Now that I have finished my commentary on The Running Mate, a very good book I would recommend to anyone interested in politics, I have started reading The Crossing, the sequel to All the Pretty Horses and the second book in The Border trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. I may or may not be able to finish it before it is due in the library on Jan. 12 though… But it is very interesting to compare and contrast The Crossing with both ATPH and The Road. Of course, McCarthy style is still the same, with long awkward sentences followed by short equally awkward ones, no quotation marks, and dialect within the quotations. The Crossing also seems to be set somewhere in Texas though that has not been clearly defined yet. There is another dark, introversive character like John Grady Cole, named Boyd who I believe will be the protagonist, but that could also be his younger Billy. (I can’t help but think who would name their kids Billy and Boyd.) But there are also differences in the books already. Boyd seems more attached to his family than JGC was which leads me to wonder what is going to happen to make Boyd leave home, as he surely will. McCarthy also has put a lot of figurative language into the beginning of The Crossing which is a literary device I do not remember him using in either of his two other books I have read.
I liked The Road and I like ATPH even more, so I wonder where The Crossing will fall once I (hopefully) finish it.
6 comments:
ALDIS ohhh heyyyyy.
OKAY i read your post, and I've decided the book you are reading, The Crossing, sounds pretty good if you like the whole no punctuation thing. I didn't really like the McCarthy style though, and I would ever want to read it.
I like the comparisons you're making between The Crossing and All The Pretty Horses. It probably helps that you've read other McCarthy books when you start a book like this. You already have a feel for the language and such, which I'm sure would help someone get the flow of the story more easily.
I hope you do finish The Crossing.
yea i see what you mean when you talk about The Road. McCarthy's still is consistent in most of his pieces. it was really interesting to see how similar The Road and ATPH were.
i hope you like the sequel to ATPH.
Aldis,
Billy and Boyd are perfectly normal names, even in the south. I'm also surprised you are reading another McCarthy book, considering the struggle our class had with reading ATPH.
Wow Aldis, that sounds like something I might want to read. When I first heard ATPH was in fact part of a trilogy I worried McCarthy might not have consistently good books. It seems however, from what you have said so far he manages to recapture that was All The Pretty Horses
I thought it was interesting that The Crossing is set in a similar setting as All the Pretty Horses but McCarthy decided to have different protaganists. Anyway, the Crossing sounds like a good book and something I would be interested in reading.
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