The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain [Hardcover]

Cormac McCarthy far surpasses any living writer with which I have come in contact. If I had the masterful ability with language that he does, I could express that in a much more emphatic manner.

Any reviewer who complains about things such as puncuation, grammer, or spanish-I feel compelled to respond with this:
1. Would you prefer that all painters created exact duplicates of their subject matter? Are we not better, as a society and as a species, for taking our interpretations further and showing those things we are already intimate with in a fresh or different way? Would you say 'cubism', for instance, is too complicated for you?
2. Are you 25 years old or less? Do you have any true ability to surive in a harsh world without parental aide? The struggles depicted in this novel would, of course, be difficult to fathom in that scenario, especially when teamed with non-traditional grammar and punctuation and a lack of a personal translator.
3. If neither of the two applies to a negative reviewer, perhaps a solution would be ritalin. It is supposed to assist in 'focus'.

On to the review:

All the Pretty Horses is the 'prettiest' of the three. The least bleak, possesses the least darkness. John Grady Cole, loses what he allows himself to lose. He is afforded by McCarthy some level of self determination. He rarely states a prediction that does not become so. He never throws a rope without catching what he intends. Even in the darkest scenes, if John Grady fights for something, he seems to get it.

The Crossing's main character was just the opposite. Billy Parnham will never get anything he for which he fights. He will always align himself most closely with a losing cause. It seems that he is completely asexual, and the closest bonds he forms almost always precede the demise of said character/animal.

There is something striking in the fact that the moral stance, character, sense of justice are nearly identical for John and Billy. Yet John wins, and Billy loses. Repeatedly. Yet it is Billy who survives all contests, all tragedies, all of his closest bonds. Billy's 'heart' is never joined with any group or idea or convention larger than land and animals. At some points his 'heart' is rejected; but is his survival possibly attributed to his lack of truly 'giving' his 'heart' to any passionate cause? The passion Billy gives us in the final scene of The Crossing, the self-realization and anger and utter despairing are so exceedingly rare that your tears are nearly required after finishing this book.
As you might be able to tell, it would take far more than the 1000 word limit to fully explore the metaphors, symbolism, or intentions of McCarthy's characters.

The Cities on the Plain brings the two that abadonded their families in favor of the dust of the road together in this final installment. While personally jostled by Billy's transition from complete and total sorrow (in the conclusion of The Crossing) to the casual, easy going buddy (in the opening of The Cities), that is the only fault worth mentioning.

The theme may or may not be this: We don't know anything and neither does anyone else. The nuggets of wisdom that our heroes encounter from the journeying, extrapolating, strangers they meet are proof of this, and, an indication that these books could be re-read hundreds of times.

The Crossing, in my view, is the strongest of the three, with The Cities of the Plain second and All the Pretty Horses, obviously, third. The Cities of the Plain would be wasted as read without the other two.

The protagonists are boys in love with the land, in love with an ascetic live on it, who are forced, through the series of stories, to watch that land change and whither and grow tame and bland. The boys quarrel, fall in love. They are prey to violence, to loss. They are, for the most part, taciturn, and yet McCarthy's extraordinary skill puts meaning into what they do not say, their silences, their gestures.

I have read the first two books twice. I have not re-read the third yet because I have not recovered emotionally. But the reading of that third started a chemical reaction that made it seem as though I had read the first two a third time, and brought a new, fuller meaning to all my literary experiences with the trilogy.

A great stylist, a superb story-teller, a poet, and a profound psychologist, McCarthy is, in my opinion, the best writer in America. I see him viewed and admired, in fifty years, as Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald are now. I would like to be one person who gets a jump on this eventuality.

PG