A Furnace in The Road

Usually whenever I'm reading a book there's one or two words every  couple of pages that I haven't seen or heard of before. I rarely refer to a dictionary though and the words somehow make sense as the text continues. My experience with The Road  is a different story. Having read about one third of the book already, I haven't struggled with the vocabulary at all. It's quite simple actually. Unlike other books in which the author comes up with intricate sentences complete with look-for-in- a- dictionary words, McCarthy just writes uncomplicated descriptions. So much for the supposed complexities of classic literature. 

For example, much of The Road's text is description: "They hiked out along the dirt road and along a hill where a house had once stood. It had burned long ago. The rusted shape of a furnace standing in the black water of the cellar. Sheets of charred metal roofing crumpled in the fields where the wind had blown it. In the barn they scavenged a few handfuls of some grain he did not recognize out of the dusty floor of a metal hopper and stood eating it dust and all. Then they set out across the fields toward the road." (89)  Practically, every single word in here is straightforward. Even a third-grader could understand this paragraph. 

But whoah! I know I mentioned the text's simplicity earlier, but what the heck is a furnace? 

Guess I shouldn't rely so much on my overconfidence in English vocabulary. 

An example of a furnace. 

Furnace: |ˈfərnəs| (noun) an enclosed structure in which material can be heated to very hightemperatures, e.g., for smelting metals. 
• an appliance fired by gas, oil, or wood in which air or water is heated to be circulated throughout a building in a heating system.• used to describe a very hot place : her car was a furnace.