ghosthardware's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
4.5
carlamaeshep's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
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? No
4.0
salbulga's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
davybaby's review against another edition
4.0
Beautiful writing as always with Cormac McCarthy. It's been a while since I read his other work, but this may be my favorite.
bdesmond's review against another edition
5.0
Cormac McCarthy. The man can write.
The Crossing, much to my surprise, does not pick up where the first book in The Border Trilogy leaves off. Instead we zoom backward some ten years, maybe less, and focus on a different character all together. If All the Pretty Horses was John Grady Cole's coming-of-age story, then The Crossing is Billy Parham's, and to some lesser extent his brother Boyd's. Billy lives on a small piece of land with his family in Cloverdale, New Mexico. When a shewolf begins to hunt near his family's farm, Billy is drawn into a journey that will lead him south of the border, and alter the course of he and his brother's lives forever.
I think The Crossing spoke to me in a way that All the Pretty Horses came just short of. One gets the sense—like in Blood Meridian—of a country emptied out. Something irreversibly changed by humankind that now occupies it. An old country, full of life and natural beauty, that will never be seen in quite the same way again. It's in the details. It's in his power of description. He could write a hundred pages just describing the way the plains of New Mexico look and I'd read them happily.
McCarthy is just such an interesting case. He has this dichotomy to him. His writing... His prose is both ordinary and darkly gorgeous. He is a purveyor of both harsh normalcies and the strange linguistic nether reserved for dreams. You can't have one without the other with him, and both are well represented.
What I liked so much about this one... It's a bit hard to describe. But at a certain point it stopped feeling like our protagonist had any agency within the story, and was instead going through the motions of his own destiny; reacting to fate. And that's not to say that he just stumbles around, or doesn't take action, it's just a feeling that accompanies the last quarter or so of this story. It's fascinating, and feels somehow quintessentially McCarthy. And it also, of course, then begs the question: has it only been the last quarter? Was it like this from the beginning? Has this whole damn thing been some inexorable unfolding of events that are at once caused by and outside of our hero's control? What would such a revelation mean? It has the flavor of an old fairytale. But it's a thing he does, you know. Characters like the judge, and Anton Chigurh. But this time it extends beyond a single character, and feels more nebulous. Emissaries of both life and death. Strange spirits blown in on the wind.
The Crossing, much to my surprise, does not pick up where the first book in The Border Trilogy leaves off. Instead we zoom backward some ten years, maybe less, and focus on a different character all together. If All the Pretty Horses was John Grady Cole's coming-of-age story, then The Crossing is Billy Parham's, and to some lesser extent his brother Boyd's. Billy lives on a small piece of land with his family in Cloverdale, New Mexico. When a shewolf begins to hunt near his family's farm, Billy is drawn into a journey that will lead him south of the border, and alter the course of he and his brother's lives forever.
I think The Crossing spoke to me in a way that All the Pretty Horses came just short of. One gets the sense—like in Blood Meridian—of a country emptied out. Something irreversibly changed by humankind that now occupies it. An old country, full of life and natural beauty, that will never be seen in quite the same way again. It's in the details. It's in his power of description. He could write a hundred pages just describing the way the plains of New Mexico look and I'd read them happily.
McCarthy is just such an interesting case. He has this dichotomy to him. His writing... His prose is both ordinary and darkly gorgeous. He is a purveyor of both harsh normalcies and the strange linguistic nether reserved for dreams. You can't have one without the other with him, and both are well represented.
What I liked so much about this one... It's a bit hard to describe. But at a certain point it stopped feeling like our protagonist had any agency within the story, and was instead going through the motions of his own destiny; reacting to fate. And that's not to say that he just stumbles around, or doesn't take action, it's just a feeling that accompanies the last quarter or so of this story. It's fascinating, and feels somehow quintessentially McCarthy. And it also, of course, then begs the question: has it only been the last quarter? Was it like this from the beginning? Has this whole damn thing been some inexorable unfolding of events that are at once caused by and outside of our hero's control? What would such a revelation mean? It has the flavor of an old fairytale. But it's a thing he does, you know. Characters like the judge, and Anton Chigurh. But this time it extends beyond a single character, and feels more nebulous. Emissaries of both life and death. Strange spirits blown in on the wind.
sobolevnrm's review against another edition
3.0
If this book hadn't been so well written, I would have stopped after the first 100 pages. The initial section of the book (the hunt for the wolf) was enthralling but, overall, it was one of the most depressing novels I've read. There was enough tragedy in the various stories to populate several country western songs and Greek plays. The story-telling was fantastic and kept me reading but I would not read this book again.
scytale's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
bobbo49's review against another edition
5.0
Not nearly as dark as much of McCarthy's work, this beautifully poetic, deeply provocative and compelling novel is surely among the best of his writing. While there are some bleak moments, McCarthy's powers of description - both of people and of places - are simply stunning; for instance, his rendering of the way a newly blind man sees the world around him, or his philosophical reflections on why man gives names to places to bring his artificial order to the earth, are as wonderful to read, and reread, as anything I've come across in recent years. If you can stand a little blood and violence, which is simply de riguer with McCarthy, this is a marvelous read.