Our book club in Cincinnati completely split over the ending of 'The Road' last month

Half the group called it a hopeful moment, the other half said it was bleak. Has your club ever been that divided on a book's final scene?

4 comments

4 Comments

paul6081mo ago

Wait, people found that ending hopeful?

thomasb411mo ago

Totally get that. See this all the time where people latch onto the smallest sign of life. It's like when someone's plant has one green leaf left and they call it a comeback. We're just wired to look for that tiny win, even if the whole situation is pretty much a lost cause. Makes you wonder if it's hopeful or just us refusing to accept a bad ending.

wendym821mo ago

Seriously? The part where they find the beetle? That tiny bug made people feel hopeful after all that? I read it as the world was just completely dead and gone.

zaranelson20d ago

Oh man, that's exactly it. It's not that the beetle fixes anything (the world is clearly toast). It's that after everything they saw, the characters choose to see that bug as a sign. They're deciding what story to tell themselves. So it's hopeful in a really sad, stubborn way, like they're making up hope because the real thing is gone. The hope comes from them, not from the dead world.