Some thoughts:
McCarthy's sparse literary style and lack of traditional punctuation give this book a very otherworldly feel. Also see the King James Bible, when God talks to the humans and cataclysms go down without ever needing quotation marks.
This may spark controversy, but what convinced me of the book's idealism was the fact that the father used the bullet to protect himself and his son instead of to commit suicide. And in exactly the kind of situation where suicide would be a better option than getting caught.
