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Summary: Confusing piece on AP exam!
Review: A bit about the guy burying the female wolf was used on the 1999 English Literature AP Exam this afternoon. It was horrendous and confusing... 'What is the impact of the event on the main character?' How are we ever supposed to know unless we read the book... Oh well... Guess it can't be that bad... it IS in english.
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Summary: THE UNQUESTIONING ATTITUDE TO THE SUFFERING INHERENT IN LIFE
Review: IT IS THE WAY IN WHICH THE PROTAGONIST, AND INDEED THE OTHER CHARACTERS,DO NOT INDULGE IN SELF PITY,THAT IMPRESSES ME THE MOST ABOUT THIS BOOK ,FOR TO DO SO WOULD DETRACT FROM THE QUALITY IF THEIR LIVES,THE VERY LITTLE THEY ARE PERMITTED TO POSESS.THE ABILITY OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE SUFFERED SUCH PAIN, TO UNFLINCHINGLY FACE WHAT IS TO COME,SEEMS TO ME TO CONVEY A MESSAGE OF HOPE IN DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES,SOMETHING WE CAN ALL IDENTIFY WITH.
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Summary: Kerouac on the horse: Sal & Neal may be Billy's best friends
Review: One of the best books I have ever read. A pleasure. A mixed of Bruce's songs, Steinbeck's intensity, and Western movies (the best of course).Simple, honest, pure and pleasant. I am starving to read the third of the trilogy which I bought in english but I prefer also reading in italian (to get the subtlelties of the dialogues).
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Summary: Somewhat difficult but well worth it
Review: McCarthy presents with The Crossing a challenging and hauntingly beautiful novel. I learned much spanish trying to labor through the dialogue and I admit it took much longer to read than most 400 page books. The dialogue, when in English, is understated; the scenery is bleak; and the characters extremely human, sometimes divine. The journey into Mexico is much like Conrad's Heart of Darkness, both physically and psychologically. A book that is hard to forget.
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Summary: Difficult to read and to forget
Review: I am a big fan of prose and loved All The Pretty Horses. However, I must say that I labored through this second book, frankly, because I could not understand all of the Spanish dialogue; I kept feeling like I was an outsider to a conversation between foreign people.On the positive side, I am still haunted by much of the images in this novel. It is also one of the most thought provoking works I've read in awhile; trying to piece together all of the parts in an effort to understand what Mr. McCarthy is trying to say will keep you busy rereading sections all of the time. I will be reading the final piece of the trilogy, so overall the work is very good.
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Summary: McCarthy is grossly overrate, to judge by The Crossing
Review: THE CROSSING is the first of the Cormac McCarthy novels I've read; I am rather confident it will be the last. This writer is grossly overrated. His style is that of someone who wants to convince us that he is just an ol' cowboy story-teller, never really tried, you know, to be a writer-type feller. Frightened to death by Faulkner, drunk on Hemingway, his prose is overwrought, outlandishly affected. Much of his stuff wouldn't get past the admissions process in any respectable school of writing. It is quite amazing to me that this sort of fraudulent material passes muster with supposedly sophisticated agents, editors, and publishers. National Book Award? God help us!
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Summary: Deeply philosophical storytelling
Review: It is always the height of folly, and arrogant folly at that, to suggest the intentions of an author or the "meaning" of a work of fiction, even, I suspect, if one is the author. I will not do so. I do not know what McCarthy intended, but here is the effect his storytelling had on me. The prose is what one would expect from any encounter with his work: deeply powerful and hauntingly beautiful. I found this work to be a return in a richly different way to the kind of allegorical writing of The Outer Dark. Less obvious allegory, and so less allegorical, I suppose, but richly suggestive beyond itself, and not solely in those haunting tales which explicitly address metaphysics and epistemology, such as the tales of the Hermit Priest or the Gypsy. I found the whole work to be a masterful literary encounter with questions of identity, homelessness and homecoming such as are to be found in the later Heidegger especially. In other words, unlike most, I suppose, the power of this novel didn't end for me with the conclusion of the "wolf episode" but rather began there. As he states at the conclusion of that episode and the beginning of the rest of the novel: there are enterprises which, in being doomed, change us as we are, and as we have been, and forever (I paraphrase; McCarthy said it better, but I don't have the book here with me). I take refuge in the fact that McCarthy seems not to concern himself with my, or any, reaction to his work, but instead writes what he must. I can therefore look forward to more such works as these which, like Greek tragedy, show to me the truth of alienation in the form I most recognize, myself. Nietzsche said of the Greeks that after staring into the dark abyss of their tragedy, they experienced bright spots dancing before their eyes. McCarthy's storytelling is perhaps our best contemporary possibility for such an experience.
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Summary: Western Catcher-in-the-Rye
Review: In the best "coming of age" book since Catcher-in-the-Rye, McCarthy depicts a young man and a country growing up quickly in the harsh reality of the Texas-Mexico border. Easily the best book I read this decade.
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Summary: Great tortillas and hunger...
Review: Rich, biblical prose. Gives a great feel for remote, hostile Mexico of the 1800's (and forever?). But where certain civilities are practiced. You might get shot, but if you ride until you're starved you can also ride under an archway into a little hamlet and someone will fry you a tortilla without anyone saying a word. Great shady tequila bar descriptions. Great feeling of a teen getting in over his head and slowly starving while on too long of a ride. Revolutionary chaos description. Only trapping scene in modern lit that I know of. Long, seemingly random digressions...but that also fits the Mexican vibe.
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Summary: He captures the region and era in a dusty, but vivid style.
Review: Cormac McCarthy has truly captured the flavor of the Southwest. Although I can't say I "enjoyed" the book, this was a pretty good summer read and not at all predictable. McCarthy's, at times mystical, at times visceral narrative kept me reading. Sometimes the mystical did seem to go on for too long, but all in all worth the effort. I plan to read more of his work.
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