[MLQ]⇒ Read Gratis The Crossing Cormac McCarthy 9780394574752 Books

The Crossing Cormac McCarthy 9780394574752 Books

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The Crossing Cormac McCarthy 9780394574752 Books

This is not McCarthy's best work, but neither is it his worst work. It's the 2nd book in what is referred to as his "Border Triology," even though it's a completely different story than the first book in the "triology," All the Pretty Horses. I'll read the third book in the triology, Cities of the Plain, which picks up in 1952 with both main characters from the first two novels.

The Crossing is a good enough story. McCarthy's prose is powerful and carries the book where his actual story lags. The main character Billy Parham sets off to Mexico and ... (see other reviews for story details). Point is: McCarthy has poor Billy wandering all over the countryside, meeting mostly monosyllabic characters but occasionally meeting someone who has the mind of a Kierkegaard or Thoreau. Seriously. McCarthy has to do this because of his "God" pov. He never gets into any single character's head -- not really. I think I saw one "he thought" in the final 100 pages of the book. So, be aware of what you're getting into. The scenery/setting *is* a character. That's just McCarthy.

So: I admire McCarthy's prose style, very much, but at the same time I can say that the characters in this book read to me as either very flat or outrageously unreal. It's that "God" pov again. Because McCarthy the writer has so much to say, he must find a way to say it, either as "God" or through a character. He's best handling "God" through his own voice, because when he gives that voice to a character it becomes wildly unreal. There are, literally, pages and pages of text spoken by characters that could read from a philosophy textbook. Or Mann's Magic Mountain. If you want to go there, great! (As an aside, in Blood Meridian this works magically because those lines/philosophy are given to the judge, one of the greatest characters in all American literature.) Here, it doesn't always work, for me. By the end of The Crossing I felt that Billy Parham is a pretty dumb young man, indeed, almost deserving all he's gotten.

I recommend this book for any fan of McCarthy. And if you've not read any McCarthy at all, I'd recommend as a first read something else of his, like Child of God or No Country for Old Men, or even All the Pretty Horses. Savor his finest novel -- what I believe is one of the finest works of literature ever written: Blood Meridian.

PS: When reading The Crossing you'll want to have a computer nearby to look up both English and Spanish terms. Unless you read Spanish, you'll also want to have A Translation of Spanish Passages in The Crossing. Just search "mccarthy the crossing spanish words" and you'll find a pdf file for (most of but not all) the book's Spanish language text.

I liked it
4/5 Amazon
3/5 Goodreads


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The Crossing Cormac McCarthy 9780394574752 Books Reviews

I have finished the trilogy and I highly recommend you do the same. You can read All The Pretty Horses and The Crossing in whichever order you prefer, although the timeline of The Crossing takes place before Horses and so that's the order I read them in. Both books are equally excellent. Horses, while certainly not upbeat, is much brighter than The Crossing, which is bleak. Very, very bleak. Cities Of the Plain includes characters from both the first two books and there are occasional references to things that occurred in them so that book should be last.

I read Blood Meridian a few years ago and I hated it. Perhaps I wasn't in the mood for it, but I remember thinking at the time how McCarthy was trying so hard to be the southwestern version of Faulkner and how nobody should try to emulate Faulkner because that kind of greatness can't be reproduced. But now that I've read three more McCarthy books I have to admit - he's damn good. So I'll go back and read Blood Meridian again, right after I finish Suttree.

You'll have to sort through the conversations in the books on your own. By that I mean there are no "Billy said" this or that - it's left to you to know who's speaking. There are no quotation marks either. Again, it's for you to follow along and know what's what. If you can't do that you shouldn't be reading these books in the first place.

Two things to be aware of first, the author takes off on tangents sometimes. The tangents are interesting for the most part and usually involve someone else's story but I found in a few instances I lost track of where the main story was. I got it back after only a sentence or two, but still, I got lost in the secondary story. There is another type of tangent where McCarthy just rambles a bit. Those I attributed to late-night bourbon writing. The second thing to be aware of are the sentences and sometimes whole conversations that are in Spanish. If you speak the language you are fine, but if you don't and are interested in what is being said you will need to translate (the does this). If you have no means of translation you will miss what's being said but after a few more sentences it will become apparent.

That's about it. Read the trilogy and expect to be caught up in them, but also know the author will not be spoon-feeding you.
This is not McCarthy's best work, but neither is it his worst work. It's the 2nd book in what is referred to as his "Border Triology," even though it's a completely different story than the first book in the "triology," All the Pretty Horses. I'll read the third book in the triology, Cities of the Plain, which picks up in 1952 with both main characters from the first two novels.

The Crossing is a good enough story. McCarthy's prose is powerful and carries the book where his actual story lags. The main character Billy Parham sets off to Mexico and ... (see other reviews for story details). Point is McCarthy has poor Billy wandering all over the countryside, meeting mostly monosyllabic characters but occasionally meeting someone who has the mind of a Kierkegaard or Thoreau. Seriously. McCarthy has to do this because of his "God" pov. He never gets into any single character's head -- not really. I think I saw one "he thought" in the final 100 pages of the book. So, be aware of what you're getting into. The scenery/setting *is* a character. That's just McCarthy.

So I admire McCarthy's prose style, very much, but at the same time I can say that the characters in this book read to me as either very flat or outrageously unreal. It's that "God" pov again. Because McCarthy the writer has so much to say, he must find a way to say it, either as "God" or through a character. He's best handling "God" through his own voice, because when he gives that voice to a character it becomes wildly unreal. There are, literally, pages and pages of text spoken by characters that could read from a philosophy textbook. Or Mann's Magic Mountain. If you want to go there, great! (As an aside, in Blood Meridian this works magically because those lines/philosophy are given to the judge, one of the greatest characters in all American literature.) Here, it doesn't always work, for me. By the end of The Crossing I felt that Billy Parham is a pretty dumb young man, indeed, almost deserving all he's gotten.

I recommend this book for any fan of McCarthy. And if you've not read any McCarthy at all, I'd recommend as a first read something else of his, like Child of God or No Country for Old Men, or even All the Pretty Horses. Savor his finest novel -- what I believe is one of the finest works of literature ever written Blood Meridian.

PS When reading The Crossing you'll want to have a computer nearby to look up both English and Spanish terms. Unless you read Spanish, you'll also want to have A Translation of Spanish Passages in The Crossing. Just search "mccarthy the crossing spanish words" and you'll find a pdf file for (most of but not all) the book's Spanish language text.

I liked it
4/5
3/5 Goodreads