Reviews - The Crossing | The StoryGraph

720 reviews for:

The Crossing

Cormac McCarthy

4.15 AVERAGE

againpaul's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

dclark32's review against another edition

2.0

DNF page 292. The opening story is brilliant and engrossing; I recorded the paragraph introducing the wolf as a character, to be used as a possible example for teaching English. When that adventure is complete, however, all momentum is lost. Billy wanders around, and meets various strange customers who each relay their own seemingly endless tales of unfortunate events. I guess they serve to develop McCarthy's rather bleak worldview. That there is also extensive dialogue in untranslated Spanish, including in these long, didactic passages, is a barrier to enjoyment (I read French well, and Spanish is closely enough related that I can mostly follow along, but at some point it ceases to be worth it). I admire the technical aspects of the writing, and even after that first journey are some utterly brilliant passages. But the book has become a chore, and there are still over 100 pages left.

I wish to love McCarthy's work, and I do not begrudge that his writing is brilliant. I understand those who argue for his greatness. But this is my fourth of his books, and aside from the electrifying No Country for Old Men I have found all to be underwhelming. It will be my last.

2.5/5 overall I guess. 4.5/5 for Part I, 2-3 stars at different times of the rest of the book.

conman0's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

yjb1778's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Really don’t have too much to say except that in this book there contains the saddest most beautiful pages of writing I have ever read and later a section that made me physically squeam on the train while reading. This book ruled so hard. A true road story filled with vignette's and diatribes from a diverse cast of western characters fills the background of this sad lonely tale.

sams84's review against another edition

3.0

I have to say I had particularly high expectations for this book as the world and its mother seems to be raging about how brilliant McCarthy is as a writer. But I didn't feel it. I found the story long winded and very wordy and struggled to get into the story and keep with it at times. However as the book went on McCarthy focused more on the brothers and their story rather than describing everything in immense detail and I started to enjoy it. I found the characters realistic and believable each with their own imperfections and poor decisions on show for the reader which added to their and the story's depth and realism. I found the ending somewhat anticlimatic and the action lacking in parts but this did add to the strength and realism of the tale. I have mixed feelings about this book, I can't decide whether I liked it, loved it or hated it, which I suppose is just like life...confusing as hell.

skeltonse's review against another edition

„while it was true that time heals bereavement it does so only at the cost of the slow extinction of those loved ones from the heart's memory which is the sole place of their abode then or now. Faces fade, voices dim. Seize them back, whispered the sepulturero. Speak with them. Call their names. Do this and do not let sorrow die for it is the sweetening of every gift“
„him. It tells what it wishes to tell. It tells what makes the story run. The corrido is the poor man's history. It does not owe its allegiance to the truths of history but to the truths of men. It tells the tale of that solitary man who is all men. It believes that where two men meet one of two things can occur and nothing else. In the one case a lie is born and in the other death.

That sounds like death is the truth.

Yes. It sounds like death is the truth. He looked at Billy. Even if the güerito in the song is your brother he is no longer your brother. He cannot be reclaimed.“
„and after a while the right and godmade sun did rise, once again, for all and without distinction“