Following All the Pretty Horses in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy is a novel whose force of language is matched only by its breadth of experience and depth of thought. In the bootheel of New Mexico hard on the frontier, Billy and Boyd Parham are just boys in the years before the Second World War, but on the cusp of unimaginable events. First comes a trespassing Indian an Following All the Pretty Horses in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy is a novel whose force of language is matched only by its breadth of experience and depth of thought. In the bootheel of New Mexico hard on the frontier, Billy and Boyd Parham are just boys in the years before the Second World War, but on the cusp of unimaginable events.

First comes a trespassing Indian and the dream of wolves running wild amongst the cattle lately brought onto the plain by settlers - this when all the wisdom of trappers has disappeared along with the trappers themselves. So Billy sets forth at the age of sixteen on an unwitting journey into the souls of boys, animals and men. Having trapped a she-wolf he would restore to the mountains of Mexico, he is long gone and returns to find everything he left behind transformed utterly in his absence. Except his kid brother, Boyd, with whom he strikes out yet again to reclaim what is theirs - thus crossing into 'that antique gaze from whence there could be no way back forever.' What they find instead, is an extraordinary panoply of fiestas and circuses, dogs, horses and hawks, pilgrims and revolutionaries, grand haciendas and forlorn cantinas, bandits, gypsies and roving tribes, a young girl alone on the road, a mystery in the mountain wilds, and a myth in the making. And in this wider world they fight a war as rageful as the one neither, in the end, will join up for back home. One brother finds his destiny, while the other arrives only at his fate.

It's one thing to hear about this and to know that cracking a Cormac McCarthy book is not going to be an exercise in gumdrops and rainbows, it's a whole other thing to actually open a book and expose yourself to over 400 pages of brutally hard-living and events that shake your faith in I'll admit it freely- I was unprepared for.

An essential novel by any measure, and the transfixing middle passage of Cormac McCarthy's ongoing trilogy, The Crossing is luminous and appalling, a book that touches, stops,and starts the heart and mind at once. They are stand alone novels, but I would tend to recommend reading them in order if you plan to read all three for overarching They are stand alone novels, but I would tend to recommend reading them in order if you plan to read all three for overarching structural/tonal/thematic reasons. All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing don't have much narrative relation to each other, but Cities of the Plain should definitely go third as it is informed by and brings together main characters from the first two novels. Enormously affecting. A boy and his father set out to trap a wolf that is preying on their cattle.

The man who had trapped them in the past, who opened the plains for countless thousands of cattle to graze is now dead, and the wolves have begun to return to their old hunting grounds from their retreat in Mexico. The father and son try to take up the trapping in the manner of the past master. The Crossing is about many things: the three journeys over four years into Mexico taken by the young Bill Enormously affecting. A boy and his father set out to trap a wolf that is preying on their cattle.

The man who had trapped them in the past, who opened the plains for countless thousands of cattle to graze is now dead, and the wolves have begun to return to their old hunting grounds from their retreat in Mexico. The father and son try to take up the trapping in the manner of the past master. The Crossing is about many things: the three journeys over four years into Mexico taken by the young Billy Parham; his own crossing into manhood; the crossing of the dead into ever-lasting life, etc.

The series of tests Parham sets himself suggest any number of Old World quest narratives. He captures the wolf, a pregnant female, whom he clearly comes to love, and decides to take her back to her native mountains in Mexico. It doesn't work out. When he returns to Cloverdale NM he learns his mother and father have been slaughtered by Indians. He collects his brother, Boyd, from a foster home and they set off for Mexico, ostensibly in search of the seven horses that constitute the family patrimony, though this mission is never so baldly stated. Billy and Boyd no longer have a home in the world and it's as if they are simply adrift in the landscape.

They have entered a wild land still torn by endless revolution, where there is no law save the law that comes self made from the actions of peasants, banditos, philosophizing gypsies, itinerant carneys, mothering women, and children. The landscape is beautifully rendered and as active an agent in the narrative as any of the characters Billy and Boyd meet with. I'm leaving a big chunk of the action undescribed, most of it in fact, not because I believe in spoilers (I don't), but because I think that no nimbleness of paraphrase on my part could ever capture the emotional richness, vivid imagery, and sheer narrative power of this fine novel. I like the way emotional tensions are never directly addressed.

Much is left unsaid. It's very stoic, Hemingwayesque. Nietzsche said that one repays a mentor badly when one remains a pupil. Hemingway and Faulkner, it's no surprise, were two of McCarthy's models. (There's probably a touch of Louis L'Amour in the mix too.) Yet I believe he has surpassed them in terms of consistency. Both WF and EH were innovators whose late work became mannered, so taken were they of their own voices and styles.

McCarthy may be less of a technical virtuoso, but he is no less the stylist, and he is by far the more consistent writer than either of his models. That said, I am almost positive that one of McCarthy’s models here was Faulkner’s.

The running down of thieves by teenage boys in both novels seems too strikingly similar. ROf the seven or so McCarthy novels I've read, The Crossing,, and are my favorites. I must read more of him. One decision, as innocent as it may be, can fuck up your life forever. Now, you can live in fear and hide yourself away, or you can keep making those decisions and hope for the best, and if and when the shit hits the fan, you can stand strong and push on. That's The Crossing.

Cormac McCarthy's 'The Border' trilogy is where you'll find dusty plains, hard living, and a recent past populated by a people still living in an even more distant past. His characters are full of character, thei One decision, as innocent as it may be, can fuck up your life forever. Now, you can live in fear and hide yourself away, or you can keep making those decisions and hope for the best, and if and when the shit hits the fan, you can stand strong and push on. That's The Crossing. Cormac McCarthy's 'The Border' trilogy is where you'll find dusty plains, hard living, and a recent past populated by a people still living in an even more distant past. His characters are full of character, their own code and a new version of an old set of morals.

The Crossing is Homeric. There is a hero with a quest. There is a wise man. There are fools. And there are monsters.

The hero's journey plays out upon the border between New Mexico and old Mexico, where the line dividing life and death is measured in handfuls of blood. McCarthy's books are not where you shop for your good times and happy endings. His characters will die and you will feel pain. I spent a good amount of time in early 2014 in southern Mexico. It was a learning experience and it helped me to appreciate what's in this novel. Not only was I able to follow along with much of the Spanish dialogue (it's basic stuff, trust me, I'm not bragging here), but the portrayal of the life and the people rings true and brings to mind images, scenes and people I saw and met during my time in that parched land.

I'm giving this five stars, not because I think it's perfect and that everyone will love it. In fact, I think many people would not like this. McCarthy occasionally veers from the action-packed path to discuss life and that irks some readers. However, I give it five stars for McCarthy's writing. His language usage.ah, those glorious descriptions! It's all too beautiful! The Crossing is an astonishing book, more downbeat than All the Pretty Horses, yet not as bleak as the likes of Blood Meridian, it is a sprawling coming-of-age tale filled with moments of beauty and sorrow.

The descriptions are as beautiful as anything Cormac McCarthy writes, the action is sparse but nailbiting when it comes and the characters are brilliantly realised. There are moments when the book lags but whenever this happens you can be assured that within a couple of pages McCarthy will co The Crossing is an astonishing book, more downbeat than All the Pretty Horses, yet not as bleak as the likes of Blood Meridian, it is a sprawling coming-of-age tale filled with moments of beauty and sorrow. The descriptions are as beautiful as anything Cormac McCarthy writes, the action is sparse but nailbiting when it comes and the characters are brilliantly realised. There are moments when the book lags but whenever this happens you can be assured that within a couple of pages McCarthy will come out with a line or paragraph that is so amazing you'll have to reread several times, possibly out loud, before you can continue with the story. The book never gives you all the information about some aspects of the story which is sometimes frustrating but works within the confines of the world that McCarthy is created, he's never one to end everything neatly and perfectly, the subplot of Billy's brother and the girl leaves you wishing for more though is all the more powerful for the fact that it's heard in rumours and secondhand recollections. Throughout the book there are times when Billy will meet characters who will tell them their own story, these digressions act as stories within the main narrative, both separate from it and integral to it. The story of the blind revolutionary in particular is fantastic, as McCarthy drops his visual mastery to explain the blind man's travels.

This book is a journey from youth to adulthood, from hope to despair, along a hard path populated with kind hearts and desperate men. This book is a journey that you never want to end. Alice Munro said in an interview that our lives begin as straightforward stories with the typical arc of fiction, but that as we go on living they become strange, experimental narratives, convoluted and difficult to interpret. It seems to me that's what's happening in this second volume of the Border Trilogy. Volume One was pretty straightforward, taut and clear in its construction. It told a story of a young man's searing introduction to the adult world.

Volume Two does the same--with a differe Alice Munro said in an interview that our lives begin as straightforward stories with the typical arc of fiction, but that as we go on living they become strange, experimental narratives, convoluted and difficult to interpret. It seems to me that's what's happening in this second volume of the Border Trilogy.

Volume One was pretty straightforward, taut and clear in its construction. It told a story of a young man's searing introduction to the adult world. Volume Two does the same--with a different young man--yet its structure defies the conventions of fiction. After a relatively focused (and actually quite wonderful) first 125 pages, the novel circles and digresses for another 300.

It tried my patience. I pressed on, though, in the hopes that Volume Three will make good on the promise of the first book and redeem the disappointment of this one. Part II of The Border Trilogy. This wasn't nearly as good as 'All The Pretty Horses', but it was still a powerful novel.

Then again, why wouldn't it be? It's Cormack! From his home in New Mexico, young Billy Parham decides to take a wild wolf that has been trapped and set it free in its faraway home in Mexico. Billy succeeds in setting the lobo free, but not like he intended. Because at that juncture there was an unseen obstacle in his path.

There was 'A Crossing'. I think the title is fittin Part II of The Border Trilogy. This wasn't nearly as good as 'All The Pretty Horses', but it was still a powerful novel.

Then again, why wouldn't it be? It's Cormack! From his home in New Mexico, young Billy Parham decides to take a wild wolf that has been trapped and set it free in its faraway home in Mexico.

Billy succeeds in setting the lobo free, but not like he intended. Because at that juncture there was an unseen obstacle in his path. There was 'A Crossing'. I think the title is fitting for the story. In the gritty style that McCarthy is so famous for, he takes Billy and his brother Boyd on a journey, where just as in real life, there are hurtles, bridges and rivers to cross, forks in the road where a decision to go left or right could be the difference in the outcome of your entire life. Billy makes this particular journey, imprinting a lifetime of memories and unforgettable experiences while he is still in his teens.

And in the end. Well, there is no end here. There is no dramatic flair, no unexpected twists, no blooming romance. It's just another place in his life.

Another crossing. Comparisons between this and All the Pretty Horses seem inevitable. Here we have another buldingsroman: a teenage cowboy who rides south into the Mexican frontier, coming of age through scenes of privation and violence. But Billy Parham's journey has a a peculiarly mystical quality all its own. He keeps meeting these extremely odd people out in the wilderness who feel the need to explain to him, in deliriously long, wide-ranging monologues, their gnostically inclined ideas of God, History, Man, Comparisons between this and All the Pretty Horses seem inevitable.

Here we have another buldingsroman: a teenage cowboy who rides south into the Mexican frontier, coming of age through scenes of privation and violence. But Billy Parham's journey has a a peculiarly mystical quality all its own. He keeps meeting these extremely odd people out in the wilderness who feel the need to explain to him, in deliriously long, wide-ranging monologues, their gnostically inclined ideas of God, History, Man, Fate, what have you.

But these weird confessions seem somehow necessary, since in between them, in the main narrative, this kid loses EVERYTHING that ties him to the world. That's what is so weird about this. It's utterly brutal, but it's got this really rich, contemplative spiritual dimension which is so often chocked out by the human cruelty in Mccarthy's work. It's got a powerfully redemptive quality which I've never come across in his writing before, almost in spite of itself.

Note: Tons of the dialogue is in Spanish, and it really helps to have a bi-lingual dictionary by you're side when your going through it. After finishing All the Pretty Horses, I felt (maybe somewhat unjustly) that the bar of expectation had been set extremely high.

I realize that some (most?) people have a particular favorite part of McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, but I’d be hard-pressed to choose one after reading The Crossing. However, the change was noticeable and I was relieved that the second book wasn’t just a rehashing of the first in theme and tone. The Crossing does maintain the elegant, sprawling prose contrasted by McCarth After finishing All the Pretty Horses, I felt (maybe somewhat unjustly) that the bar of expectation had been set extremely high. I realize that some (most?) people have a particular favorite part of McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, but I’d be hard-pressed to choose one after reading The Crossing. However, the change was noticeable and I was relieved that the second book wasn’t just a rehashing of the first in theme and tone.

The Crossing does maintain the elegant, sprawling prose contrasted by McCarthy’s characteristically minimalist dialog, but utilizes the contextual similarities to other, darker purposes. That is to say, McCarthy doesn’t pull any punches, which I think is why these books resist predictability – he goes to the Bad Place and then some, but it’s always in a plausible, if tragic way. If All the Pretty Horses is a treatise on Love and Beauty (which I would argue it is), then The Crossing is an opus that dissects the mortal crises over Spirituality and Death. The narrative thread here is also more ambiguous than All the Pretty Horses, revealing itself like unmarked sequences of a dream, colorful and haunting, bleak and inevitable. The evident symbolism of “crossing” back and forth over the U.S./Mexico border segues into metaphysical possibilities and issues rather than merely being a one-dimensional metaphor by which to cheaply entertain.

What begins as a simple journey ultimately becomes a Lynchian quest for cathartic realization of Self and Other, brought together through blood. This is a campfire tale about the humble genesis of a teenage Bad Ass cowboy from the desert southwest. The story has 4 parts, each beginning and ending with a US-Mexico border crossing (hence the title). The crossing of the border takes Billy, the main character, a 16 year old boy, from a stark world of American reality to an almost dreamy, magical world of Mexican legend.

There's a transcendental relationship between Billy and the earth & elements when he's south of the border. The relatio This is a campfire tale about the humble genesis of a teenage Bad Ass cowboy from the desert southwest. The story has 4 parts, each beginning and ending with a US-Mexico border crossing (hence the title). The crossing of the border takes Billy, the main character, a 16 year old boy, from a stark world of American reality to an almost dreamy, magical world of Mexican legend.

There's a transcendental relationship between Billy and the earth & elements when he's south of the border. The relationship is instinctual and provident. McCarthy describes the environment in exquisite detail.a good campsite, a long-awaited meal, a horse drinking from pooled water, the appearance of the sky. Character actions are bold; dialogue scarce.

The narrative is simple but rich, like a symphony made only of woodwinds and kettle drums. In each part, there are a dozen or so pages that remind me of magic realism. The main character meets a strange, but key, individual that suddenly dominates the narrative, and relates in profound language a bizarre experience about the meaning of life.

Together, they fathom the esoteric meaning of God. The meaning is ponderous and brilliant, and there is a tenuous silken line of reasoning that threads the 4 Parts together like a master cloth.

Although the language is simple, McCarthy takes you on a religious ride, segments of which you may have to re-read. I don't normally re-read long segments of writing, but McCarthy absolutely warped my mind back around itself, very much like a gordian knot, yet somehow my brain worked it out, reasoning--instead of luck--being the better part of challenging the unknown. Cormac McCarthy has done it again in this second installment of the Border Trilogy!

He writes like a Buddhist is trained to think: 1. Simple--yet with profound sumps of meaning like deeper and deeper catacombs 2. Spartan--yet with a particular economized flair of embellishment 3. Direct--yet with a lilting poetry of verbiage 4. Repetitive--yet with a purposeful layering of key points like an alluvial sediment 5. Exact--yet with time and space to plumb the meaning of God The writing is not the vehicle of the story, it is the story. You may understandably think the story is set to low gear, but you cannot deny that the story is a ne plus ultra of organic, breathing prose.

Words matter to McCarthy, and the way they're put together means as much as the action they're used to convey. This author cherishes language. I envision McCarthy weighing, balancing, and judging every word to ensure it reads well, works best with other words, and even looks good on the page.

His words are the zootic clay that captures the story like fossils. His sentences are rich and tactile, like a wooden fence, he can drive his thumbnail into it and see the imprint. I almost feel dusty and thirsty after an hour of reading. His prose is also loaded with Spanish words and sentences, sometimes with a glancing translation, and sometimes with no translator help whatsoever.

McCarthy will just as boldly use a Spanish word as an English word. He ultimately uses the language that most correctly captures the definition of the noun he seeks.

During character conversation in Spanish, the dialogue is so staccato, so simple and short, that even a non-Spanish speaker follows the gist of McCarthy's sentences. McCarthy achieves a beautiful balance between English and Spanish. At times it's romantic, blunt, bountiful, earthy, and achieves a common consanguinity between the two. His writing also uses an adjectivenoun mash-up to great poetic effect. It's different, but it works throughout, and it's highly readable.

Same with quotation marks--there are none throughout, and yet it works to streamline the narrative. He avoids punctuation.

His longer sentences are composites of shorter sentences with no commas. Examples: He went into the pantry and found some canned peaches and he stood in the dark at the sink eating them out of a glass jar with a cookingspoon (sic) and looking out through the window at the pastureland (sic) to the south blue and silent under the rising moon and the fence running out into the darkness under the mountains and the shadow of the fence crossing the land in the moonlight like a suture. 164) They ate and unrolled their beds and turned in to sleep.

The wind blew all night. It burned up the fire and burned up the coals of the fire and the balled and twisted shape of redhot (sic) wire burned briefly like the incandescent armature of an enormous heart in the night's darkness and then faded to black and the wind blew the coals to ash and blew the ash away and scoured the clay where coals and ash had been till other than the blackened wire there was no trace of fire at all and all night things passed in the dark that had of themselves no articulation yet had a destination for that. 172) They sorted out the horses and drove them across the river and set out upcountry. The plains about them blue and devoid of life.

The thin horned moon lay on its back in the west like a grail and the bright shape of Venus hung directly above it like a star falling into a boat. They kept to the open country clear of the river and they rode all night and toward the morning they made a dry camp in a quemada of burned trees clustered dead and black and ragged on a slight rise a mile west of the river.

They dismounted and looked for some sign of water but there was none. 264) Why not 5 stars? Despite the wolf hunt, murdered parents, outrunning bandidos, getting shot, and the delicate, skilled maneuvering of an American cabellaro in the north Mexican desert, The Crossing lacks just enough critical action to prevent me from awarding an additional star. When I read literature, I can endure meager action and terse dialogue, but there is still a small component of my body that needs some Hollywood moments. Not a lot, but something that digs the spurs deep in my craw. New words: alcahest, kiack, pannier, withy, consanguinity, crone, glaucous. The second novel in McCarthy’s Border Trilogy is not a sequel to All the Pretty Horses, but rather a parallel coming-of-age story.

Billy Parham is a sixteen year old boy living on a ranch in New Mexico. When a wolf suddenly begins killing his family’s cattle, Billy’s father sets him with the task of trapping the wolf. A game of wits between boy and beast ensues, as the wolf repeatedly digs up the traps that have been set for her. When Billy finally outsmarts the wolf and catches her, he feels su The second novel in McCarthy’s Border Trilogy is not a sequel to All the Pretty Horses, but rather a parallel coming-of-age story.

Billy Parham is a sixteen year old boy living on a ranch in New Mexico. When a wolf suddenly begins killing his family’s cattle, Billy’s father sets him with the task of trapping the wolf.

A game of wits between boy and beast ensues, as the wolf repeatedly digs up the traps that have been set for her. When Billy finally outsmarts the wolf and catches her, he feels such a bond with her that he doesn’t have the heart to kill her. Instead, he sets out to cross the border into Mexico, returning the wolf to the country whence she came. His life-altering trek eventually leads him back home, where he realizes that his journey has just begun. This highly literary tale will appeal to fans of complex westerns like Deadwood, as well as McCarthy’s other works – and can be read as a standalone novel. Kawai Bl 31 Serial Number here. Readers returning to the trilogy seeking another romantic tale like All the Pretty Horses should be forewarned, however: this installment is much bleaker than its predecessor. The first part of the novel is compelling and, in the end, heartwrenching; a haunting story that could easily stand on its own – and indeed is the saving grace of the entire book.

But from there, as Billy makes his second and third crossings into Mexico, the plot devolves into a series of ponderous meanderings that lacks the same emotional payoff that characterized the first portion of the novel. For this reviewer, the novel was not rewarding enough to justify the challenge of reading it – but others may be up to the task. Cormac McCarthy novels are proof that words are just as powerful, or arguably more so, than images. Reading The Crossing, I lost a little piece of my sanity as I traversed Mexican plains with Billy, the ubiquitous dust drying my mouth. I gazed into the eyes of a starving, pregnant wolf.

I caressed tired horses and drank the mescal. The storytellers who captivated Billy enthralled me. I saw the flickers in their eyes and the slight motions of their hands as they created a world in my mind. As my O Cormac McCarthy novels are proof that words are just as powerful, or arguably more so, than images. Reading The Crossing, I lost a little piece of my sanity as I traversed Mexican plains with Billy, the ubiquitous dust drying my mouth. I gazed into the eyes of a starving, pregnant wolf. I caressed tired horses and drank the mescal.

The storytellers who captivated Billy enthralled me. I saw the flickers in their eyes and the slight motions of their hands as they created a world in my mind.

As my Oklahoman friend Sam would say: The Crossing will give you a 'case of the plains,' but you won't regret it. I'll admit it freely- I was unprepared for Cormac McCarthy. Sure, I've heard all the reviews: that he's bleak, despairing, has a dark and twisted worldview, offers little hope for the future, et cetera ad nauseum. It's one thing to hear about this and to know that cracking a Cormac McCarthy book is not going to be an exercise in gumdrops and rainbows, it's a whole other thing to actually open a book and expose yourself to over 400 pages of brutally hard-living and events that shake your faith in I'll admit it freely- I was unprepared for Cormac McCarthy. Sure, I've heard all the reviews: that he's bleak, despairing, has a dark and twisted worldview, offers little hope for the future, et cetera ad nauseum. It's one thing to hear about this and to know that cracking a Cormac McCarthy book is not going to be an exercise in gumdrops and rainbows, it's a whole other thing to actually open a book and expose yourself to over 400 pages of brutally hard-living and events that shake your faith in humankind even as you marvel at the tenacity of the human spirit.

The second in McCarthy's Border Trilogy, you know within the opening pages that this is a far different beast of a book than the award-winning All The Pretty Horses. The protagonists are similar, both teen boys looking for adventure and meaning on the other side of the thin imaginary line that divides American soil from Mexican. Yet where John Grady Cole descended into Mexico to care for horses and search out love, The Crossing's Billy Parham is on a quest that makes Sisyphus' efforts look like a lark. After trapping a pregnant wolf that has been preying on his family's cattle, Billy finds he can't bring himself to kill her and instead sets forth to the mountains of Mexico to release her back into the wild. Of course nothing goes as it should and by the time Billy meanders back across the border to the ruins of his life he is hardly the immature youth who first set out on the long road through unfriendly lands. Through a series of events that are better left unwritten here, Billy finds himself drawn to Mexico again and again as the years go by, each journey removing more and more of his ties to the world and rendering him a living ghost haunted by the choices he's made and the vicissitudes of fate that have left him bereft. Much has been made of the brutality and violence in McCarthy's works and I would be remiss if I didn't mention something about them.

Don't get me wrong, this book is violent. There are descriptions of extreme brutality that makes you wonder as to the mental stability of the author- a particularly gruesome description of a man's eyes being sucked from his skull by a perverse German still haunt me. It's not only human-on-human violence within these pages, though. Some of the most inexplicable and haunting acts are performed on animals- the wolf, a dog, Billy's horse- which does far more to bring home the nature of the harsh world that Billy exists in. The interesting thing, for me, is that most of the violence happens off-stage and is made known to the reader only through the effects it has on his characters. You don't get the action, but the reaction.

It was this remove from the actual violence that made it seem that much more hard-hitting. Even the violence that occurs on-stage is briefly described in favor of longer passages dealing with the characters recovery from these events. It is this, the focus on the consequences of violence rather than the violence itself, that sticks with the reader long after the last page has been turned.

McCarthy is a man who has ruminated at great lengths on the darker nature of humanity and it is laid out fantastically herein. Questions of faith in a god that lets such atrocities as described above occur, moments of extreme kindness and charity by the most dispossessed inhabitants of the Sonoran desert, the sheer random nature of some of the events- McCarthy has crafted a fable that cuts right to the heart of humanity and leaves you questioning whether original sin may actually be an affliction which we suffer. At the very least, he's earned a dedicated fan and I can not wait to read the concluding book of the trilogy. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a book less. I was all the more disappointed because I have liked everything else I've read of McCarthy.

This felt like paint by numbers McCarthy to me: male characters laconic to the point of absurdity, but stopping often to listen to portentous theological soliloquies. Wandering through desert landscape, and experiencing sudden senseless violence. It is devoid of feeling until the final page--practically an autistic novel--and ultimately offers nothing I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a book less. I was all the more disappointed because I have liked everything else I've read of McCarthy. This felt like paint by numbers McCarthy to me: male characters laconic to the point of absurdity, but stopping often to listen to portentous theological soliloquies. Wandering through desert landscape, and experiencing sudden senseless violence. It is devoid of feeling until the final page--practically an autistic novel--and ultimately offers nothing to counter, redeem, or justify, its unrelenting bleakness.

Like McCarthy’s other work, this second entry in the Border Trilogy (a series of novels set around the border of the U.S. And Mexico near the middle of the 20th century) features lyrical prose, vivid descriptions of landscapes and nature, memorable dialogue and scenes that are hard to forget. This book has even more of a philosophical bent than some of McCarthy’s other novels, as many of the people the protagonist meets on his travels (priests, ex-soldiers, gypsies, etc.) engage him in deep meta Like McCarthy’s other work, this second entry in the Border Trilogy (a series of novels set around the border of the U.S. And Mexico near the middle of the 20th century) features lyrical prose, vivid descriptions of landscapes and nature, memorable dialogue and scenes that are hard to forget. This book has even more of a philosophical bent than some of McCarthy’s other novels, as many of the people the protagonist meets on his travels (priests, ex-soldiers, gypsies, etc.) engage him in deep metaphysical conversation during their brief encounters. There are a number of interesting ideas being explored both on and just off the page, such as the contrast between an America gearing up for WWII and a Mexico that seems to be still struggling to enter the 20th century. It’s hard not to compare this to.

While these are somewhat different books ( Horses more romantic and unified; Crossing more philosophical and fragmented), I did think Horses was the better novel. One special note: a significant portion of this book’s dialogue – far more than in Horses – is in Spanish. If I was fluent in Spanish, I could see this being a unique touch that gave the story real flavor and authenticity, and possibly a major point in the book’s favor. Unfortunately, my high school Spanish was woefully inadequate, and there is enough Spanish dialogue here that a non-Spanish reader (like myself) may glaze over dialogue critical to revealing characters' motivations or even elements of the plot. This is a book I would love to re-read later in life if I ever gain a better grasp of Spanish, and I would not be surprised if this book is elevated to a 5-star level as a result.

Until then, however, I can only speculate on what I might have missed. That said, I enjoyed this book, and I look forward to finishing the trilogy soon. Not quite as magical as the first entry in the series, but a still a strong and fascinating Western. 4.5 stars, highly recommended!

Esta es una novela occidental, pero no es una novela occidental normales.oh wait a minute, I forgot I just finished the book and am now in review mode. Much of the dialogue in this one is Spanish, but never fear, you'll context it just fine.

McCarthy is a master of the slow paced, philosophical novel which crosses boundaries of mankind's struggles both real and imagined. He has a way of coaxing the reader along in a debate that they didn't bargain for and for which no clear side is being t Esta es una novela occidental, pero no es una novela occidental normales.oh wait a minute, I forgot I just finished the book and am now in review mode. Much of the dialogue in this one is Spanish, but never fear, you'll context it just fine. McCarthy is a master of the slow paced, philosophical novel which crosses boundaries of mankind's struggles both real and imagined. He has a way of coaxing the reader along in a debate that they didn't bargain for and for which no clear side is being taken (although I have my own suspicions about where the author lands on a few of them). He can do things with words and thoughts that very few could, and to mention them out of context wouldn't do them justice.

While it is the second of the border trilogy, it bears no resemblance to the first other than the landscapes (its actually set prior to All the Pretty Horses) and some of the same questions about humanity. I think they do re-link up in the next volume. I much preferred this one to ATPH. It is less approachable probably in terms of pure reading enjoyment, but it wades into more McCarthy like language.

The story has great sub-stories. We learn about an older brother's journey which eventually involves his younger brother. He is always looking for something as he journeys back and forth- crossing the border several times for various reasons.

Don't go to this novel as a lead in to McCarthy- start with and then work through some of the southern novels first (in my opinon)- he's an acquired taste to some, and while reading his works take more work they are really, really worth it. My impression of this one mirrors many of the reviews I've read: The first section with Billy and the wolf is stunning and surely among the best descriptions of man's relationship with the wild in literature. The middle section meanders. I felt I needed a map to keep track of the brothers' wanderings in and out of Mexico, and many of their encounters with minor characters were unsatisfying.

It was difficult to believe Boyd's connection with 'the girl' when she wasn't even given a name. The final t My impression of this one mirrors many of the reviews I've read: The first section with Billy and the wolf is stunning and surely among the best descriptions of man's relationship with the wild in literature.

The middle section meanders. I felt I needed a map to keep track of the brothers' wanderings in and out of Mexico, and many of their encounters with minor characters were unsatisfying. It was difficult to believe Boyd's connection with 'the girl' when she wasn't even given a name. The final third picks up and the end.well, the injured horse, the tarp full of bones, the broken cowboy weeping in the road, the beauty and the brutality.this is what McCarthy is famous for.

Judging from the four—closing in on five—Cormac McCarthy novels I've read so far, he is not a writer eager to share an abundant sense of humor with his readers. So the folksy (and very funny) joke an elder fellow cattle-rancher tells to The Crossing’s protagonist Billy Parham less than fifty pages into the more than 400 page novel is a rarity, if not a singularity: There was this Texas lion and this New Mexico lion. They split up on the divide and went off to hunt. Agreed to meet up in the spring Judging from the four—closing in on five—Cormac McCarthy novels I've read so far, he is not a writer eager to share an abundant sense of humor with his readers. So the folksy (and very funny) joke an elder fellow cattle-rancher tells to The Crossing’s protagonist Billy Parham less than fifty pages into the more than 400 page novel is a rarity, if not a singularity: There was this Texas lion and this New Mexico lion. They split up on the divide and went off to hunt.

Agreed to meet up in the spring and see how they done and all and whenever they done it why the old lion been over in Texas looked just awful. Lion from New Mexico he looked at him and he said lord son you look awful. Said what's happened to you. Lion's been over in Texas said I don't know. Said I'm about starved out. Other old lion said well, said tell me what all you been doin. Said you might be doin somethin wrong.

Well the Texas lion said I just been usin the old tried and true methods. Said I get up on a limb overlookin the trail and then whenever one of the Texans ride underneath it why I holler real big and then I jump out on top of him. And that's what I been a doin. Well, the old New Mexico lion looked at him and said it's a wonder you aint dead. Said that's all wrong for your Texans and I dont see how you got through the winter atall.

Said look here. First of all when you holler thataway it scares the shit out of em.

Then when you jump on top of them thataway it knocks the wind out of em. You aint got nothing left but buckles and boots. That's a concentrated dose of one thing McCarthy does very well: create believable colloquial regional diction so finely honed that, even if you are unfamiliar with the patois in question, it so vividly lodges in your mind that you intuitively accept it as airtight accurate.

It's also is an example of something McCarthy doesn’t do often enough: use one of his strong skills as a writer to make an unequivocal point or paint an unambiguous picture of human behavior. The old rancher who told the joke resides, as does Billy Parham, in New Mexico. Obviously McCarthy wants to convey that some New Mexican folks in the time this novel is set—half a dozen years or so leading up to America’s entry into World War II—disdained Texans. McCarthy skillfully extends that notion—as well as the humor—beyond the joke told as the old man, continuing the conversation once he regains his composure from cracking himself up, says You see the point? Billy smiled. Yessir, he said. You aint from Texas are you?

I didn’t allow you was. I think that’s really magnificent writing. But then there are all the other 400 and some odd pages of this novel, which I find it difficult to think of the same way. After reading the 'novel entire' (placement of that adjective after, rather than before, the noun it modifies is a device McCarthy uses several times in this book), I didn’t encounter a single passage anywhere else that fired my imagination and staid with me the way the above excerpt did.

In fact, if we accept the old man’s joke as true, I’d half suspect McCarthy of being Texan himself if I didn’t know better. For me all of McCarthy’s elsewhere critically acclaimed descriptions of the early twentieth century American Southwest and Mexican landscapes, his overwrought and oddly non sequitur figurative language and the frequently unfathomable actions of his characters add up to nothing more than a wind that blows mighty hot and bears no solid narrative integrity my way. If that’s not bad enough, The Crossing’s length as a novel stretches out at two different places for several clunky, lengthy philosophical interludes (I don’t know what else you’d call them) which amount to that thing other than wind that the hungry wolf from the joke inadvertently purged from the Texans he preyed upon. Let’s take the convoluted metaphors and twisted similes first. After much trial and error, our young hero Billy Parham has successfully trapped the wolf that has been killing his rancher family’s livestock. Instead of shooting the wolf dead while it’s caught in the trap, as his father instructed, he decides—imbued with some unexplained sixth sense that now is the time to embark upon a quixotic coming-of-age quest—to take the wolf as a living captive and return it to the Mexican mountains.

In a scene where a series of events have brought Billy to a point where he can allow the otherwise muzzled wolf to drink some much needed water, we find him “squatted there watching her (the wolf) with rope in both hands. Like a man entrusted with the keeping of something which he hardly knew the use of.” Well, he’s not like such a man, he IS, at that precise moment, “a man entrusted (by his own volition) with the keeping of something which he hardly knew the use of.” At several times he as much as admits that he’s not quite sure what his motivation is for trying to take the wolf back to the mountains, so he hardly knows the “use” of her or his mission. Saccharine Trust Paganicons RARE. Eventually McCarthy gives us a date, but in the mean time leaves us wondering about the era and how it relates to, and why this books is so completely different, and how long does the Peter and Wolf thing need to go on.

I'll spoil it a bit and tell you that Billy Parham crosses over to Mexico the first time about the winter of 1939, with his lame wolf in ropes. He's about 15 years old, making him about nine years older then John Grady. Billy is nothing like Joh Eventually McCarthy gives us a date, but in the mean time leaves us wondering about the era and how it relates to, and why this books is so completely different, and how long does the Peter and Wolf thing need to go on. I'll spoil it a bit and tell you that Billy Parham crosses over to Mexico the first time about the winter of 1939, with his lame wolf in ropes. He's about 15 years old, making him about nine years older then John Grady.

Billy is nothing like John Grady, nor really is his book. Is distinctly slow and plotless. Billy just wanders. The reader wanders with him, but mostly that reader is pondering the details, all the Spanish, and the various ways Billy handles the ropes to manage the wolf, the paths of his wanderings, the horses, and what exactly is unspoken. There is a managed tension throughout. Notably, from wondering if that wolf will get loose. But also between Billy and his younger brother Boyd.

Billy is the epitome of hard luck. Boyd however naturally attracts affections and is quite beautiful in many different ways. Billy tries to protect Boyd, but he can never manage to talk to him. But the notable aspect of this book is that McCarthy has added in quite a bit of thought and philosophy.

I think McCarthy tried hard to work out his own mindset here, the one running through all his work, and then to spell it out for the reader in his own way. That is to say, with some reconstruction a lot is revealed. McCarthy's worldview is cold, but not baseless. He uses numerous prophets, including a gypsie, a variety of oddball wise men and women, and his favorite teller, an expriest.

McCarthy loves ex- and fallen-priests. There has to be a loss of faith to get his attention. This one gets the most acreage, covering several pages, giving Billy a lesson and, as I'm only just now realizing, an accurate fortune telling. He tells his story in third person: “And the priest? A man of broad principles. Of liberal sentiments. Even a generous man.

Something of a philosopher. Yet one might say that his way through the world was so broad it scarcely made a path at all.

He carried within himself a great reverence for the world, this priest. He heard the voice of the Deity in the murmur of the wind in the trees. Even the stones were sacred. He was a reasonable man and he believed that there was love in his heart. There was not. Nor does God whisper through the trees.

His voice is not to be mistaken. When men hear it they fall to their knees and their souls are riven and they cry out to Him and there is no fear in them but only that wildness of heart that springs from such longing and they cry out to stay His presence for they know at once that while godless men may live well enough in their exile those to whom He has spoken can contemplate no life without Him but only darkness and despair. As for Billy, he will find only sadness and a very hard lonely world. He got his things from the house and saddled the horse in the road and rode out. He said goodbye to no one. He sat the horse in the road beyond the river cottonwoods and he looked off down country at the mountains and he looked to the west where thunderheads were standing sheared off from the thin dark horizon and he looked at the deep cyanic sky taut and vaulted over the whole of Mexico where the antique world clung to the stones and to the spores of living things and dwelt in the blood of men. He turned the horse and set out along the road south, shadowless in the gray day, riding with the shotgun unscabbarded across his lap.

For the enmity of the world was newly plain to him that day and cold and inameliorate as it must be to all who have no longer cause except themselves to stand against it. I developed a lot of affection for this book. I read it slow and enjoyed lingering around in it. Scattered about are many lines of note, although as we say online, YMMV.(on the nature of the world).

Men wish to be serious but they do not understand how to be so. Between their acts and their ceremonies lies the world and in this world the storms blow and the trees twist in the wind and all the animals that God has made go to and fro yet this world men do not see. They see the acts of their own hands or they see that which they name and call out to one another but the world between is invisible to them. To see God everywhere is to see Him nowhere.the truth may often be carried about by those who themselves remain unaware of it.the order which the righteous seek is never righteousness itself but is only order, the disorder of evil is in fact the thing itself.

(on writing). Always the teller must be at pains to devise against his listener's claim—perhaps spoken, perhaps not—that he has heard the tale before. (I see this fragment as characterizing part of what drives McCarthy).that elusive freedom which men seek with such unending desperation. It makes me a little sad to rate this so low, because there are certain parts of the book that I loved. Certain passages that were so breathtaking, I've already reread them a few times over.

While part 1 was really excellent, especially the ending, I mostly found this book a chore to read. Not a whole lot of plot, more of a meandering journey meeting random people who give soliloquies lasting several pages. A lot of philosophizing, which fortunately was often not so esoteric and could be pers It makes me a little sad to rate this so low, because there are certain parts of the book that I loved. Certain passages that were so breathtaking, I've already reread them a few times over.

While part 1 was really excellent, especially the ending, I mostly found this book a chore to read. Not a whole lot of plot, more of a meandering journey meeting random people who give soliloquies lasting several pages. A lot of philosophizing, which fortunately was often not so esoteric and could be personalized. But just not the kind of book that I wanted to read.

Very different from All The Pretty Horses. The ending was wonderfully depressing, however.

I'll probably read the 3rd book in the trilogy at some point. Edit: I'm adding a star because there are certain parts of this book that still stay with me and actually make me want to read this again. Especially after finishing the trilogy, I've become rather attached to Billy, and it's interesting to see how his coming of age story affects who he turns out to be in a very different way from that of John Grady. I have a feeling this would be better on subsequent reads, provided you are in the mood for a more contemplative book.

Far more melancholy than its predecessor All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing is a beautiful if bleak western full of poetry and philosophical musings. The Billy character is wonderfully drawn amd in particular the first part of the book with the wolf was outstanding. McCarthy's sparse Hemmingway-esque style lends an austere and yet often humorous tone to the dialogs - particularly those both spoken and unspoken between Billy and Boyd.

I appreciate the author's reluctance to dummy down the story Far more melancholy than its predecessor All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing is a beautiful if bleak western full of poetry and philosophical musings. The Billy character is wonderfully drawn amd in particular the first part of the book with the wolf was outstanding. McCarthy's sparse Hemmingway-esque style lends an austere and yet often humorous tone to the dialogs - particularly those both spoken and unspoken between Billy and Boyd. I appreciate the author's reluctance to dummy down the story and challenge the reader constantly throughout. Looking forward to completing the trilogy now with Cities of the Plain.

'It had ceased raining in the night and he walked out on the road and called for the dog. He called and called. Standing in that inexplicable darkness. Where there was no sound anywhere save only the wind.

After a while he sat in the road. He took off his hat and placed it on the tarmac before him and he bowed his head and held his face in his hands and wept. He sat there for a long time and after a while the east did gray and after a while the right and godmade sun did rise, once again, for all 'It had ceased raining in the night and he walked out on the road and called for the dog.

He called and called. Standing in that inexplicable darkness.

Where there was no sound anywhere save only the wind. After a while he sat in the road. He took off his hat and placed it on the tarmac before him and he bowed his head and held his face in his hands and wept. He sat there for a long time and after a while the east did gray and after a while the right and godmade sun did rise, once again, for all and without distinction.'

Written in 1994, 'The Crossing' is the second volume of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. I had read the first book, 'All the Pretty Horses,' about the time it came out, after I had spent years in Latin America and become an ardent lover of Spanish, but before I fell in love with the Southwest.

I'm sure my appreciation of McCarthy owes much to the finesse with which he weaves Spanish and English. Beyond that, however, I can't think of another writer who can so quickly transport me to a setting, Written in 1994, 'The Crossing' is the second volume of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. I had read the first book, 'All the Pretty Horses,' about the time it came out, after I had spent years in Latin America and become an ardent lover of Spanish, but before I fell in love with the Southwest. I'm sure my appreciation of McCarthy owes much to the finesse with which he weaves Spanish and English. Beyond that, however, I can't think of another writer who can so quickly transport me to a setting, a time and a people -- natives, anglos and Mexicans living on the border between the United States and Mexico in the first half of the twentieth century. I picked up 'The Crossing' while visiting a friend in New York. It was at the end of a good visit and I was contemplating a long trip with nothing to read, traveling from her home on the Hudson River to the Pacific Northwest.

There the book sat on her bookshelf, as pristine and untouched, a Book-of-the-Month Club selection which no one in the house had read. 'Take it; keep it,' she said. And so I embarked on a journey that took me from page one to page 423 in a straight shot, living from moment to moment the story of Billy, his younger brother Boyd and their trips back and forth across the border -- all because of a wolf. Here's how it starts: 'When they came south out of Grant County Boyd was not much more than a baby and the newly formed county they'd named Hidalgo was itself little older than the child. In the country they'd quit lay the bones of a sister and the bones of his maternal grandmother.

The new country was rich and wild. You could ride clear to Mexico and not strike a crossfence. He carried Boyd before him in the bow of the saddle and named to him features of the landscape and birds and animals in both Spanish and English.' The 'he' in this story is Billy, reliable and resilient, loyal to a fault.

We are party to his 'crossing' into adulthood. Through him we learn the evil that lurks in the men's hearts and the heartbreak of loss. For McCarthy, the setting, the livestock, horses and predators are as important as the human characters. In addition to the skill with which McCarthy weaves the two languages, he introduces the reader to the world of work and its painstaking, hum-drum exactitude. We learn how to set a trap. We learn the tricks for keeping a horse fed and watered on long treks into unknown territory.

Mostly 'The Crossing' is a tale of devotion, honor and brotherly love filled with terror and loneliness. Don't pick up it up unless you want to be sucked in emotionally. It will break your heart.

If you enjoyed ALL THE PRETTY HORSES which is the first book in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, you will be equally enchanted by THE CROSSING. The first time I tried this, 10 years ago, I couldn't get into it, but inspired by THE ROAD which I read this summer, I decided to try again and have been amply rewarded. McCarthy is an eloquent writer. This is the story of a young American boy and his brother, who go to Mexico in an attempt to find the horses stolen from their ranch. They do find th If you enjoyed ALL THE PRETTY HORSES which is the first book in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, you will be equally enchanted by THE CROSSING.

The first time I tried this, 10 years ago, I couldn't get into it, but inspired by THE ROAD which I read this summer, I decided to try again and have been amply rewarded. McCarthy is an eloquent writer. This is the story of a young American boy and his brother, who go to Mexico in an attempt to find the horses stolen from their ranch. They do find them and in the process they also find their separate destinies.

On every page McCarthy brings to life the terrible beauty and tragedy of Mexico. This is a splendid and unforgettable book. Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels in the Southern Gothic, western, and post-apocalyptic genres and has also written plays and screenplays. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, and his 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. His earlier Blood M Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels in the Southern Gothic, western, and post-apocalyptic genres and has also written plays and screenplays.

He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, and his 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. His earlier Blood Meridian (1985) was among Time Magazine's poll of 100 best English-language books published between 1925 and 2005 and he placed joint runner-up for a similar title in a poll taken in 2006 by The New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years. Literary critic Harold Bloom named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and Philip Roth. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner.

In 2009, Cormac McCarthy won the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, a lifetime achievement award given by the PEN American Center.