What are you reading?

[Riddley Walker]

Tbh, the enduring thing that struck me at the time was how, like I mentioned in above post, The Road and BM had similar lush visuals and rhythms to the journeys. I find The Road seems to not be nearly as revered as BM though if I read his general fandom right.

I just finished "The Crossing" written maybe a decade after "Blood Meridian". I've read BM 4 times and each time I get more out of it. It's one of the most extraordinary works of literature I've read or even heard of. But "The Crossing" is a very good book, maybe even better than BM though I don’t think it will ever surpass BM's popularity or position in the canons of literature for it's pure originality.

But where BM is about the universal pervasiveness of Evil , it's randomness and persistence, where the best Good can do is survive in the shadows, "The Crossing" is more about the Good in a world of utter abandonment. The only Good is that which comes from the soul and it is only Good if it follows a moral code absolutely. That code is different for everyone since it comes from the soul. Anything that appears to be Good outside of that is social construct. But there is no reward for virtue. There is only the conviction that one is true to ones self. And sometimes the confrontation with evil presents impossible moral choices that cannot be resolved, never are resolved. So we carry these unresolved dilemmas as trauma, forever. But Good can only come with the endurance of that failure and the unshakable conviction that the moral code remains unbreakable.

 

[Homer Potvin]

I just finished "The Crossing" written maybe a decade after "Blood Meridian". I've read BM 4 times and each time I get more out of it. It's one of the most extraordinary works of literature I've read or even heard of. But "The Crossing" is a very good book, maybe even better than BM though I don’t think it will ever surpass BM's popularity or position in the canons of literature for it's pure originality.

But where BM is about the universal pervasiveness of Evil , it's randomness and persistence, where the best Good can do is survive in the shadows, "The Crossing" is more about the Good in a world of utter abandonment. The only Good is that which comes from the soul and it is only Good if it follows a moral code absolutely. That code is different for everyone since it comes from the soul. Anything that appears to be Good outside of that is social construct. But there is no reward for virtue. There is only the conviction that one is true to ones self. And sometimes the confrontation with evil presents impossible moral choices that cannot be resolved, never are resolved. So we carry these unresolved dilemmas as trauma, forever. But Good can only come with the endurance of that failure and the unshakable conviction that the moral code remains unbreakable.

That's part of the Border Trilogy. Not sure if you've read the others, but in order they go All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities on the Plain. They have very little to do with each other, so it doesn't really matter if you read them in order or not. All the Pretty Horses was the first McCarthy I read, picking it randomly from a stack of books my aunt gave me, knowing nothing about him or his more famous works. I got like two pages in and was like, whoa, what the hell is this? Think I crushed the rest of his catalogue within a year.

 

[Iain Aschendale]

Re-reading Catch-22, but for the first time as an adult.

 

[Iain Aschendale]

That's part of the Border Trilogy. Not sure if you've read the others, but in order they go All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities on the Plain. They have very little to do with each other, so it doesn't really matter if you read them in order or not. All the Pretty Horses was the first McCarthy I read, picking it randomly from a stack of books my aunt gave me, knowing nothing about him or his more famous works. I got like two pages in and was like, whoa, what the hell is this? Think I crushed the rest of his catalogue within a year.

I first read The Road after the movie came out. Tried to read Blood Meridian but just put it down midway through. I just didn't care about anyone or anything that was happening. Didn't like them, didn't hate them, didn't feel anything. Don't remember any details but it was like watching paint dry for me. I felt pretty much the same way about the movie adaptation of No Country for Old Men, so I suspect Cormac is just not for me.

 

[Homer Potvin]

I first read The Road after the movie came out. Tried to read Blood Meridian but just put it down midway through. I just didn't care about anyone or anything that was happening. Didn't like them, didn't hate them, didn't feel anything. Don't remember any details but it was like watching paint dry for me. I felt pretty much the same way about the movie adaptation of No Country for Old Men, so I suspect Cormac is just not for me.

He is polarizing. Had The Passenger (2022) first, his last one before he died, I probably wouldn't have read another.

 

[Riddley Walker]

That's part of the Border Trilogy. Not sure if you've read the others, but in order they go All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities on the Plain. They have very little to do with each other, so it doesn't really matter if you read them in order or not. All the Pretty Horses was the first McCarthy I read, picking it randomly from a stack of books my aunt gave me, knowing nothing about him or his more famous works. I got like two pages in and was like, whoa, what the hell is this? Think I crushed the rest of his catalogue within a year.

I've read All the Pretty Horses but not Cities of the Plains. So that's on my list. Also want to read Suttree. This was my second reading of The Crossing. First book I read by McCarthy was The Road.

 

[Schism]

I just finished "The Crossing" written maybe a decade after "Blood Meridian". I've read BM 4 times and each time I get more out of it. It's one of the most extraordinary works of literature I've read or even heard of. But "The Crossing" is a very good book, maybe even better than BM though I don’t think it will ever surpass BM's popularity or position in the canons of literature for it's pure originality.

But where BM is about the universal pervasiveness of Evil , it's randomness and persistence, where the best Good can do is survive in the shadows, "The Crossing" is more about the Good in a world of utter abandonment. The only Good is that which comes from the soul and it is only Good if it follows a moral code absolutely. That code is different for everyone since it comes from the soul. Anything that appears to be Good outside of that is social construct. But there is no reward for virtue. There is only the conviction that one is true to ones self. And sometimes the confrontation with evil presents impossible moral choices that cannot be resolved, never are resolved. So we carry these unresolved dilemmas as trauma, forever. But Good can only come with the endurance of that failure and the unshakable conviction that the moral code remains unbreakable.

I'm only partway through BM, only having read The Road and parts of Outer Dark. I also want to finish reading Suttree when I get the chance, as well as All The Pretty Horses.

Morality vs social constructs. Interesting line of thinking. Not sure if certain moral philosophies can be objectively supported, but it's always a worthwhile aspect to ponder when you're creating characters.

 

[Riddley Walker]

I'm only partway through BM, only having read The Road and parts of Outer Dark. I also want to finish reading Suttree when I get the chance, as well as All The Pretty Horses.

Morality vs social constructs. Interesting line of thinking. Not sure if certain moral philosophies can be objectively supported, but it's always a worthwhile aspect to ponder when you're creating characters.

I've listened to a couple of very good podcasts on Blood Meridian. One is called "Blood Meridian Now", a couple of Canadians discuss the book in exquisit detail. This podcast devotes one episode to each chapter (there are 26 chapters plus the epilogue), they are currently at Chapter 17. It's very good. The other podcast is "Very Bad Wizards" and they have a 2 part series on Blood Meridian, also good but not the depth of the first one.

 

[Dante Dases]

Some Joe Abercrombie. Tbh one thing that put me off was over-describing of fight scene. A good chunk of the time, that kind of thing feels uninspired and they're writing it because they have to. And yet I'm left wondering how often that aspect is actually necessary.

See, I really like Abercrombie. His fight scenes and violence are explicit and on the dark end of the scale, but never feel gratuitous or for the sake of it. Best Served Cold and The Heroes in particular were like that - violence was integral to the story, but various characters showed their horror of it and I thought it was really well done. I don't like violence for the sake of it, and Abercrombie is definitely at the more extreme end of what I'll tolerate, but he handles it deftly for the most part.

 

[Schism]

See, I really like Abercrombie. His fight scenes and violence are explicit and on the dark end of the scale, but never feel gratuitous or for the sake of it. Best Served Cold and The Heroes in particular were like that - violence was integral to the story, but various characters showed their horror of it and I thought it was really well done. I don't like violence for the sake of it, and Abercrombie is definitely at the more extreme end of what I'll tolerate, but he handles it deftly for the most part.

Violence or lack thereof really wasn’t the focus of why I didn’t like them. More the few fight scenes I read from him seemed overly mechanical slash boring.