Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
4.5 rounded up. This book stands on its own, and I will review it without comparing it to All the Pretty Horses.
I love westerns, and I love the concept of a western about a young man who lives a cowboy life after all the cowboys have gone.
The first crossing left me sobbing at work on my lunch break. I'd say the book is about loss, and Billy loses the whole way through. It's the moments where he tries to hold on that really impacted me.
Between the first section and the events that happen at the end there's an awful lot of philosophizing which is what McCarthy often does, I guess. The whole book felt like a sequence of events, and I didn't care and will probably forget about many of the events in the middle.
But I think I will always remember the whole first crossing and the end of the book.
I love westerns, and I love the concept of a western about a young man who lives a cowboy life after all the cowboys have gone.
The first crossing left me sobbing at work on my lunch break. I'd say the book is about loss, and Billy loses the whole way through. It's the moments where he tries to hold on that really impacted me.
Between the first section and the events that happen at the end there's an awful lot of philosophizing which is what McCarthy often does, I guess. The whole book felt like a sequence of events, and I didn't care and will probably forget about many of the events in the middle.
But I think I will always remember the whole first crossing and the end of the book.
TERRIBLE. It should end after part 1. The first part with the story about the wolf wasn't bad but the rest of it is just him riding through Mexico on his horse. Literally NOTHING happens.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Gun violence, Violence, Grief
Beautifully written book that covers brutal topics and instances
If there is a book and its companions of the Border trilogy, that ever irritated me more, I cannot recall it. I work in the domain of trauma, so I am even more aware of the issues at hand. This book crashes into violence, retraumatising all involved, leaving healing as an impossible ambition. I could go on, but safe to say, I have seen and visited as bad in my life and in clinical settings with the people who come to unburden and heal. It is a long path for them, like this twisted set of words and works, but 'possession', 'honor', and all the patriarchal drivers only serve to show what a hollow, desperate life patriarchy has to offer. THEN, there is the laziness of the tropes, and 'prose'. which continues in later books (the Crossing). The patriarchal female's tirade all in one tirade, and singular in the paucity of women in the dialogue, and when present are without agency, the elderly in christian, patriotic suffering. White incursions into the ethnic reality of survival. The rampant entitlement! May I offer to those who have survived reading this book ,and its threesome companions, Ali Smith's Season quartette: Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer? If you have the stamina to read these McCarthy's trilogy (and I did, highlighting the insults to intelligence, only because the trilogy was gifted to me by a dear trauma suffering friend) your determination and constancy will be nurtured along the read with delights of all sorts, as she takes us along the paths of the institutional horrors enacted by individuals we ALL live with. McCarthy's trilogy and this first book are almost devoid of oxygen. Respite and curiosity came in his landscape descriptions, but boringly were usually tainted by some horror to come. This and the other 2 books have NOTHING new to tell us, especially women. Nothing is offered us to aspire to. No depth of being . Most of all this and they are not masterpieces.
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Altra storia del West intorno alla seconda guerra mondiale, altra storia di adolescenti che abbandonano tutto e partono, questa però è molto più triste di quella narrata in "Cavalli selvaggi" e anche se all'inizio si stenta un pochino, poi Billy e Boyd non hanno niente da invidiare a John Grady Cole. Il paesaggio come protagonista nemmeno troppo secondario, gli indiani, i messicani, le donne, tutto mescolato potrebbero fare l'effetto Sergio Leone e invece no, altro romanzo magistrale di Cormac McCarthy.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Not the best McCarthy book i've ever read but nonetheless a tour de force, beautiful and full of power and stark phrasing. A coming of age story in three acts with some powerful parallel themes running through it, and a suitable follow up to All the Pretty Horses.