child. While I admit some parts of the book were a bit on the nose in talking about the persistence of goodness in the face of savagery and misery, what happened to the world in this book is totally plausible. Do you know how many thermonuclear weapons are still waiting, aging in their siloes?

[siok-76276 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

It is amazing how Cormac can make a simple story engaging. At the right moment when the plot threatens to flag, he introduces new elements that keep your attention. As you journey with the father and the son and those stragglers, you wonder what you will do. Do you wish to be dead in those circumstances, or continue to struggle on retaining a sliver of hope that things will be better? It is hard to decide. It is also hard to be humane. Hence, when it happens, it is very moving like the boy's wish to share food, and finally his adoption by another family when his father died.

[la2bkk · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This is a brief and simple yet powerful novel. I appreciate that the number of characters was essentially limited to father and son, and the general storyline was straightforward and devoid of any unnecessary complication. A welcome contrast to some authors who seem to believe that the more complexity the better.

At some point I felt the work became almost monotonous, yet in retrospect that was by design to emphasize the drudgery that the protagonists must survive to move forward in their dystopian life. Kudos not only the ending, but also that the author left entirely open what was the cause of the apocalypse.

[librarycin · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

A man and a boy are travelling along a road. They are trying to avoid other people, while trying to stay alive. It turns out something has happened and most of the human population has been wiped out. The man and boy are trying to reach the coast, while trying to survive.

This was surprisingly good. It’s an award-winner (usually a bad sign for me), and I didn’t like the other book I’ve read by this author. I found it interesting that neither of the characters had a name. It was slow-moving, and often not much happened (though there were a few things that happened along the way that got the blood pumping!), but I really liked it.

[qaphsiel-1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

A thoroughly engrossing story of precise and spare prose. McCarthy wastes not a single word, nor wanders down extraneous tangents. He tells the brutal story of the love of a father for his son in a blasted world bereft of hope and compassion. The power of the sentences will move to you terror, despair, and longing.

At times I wanted to hide from its starkness, but being unable to put it down, I could not.

[steve02476 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Astonishingly powerful story, well told. I’ve never read McCarthy before, I guess I have a lot of other novels to try now.

[spiritedstardust · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I enjoyed this book, despite never really understanding what preceded the events that affects the characters current lives, and that says a lot as I am normally one who needs answers to every question.

The grammar is bare - there are no apostrophes when characters are talking, but you don't need them. I also feel the way it looks on a page suits the feeling of the story.

I will be blunt - this book is bleak, there ain't no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That being said, I don't think the story would have been as great otherwise. Despite never knowing their names, the Man and the Boy are characters that I will probably not forget.

It is repetitive, but then again living in a post-apocalyptic world would be.

[wanderlustlover_1 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Fall 2017:

Oh, my thoughts on this book. I did not love this book and I could only best describe it as "meta of the post-apocalypse novel." I did get involved with the book, the memories, the unending slog of pages with no chapters that stood for the unending, never separated slog of their life now, but I never quite liked/loved it. I did love the small boy and his growth, but I felt his ending was too fast and sudden and 'perfect,' within 2-3 pages, of the sudden fall that befell him in the ending section.

[david_fosco · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

A dark and poetic tale of father and son surviving the best they can in a world lost to death.

[tomboonedotcom · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Devastating and beautiful.