The Passenger - Cormac McCarthy

  

McCarthy is 4895 years old (actually 89) and it doesn't show from this book. Either he's still extremely sharp, or he has a heck of a ghost-writer...

The Passenger is a beautiful story that makes the American South fascinating (unlike, well, Faulkner, as per my previous post). Bobby Western is the kind of troubled anti-hero that should be played by McConaughey, just like in Mud. And its pages on nuclear research are rather interesting for a non-scientist (in particular as I had casually read this and Giordano's Tasmania back-to-back). 

Oddly enough, at the time of reading I had also just finished advising a student on an essay about Thalidomide, so seeing Western's sister being pursued by "Thalidomide Kid" was bizarelly alienating.

Cities of the Plain – Cormac McCarthy

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I only disliked McCarthy’s books when I found them too gratuitously violent (Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men). Sadly enough Cities of the Plain proved that on some rare occasions I might not fall in love with McCarthy’s novels because they can also be, well, average.

The prose is still great and the characters interesting if a bit boring in their stubbornness, but I have two problems with this book.

1. Was it all just about capitalizing on the success of All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing? Cause I really saw no need to bring back John Grady and Billy (despite the fact that they are two of the characters that I loved most in history!) and pair them together – I want my cowboys to be allowed to ride on in the sunset and never be seen again at the end of books

2. John Grady survived countless attacks in the Mexican prisons in All the Pretty Horses and then gets essentially destroyed in a knife-fight by his dead lover’s pimp. Now, I understand hating your enemy affects your judgement (thanks Godfather II), but I seriously would have expected more from one of the coolest men ever…

The Crossing – Cormac McCarthy

One of those authors whose books I have both loved (All the Pretty Horses, The Road) and thoroughly disliked (No Country for Old Men, Blood Meridian) – luckily The Crossing belongs to the first of the two categories. Also, and this is a huge plus, my daughter seemed to really enjoy the book – although I am not quite sure whether that was because of the blood, because I stammered so often as I tried to read it to her (damn punctuation, or lack thereof!) or because of the contrast of colours on the cover (the options are clearly given in order of increasing probability).

The Crossing is probably the most touching of the books by McCarthy that I have read, because it’s a wonderful story about defeated humble people and their attempts to, fundamentally, get what is legitimately theirs, overcome moments of sheer horror, and get by with a little help from their friends (or from complete strangers, as in the case of the truck-load of Mexican workers or the doctor). In addition, the two brothers somehow kept on reminding me of my two cousins (who do live in the countryside, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end objectively) and more than any other of his books, this novel made me think of my favourite (although not particularly celebrated) Italian spaghetti western, Quien Sabe?/A Bullet for the General.

So yes, one of the best reads of 2016 and possibly the book by McCarthy that I enjoyed the most. 

No Country for Old Men – Cormac McCarthy

This was the first novel by McCarthy that I read, and I did so a few months after the movie came out. I read it on one of my trips to the US to visit my then-girlfriend-now-wife as she was studying in Pennsylvania (not at UPenn like most people think, but still at a pretty good college, by the way, and on a massive scholarship – so take that).

I remember not being impressed, and having a fierce discussion about this with a friend of a friend I was visiting in Princeton. He essentially told me I was an idiot and that No Country for Old Men was far from being one of McCarthy’s best works and that I had no right to speak cause I hadn't read any of his other books. He was partially right. He was also a massive jerk (funny how those specimen often seem to congregate at great universities).

I guess I just didn’t see much of a point in the book. The deep reflections of the sheriff are just a bit stale for me. And Chigurh is just a bit (?!?) much. On the way back from that trip I tried watching the Coen brothers’ movie. Granted I was on a plane and purists will say that’s no way to watch a movie, but I lasted until Chigurh stole the car in the first 15 minutes of the film before deciding it was better to stop it and to snooze for a while trying to prevent jet-lag (something which I fully knew you can’t really do anyway).

All the Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy

It’s like a good Western movie from start to finish. The hero leaves town to find his true self, others get the hero in trouble, he narrowly escapes, he gets himself in trouble because of a woman, he narrowly escapes, he then looks back at his life, learns his lessons, and rides on.

Despite being really rather predictable overall, this is a great book. The section set in the prison is as good, impressive, and nerve-wracking as it gets. Yet, in spite of all this, I pretty much refuse to read the other books of the Border Trilogy, at least for the time being, and why? Simply because I am afraid they’ll be virtually identical to All the Pretty Horses, and the magic of this book for me will be lost.

The Road – Cormac McCarthy

The third McCarthy novel I've read, The Road is surely my favourite so far. McCarthy’s writing style remains unparalleled and, as far as post-apocalyptic novels go, this is really hard to beat.

Short enough for the reader not to get bored with the father and kid’s fight for survival against mostly invisible enemies. Gruesome (more than) enough to make you wish that the two get to the sea, or to a shelter, or to a town, or to anything that is not completely desolate and destroyed. Nerve-wracking enough for the one to keep on thinking about the kid, long after the end of the book, and hope that he will manage to find a way to keep the fire alive. 

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy

For two thirds of the book I had no idea what was going on. People were getting shot. People were getting scalped. There was a kid, “the” kid, a judge, “the” judge, and a bunch of minor characters that all meshed into one non-distinct blood-thirsty outlaw.

After a while the book started making sense, but too late to actually attract my interest or give me any sort of emotion. McCarthy’s prose remains unique, obviously, but that doesn’t mean that reading hundreds of pages that all blur into one has to be an enjoyable experience...