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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
McCarthy construye una portentosa novela sobre el crecimiento, la pérdida y el camino. Billy, un adolescente que al iniciar la narración no tiene trece años, aprende sobre la condición humana en los tres viajes que hace desde Nuevo México, donde ha vivido desde que tiene memoria hasta México, primero para llevar una loba, después para buscar junto con su hermano menor unos caballos que eran de su padre y después para buscar a su hermano. Con una prosa delicada, pero no por ello afectada y que no teme a la crudeza, McCarthy lleva a sus lectores por Nuevo México, Arizona, por el nororiente de Sonora y el noroccidente de Chihuahua.
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Very similar structure to All the Pretty Horses despite no shared characters/narrative. I think this one meanders a bit more and feels a tad more repetitive as a result. Still a pretty incredible book that is a bit more melancholic and reflective compared to AtPH.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"He never told anybody."
I did not care what happened to the boy and his stupid wolf
3.5 stars. There something special about this book, but at the same time there's something lacking. Maybe it's better if you understand Spanish.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Almost gave it a 4 or less because I found the monologues very tiring and arduous, but the scope of the story, the significance of each of the 3 crossings, and the final scene of the novel were enough to drag it above the 4.0 or 3.75 mark for me
The Crossing is the second book in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, a bleakly fatalist saga of violence in northern Mexico and the gradual death of independent Southwest American ranches in the years around World War II. Though the second book of the trilogy, the plot of The Crossing is completely independent from the first book, All the Pretty Horses, and can even be read first if need be.
In 1939, sixteen year-old Billy Parnham is tasked by his father with capturing a she-wolf that has been attacking cattle on their New Mexico ranch. This wolf is the depicted as the last of its kind, as ranchers had killed all the others in the process of taming and dividing up the land that serves as the Trilogy's backdrop. Struck by the wolf's wild beauty, Billy decides to muzzle her and carry her back into the mountains of northern Mexico where she must have come from.
This is the first of several crossings of the border in the novel, and each trip into Mexico brings Parnham face to face with unspeakable violence. Mexico is depicted as nearly a polar opposite of the order and prosperity of the southwestern United States. Though Mexicans might protest at the depiction, McCarthy uses this lawless setting for his own grim worldview established in his earlier acclaimed novel Blood Meridian, and summed up in this book by the line, "He spoke as one who seemed to understand that death was the condition of existence and life but an emanation thereof."
McCarthy's writing is distinguished by a number of peculiar features. No quotation marks are used, alternating dialogue usually being set apart by line breaks. Also, to reflect the bilingual society in which Americans of the far Southwest grew up, Spanish dialogue is never translated, nor are individual Spanish words used in the narrative (e.g. "alguacil", "güerito") ever glossed and their meaning must be understood from context or by referring to a Spanish-English dictionary. McCarthy uses some odd similes: in one passage, ranch fenceposts "wander singlefile away into the night like an enfilade of bent and twisted pensioners."
The Crossing is also marked by long philosophical reflections, simple people delivering deep and eloquent meditations like the following:
Some of these reflections, however unrealistic they may be (one can only understand them as McCarthy rewriting the much simpler discourse of poor folk in his own highfaultin' tone) are deeply moving. Furthermore, the ending of the book, when the US enters World War II and many of its young men are sent off to fight, disrupting the longstanding tradition of ranching, is very poignant.
I do find The Crossing to drag at one point in the middle, though McCarthy more than makes up for this with the later parts of the book, so this is no flawless masterpiece. However, I was touched by this novel and know that I will be reading it again someday.
In 1939, sixteen year-old Billy Parnham is tasked by his father with capturing a she-wolf that has been attacking cattle on their New Mexico ranch. This wolf is the depicted as the last of its kind, as ranchers had killed all the others in the process of taming and dividing up the land that serves as the Trilogy's backdrop. Struck by the wolf's wild beauty, Billy decides to muzzle her and carry her back into the mountains of northern Mexico where she must have come from.
This is the first of several crossings of the border in the novel, and each trip into Mexico brings Parnham face to face with unspeakable violence. Mexico is depicted as nearly a polar opposite of the order and prosperity of the southwestern United States. Though Mexicans might protest at the depiction, McCarthy uses this lawless setting for his own grim worldview established in his earlier acclaimed novel Blood Meridian, and summed up in this book by the line, "He spoke as one who seemed to understand that death was the condition of existence and life but an emanation thereof."
McCarthy's writing is distinguished by a number of peculiar features. No quotation marks are used, alternating dialogue usually being set apart by line breaks. Also, to reflect the bilingual society in which Americans of the far Southwest grew up, Spanish dialogue is never translated, nor are individual Spanish words used in the narrative (e.g. "alguacil", "güerito") ever glossed and their meaning must be understood from context or by referring to a Spanish-English dictionary. McCarthy uses some odd similes: in one passage, ranch fenceposts "wander singlefile away into the night like an enfilade of bent and twisted pensioners."
The Crossing is also marked by long philosophical reflections, simple people delivering deep and eloquent meditations like the following:
Do not misunderstand me, he said. The events of the world can have no separate life from the world. And yet the world itself can have no temporal view of things. It can have no cause to favor certain enterprises over others. The passing of armies and the passing of sands in the desert are one. There is favoring, you see. How could there be? At whose behest?
Some of these reflections, however unrealistic they may be (one can only understand them as McCarthy rewriting the much simpler discourse of poor folk in his own highfaultin' tone) are deeply moving. Furthermore, the ending of the book, when the US enters World War II and many of its young men are sent off to fight, disrupting the longstanding tradition of ranching, is very poignant.
I do find The Crossing to drag at one point in the middle, though McCarthy more than makes up for this with the later parts of the book, so this is no flawless masterpiece. However, I was touched by this novel and know that I will be reading it again someday.