cold tortillas

>>8869704
I wasn't sure if I was going to skip this whole trilogy. I liked BM a lot, but agree with you on its elusiveness. Meanwhile I was a little bored with The Road and No Country because they were TOO sparse. But The Border Trilogy sounds like where Cormac is at in terms of mug prose-ability.

Also read Suttree which was great up until the witch doctor scene.

>>8869704
ATPH is my fav of the three. The Crossing was good up until the wolf died, the plot of a boy taking a wolf to the wilderness appealed greatly to me and the third one was a terrible conclusion.

Isnt the whole thing in spanish except for a scattered english phrases? My name isnt Juan.

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>>8869854
>>8869854
This is actually my only complaint. A lot of crucial dialogue and plot is in another language. But then, I think it is key to the book here. A foreign American coming into a land and trying to have it make sense. It hurts the reader and it's correct.

This is my very favorite passage by the way, and I would like to see some anons reactions to it.

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>>8869906

>>8869704
Suttree > The Border Trilogy > Blood Meridian

> It's only the second I've read of Cormac's books (after Blood Meridian) but I have to say it's much stronger.

Then you are wrong.

>>8869796
I quite liked the Crossing even after that happened, the conversations Billy has with the wandering souls on the borderland are some of the most beautiful passages I've read in literature

>>8869704
>Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard
>religious nihilism

WHAT

>>8870039
he didnt say they WERE religious nihilists, but that they depicted religious nihilism.

>>8870185
what is religious nihilism?

>>8870190
That without God there would be no meaning to life.

>>8870229
And you believe that Cormac McCarthy has anything to do with religious nihilism?

>>8870243
Steve Harvey

>>8870032
I understand the point and the great themes he was putting across the book, I was just disappointed in not getting what I was expecting to get.

I really wanted a story of a young man taking a wolf across the plains to its native home, battling nature, learning empathy and introspection.

Not a lot of either of the second or third book has stayed with me past the point above. ATPH I was thoroughly engrossed in.

I may reread them at some point.

>>8870276
What I'm trying to get at is that he has nothing to do with religious nihilism. His religious themes are based on personal salvation from ubiquitous chaos, not by dint of anything inherent in religion itself, but because holding equanimity and benevolence to be sacred can save one from succumbing to a bestial existence. Religion is just one manmade vector for that, and is often corrupted from its cosmic morality into something malignant and virulent (the Judge), but the crux of the message of faith is what appeals to McCarthy. And he doesn't even necessarily preach it as sure salvation, for evil is omnipresent and may always outlive grace

>>8870338
>>8870338
I'm not saying Cormac McCarthy is religious, but he certainly depicts a godless world as one of deep suffering and chaos, consistently refers to God in both Blood Meridian and In All The Pretty Horses, and, if you read this >>8869906 post, discusses faith and evil quite extensively. It's not necessary that the author is a relgious man or a nihilist, but it's interesting to see themes like this expressed and that's what the OP is about. McCarthy's talk later about the nature of Catholic Spain needing blood for truth obviously isn't favorable for religion and critiques theology, but it doesn't mean he doesn't talk or refer back to it. Camus was an agnostic, but his passage with the priest in The Plague was a perfect example of religious nihilism, or at least, logical absurdism.

>>8870295
>I was just disappointed in not getting what I was expecting to get.
If that's the case, then you kind of have to admit your personal disappointment doesn't mean the book itself wasn't good.

This is especial true considering that all of McCarthy's books set near the border are meant to some extent to be subversions of typical Western tropes. The Crossing is one of the most blatant examples of this because it pulls that bait-and-switch plot device so early in the book. It was obvious to me that McCarthy wanted people to think he was giving them a coming of age story about a boy and wolf in order to shock them when it turns out the book is actually about a boy losing himself among the senseless violence on the border. It's not what you wanted, but it wasn't supposed to be. Part of the point of the Border Trilogy is that it's supposed to subvert your expectations.

>>8870338
Dude, all I said was Steve Harvey, chill.

>>8870479
Yeah i get that but wheres my wolf story!

>>8869796
>the third one was a terrible conclusion.

The knife fight scene at the end was one of the corniest (corncobbiest?) things I've ever read. kind of signaled his downfall into writing glorified movie scripts.

The Orchard Keeper is his best but I've never seen anyone here mention it or even own it.

>>8872687
I have it but haven't read it. Any good?

>>8869704
Suttree is probably the most 4chan-friendly of his works, what with it being a genuinely funny (and depressing) narrative concerned entirely with misfits. the 'moonlight melonmounter' is definitely /ourguy/

>>8872687
Really? I thought it was decent, but definitely weaker than Suttree, Blood Meridian, AtPH , and even Child of God

>>8870032
>>8869796
The scene in which he meets the woman who reads his palm and talks to him about his dead sister whom he doesn't remember is probably one of the most hauntingly beautiful things I've ever read.

>>8872762
>Anon 1
It's his best book!

>Anon 2
Any good?

Maybe reading isn't for you mate

>>8872822
I am not the biggest fan of The Crossing, but I'd agree with it having some of the most hauntingly beautiful things ever put on paper. That conversation with the blind man is one of my favourite passages from literature.

>>8872275
The mute dog who follows Billy and Boyd.