The Border Trilogy

D

Drobe

< 25 Posts
I just finished All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing in quick succession. They were heavy reads, but worth the time. Frankly, though, I am almost wary of getting going with Cities of the Plain just because I anticipate possibly growing weary of it all.

The first McCarthy books I read were No Country (the movie got me interested) and The Road, so I knew what I was getting into as far as style and theme when I picked up All the Pretty Horses, but I guess I am just asking for some confirmation that finishing the trilogy is worth it. Or maybe to just see if anybody else who read the trilogy had the same sort-of-fatigue I have.
 
Haven't read those, but I'm done with his stuff. Read No Country and The Road, and not all that impressed with either. Got half way through Blood Meridian and doubt I'll finish. He bores me.
 
Great questin. I read ATPH last summer on a vacation & loved it. I keep telling myself I'll look for the other 2 books (plus NCFOM) the next time I'm at Half Price Books but haven't done so yet.
 
imo, to truly understand mccarthy, you have to read his earlier novels. these are the ones before the border trilogy. those books were not written for mass appeal as they were very dark. but within those books, mccarthys framework for his belief in life, death, and god were established. his books pretty much carry these themes. he added a new theme with border trilogy--old values, old way of life, old morals vs the moral and social decay of the present times. this theme was carried through NCFOM and culminated in The Road.

so it's within this context that ATPH, at the time, was the most accessible book. the previous ones were way violent and dealt with cannibalism, necrophelia, etc. topics not easily embraced by the middle america. ATPH changed that.

anyway, i could go on about cormac as he is by far my fav writer, dead or living. i really like the border trilogy. as cheesy as it sounds, i liked ATPH the most, just because it introduced me to mccarthy. i think the last novel is the weakest of the three. but that's relative. weak for mccarthy is the greatest literary achievement for many other writers.

i also think NCFOM is the weakest of all his novels, but ironically, it makes for the best movie. it's not as heavy as his other books and easily translates to a movie. i'm really interested to see how they are going to do with The Road as a movie. that's a heavy book with topics i don't see translating well on big screen.

anyway i got to rambling. read the border trilogy. he has some good things to say in those books. you won't be disappointed.
 
and a few more thoughts.

yes, blood meridian is the best book of his western themed books. it's violent and truly captures the spirit of the times. it too is heavy.

the road is the best book i've ever read, but that's my opinion. the plot is extremely simple but the themes are so complex. you can't finish that book without thinking about what it means to be human and where are we going as a people.

lastly, from his earlier books to The Road, his prose changed. his earlier novels were really heavy reads, not onliy in the topics and themes but also the syntax (or lack thereof) and prose. i think he lost that prose with NCFOM and The Road. i am really disappointed in that respect. his prose is a thing of beauty.
 
I can relate to the fatigue factor you discuss. McCarthy is also my favorite author, but there are times when I cannot make it more than a couple of dozen pages before I need a breather. His stuff weighs on me more than anything else I've read, but maybe that's why I keep coming back for more of it.

I would rank the three in their order of release: 1) ATPH, 2) The Crossing and 3) Cities of the Plain. Cities is the weakest of the three, but if you are curious to see what becomes of John Grady Cole and Billy Parham then its definitely worth the read. Truthfully though, the first two are so powerful that the third almost ends up being an afterthought.
 
After seeing NCFOM and after reading so many compliments about the author over the last few years here on HF, I plan to start reading a lot of him next year when I retire (no time to do anything but work, sleep and surf HF in my present job). So for a McCarthy newbie, what book(s) would y'all recommend starting with?
 
start with all the pretty horses. that is an extremely accessible book but has most of the things that make mccarthy mccarthy: beautiful prose, heavy themes, hard to follow syntax that grows on you, love, violence, lost love and life lessons. all that and more for $20 bucks. oh yea, if you don't know spanish, then you might want to research parts of book that are all in spanish. there are sites on the net with translations for those passages.

then read blood meridian. that's his masterpiece of the weatern themed books. then read his earlier books. it's full of bad people doing bad things. then finish the border triology.

then read the ncfom. lastly, read the masterpiece, the road. but make sure you read ncfom and then the road. the theme of carrying the fire is started in the first and finished in the latter.

the first time i read ncfom, i thought he'd finally gone nuts. i read that book as the ramblings of a old man. i hated the book because it wasn't anything like mccarthy. then i read the road and only then did i fully understand ncfom. it's still my lease fav book but i don't dislike it so much.

but if you read his earlier books, you'll get a better understanding of how he came to write the road. it's a book for his newest son, so it's a love story between a father and son. but it's still so much more than that.
 
I concur with Crash; that's a good order to go with. And if you're really hooked after that you can delve into some of his earlier works that are less known (Child of God, The Orchard Keeper, etc).
 
Fascination with spectacle in the post modern world has destroyed many a person's ability to appreciate any literary work of depth. The poster above is correct, at least half of CM's work is not fit for mass appeal today, because, for a variety of reasons, many people aren't equipped for it. It's not a matter of taste, but a matter of depth, particularly patience. Waiting for the wild chase scene? Grab a comic book. Greatest living author, will join the pantheon of the American greats. Our Joyce. The Road is the finest American novel. Period.
 
Just finished The Road. By far, this is the greatest depiction of faith and fatherhood that I have ever read. Honestly, I don't think it would mean much to those that aren't parents.

How much would yhou sacrifice for what you believe is right? How much would you sacrifice for your child? Is your belief in human decency so important that you can watch your son wither and suffer when everyone arround you is corrupt and self-serving?

The testament of faith somehow reminds me of A Man for all Seasons.

To those that aren't parents, I think the story might just seem a cold, hellish existance. The end.

Blood Meridian was excellent. Somehow, not as vivid or poignant as The Road, however. Maybe it's because I'm a father to a young son. Maybe it's because I wan't an English major.

On to Pillars of the Earth...
 
Not at all condescending. Life experiences shape one's view on a story. Being a father certainly shaped my reading of this book. My statement was more of a response to the post lamenting the dull plot. I could understand that viewpoint if I ignore the context of fatherhood. I am, of course, not suggesting that any non-father would miss the point -- only that one might not have the same emotional investment.

I have no idea what you took out of it, but I don't understand the argument of "equal." The interpretations are subjective.
 
In ATPH, I thought the monologue (I think it was about 10 pages) the great aunt gave about society, politics, and the role of women in Mexico was fantastic; that alone made the book worthwhile to me.
 
Well, finally slogged through Cities of the Plain. Definitely the weakest of the three, but that is like saying t-bone is the weakest of beef cuts.

I started Blood Meridian last night. The whole tell-you-what-is-going-to-happen thing at the beginning of the chapter is kind of wierd. But this thing is universally praised, and I'm enjoying it so far (one chapter in).
 
glad you made it through all 3 books. and i concur. cities is the weakest. it seemed as if he ran out of things to say in cities and he was ready to quickly end the western era of his writing.

i don't know if you should've started blood meridian. that's a lot of westerns to digest. i would've suggested going to one of his earlier novels and saving blood meridian for another time. i think you'll be comparing it to the other western themed books too much.

read child of god. a book about a retarded necropheliac is bound to be a change of pace.
 
A couple of years ago just after I read Blood Meridian I bought a book that had the front pages of various newspapers in Texas in the 1800s. One article referenced a group of white scalp hunters down in Mexico. I think it was dated in the 1840s or 1850s. I'll have to find that book. I immediately thought of Blood Meridian.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top