re: Cormac McCarthy books are awesome

I ended up quitting the crossing with about 100 pages to go. I was just kinda burned out on the western stuff after reading Empire of the Summer Moon, All the Pretty Horses, and The Crossing all in a row. Was ready for a genre switch

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Cities is good enough on anyone's spectrum

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Honestly, disagree. I love Cormac, and difficult books. But the idea that Cities of the Plain is for everyone is absurd. People should read what they like. And I say that as someone who has read Cities of the Plain twice, and could possibly manage a third time. But it is absolutely not for everyone.

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Cities of the Plain and The Road are both pretty relentlessly grim

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Haven’t ready Cities of the Plain yet but while The Road was relentlessly grim it was also beautiful at the same time.

That contradiction is present in all of the McCarthy books I’ve read so far (maybe less so in NCFOM). But it’s also what I think makes him such a great author.

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I know they are a trilogy and I have read Cities yet. But the first 2 are 2 completely separate stories. I read The Crossing first not realizing it was the second book of a trilogy and then ready All the Pretty Horses. I don’t think the story was affected AT ALL by reading the first 2 out of order.

And my understanding is that Cities has characters from the other 2 but is its own story as well.

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No, reading the first two out of order doesn't affect anything, but they're good enough to read the finale. Sure, it's its own story, but that story is taken from the first two and echoes many of the themes. I mean, I'm joking a bit by insisting someone should read the finale to the trilogy. This day and age, anyone participating in a forum about books should be applauded simply for maintaining some semblance of appreciation for reading, even if it's the funny pages (but generally, the headlines of the day provide that). But if you've read the first two, why not finish it since it's only one more (esp since it's a Cormac McCarthy story)?

Great writer, but the stories can be pretty bleak. In the border trilogy his descriptions of landscape are fascinating to me..

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Great writer, but the stories can be pretty bleak. In the border trilogy his descriptions of landscape are fascinating to me..

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This is a good lead in for his last two books (really should be considered one book IMO) - The Passenger and Stella Maris. I haven't seen them mentioned on this board. Reviews I saw were not very promising so I waited a while after his death to read them. They are better than expected, not up to his best but better than a lot of what he wrote. Apparently he wrote a lot of it in the 1980's and you can see some of Suttree, and especially No Country for Old Men in it. It is extremely bleak but the writing is top notch and the landscape is still a major feature. Much of it is in New Orleans and the gulf coast and he got that right. Just don't expect a conventional plot, he's working on themes and ideas that are pretty bleak and the plot is secondary. And I will say that the opening of The Passenger makes WAY more sense after reading through both books the first time. I liked it enough that I'm going back through them for a second time. It's not easy reading when it comes to the ideas, there are lots of references to physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers. If you enjoy Cormac then they are worth a read, or maybe two.

A pretty good short summary from the interwebs:

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The story meditates on how humans struggle to make sense of reality and loss when the frameworks they rely on (like science and relationships) inevitably collapse.

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Legendary author and well deserved.
The Border Trilogy can be a little sad, but no one has ever described landscape the way that McCarthy does.
It’s amazing…

All the Pretty Horses was great, although not particularly cheerful. lol