Fantastic trilogy. The Crossing is the best book in the trilogy. Worth a read if you're looking for not a word out of place. Super dense, vivid imagery, many ponderings on the human condition, and violent scenes. If anyone is stalking my goodreads looking for gift ideas, I wouldn't mind a boxed set of the Border Trilogy.

che è bello, eh. bello e poetico e con un sacco di cavalli e di polvere e di sigarette e di sfiga e di pessimismo. scritto in texano che ti ci vogliono tipo 100 pagine per capire che of=have e che moren=more than.
poi tra le righe capisci che il tempo non esiste, che il luogo è talmente immenso da sembrare minuscolo, perché per quanto ti muova rimani sempre lì. che i pensieri e le intenzioni non contano niente, ci sono solo i fatti. fatti piccoli e scomposti in gesti, un pollice sulla tesa del cappello, dilatati fino a diventare eterni. sono i piccoli gesti che fanno la storia, che raccontano le emozioni che non si possono esprimere in un mondo di così poche parole.
però cazzo, nel terzo libro non si sopporta.

"He knew that our enemies by contrast seem always with us. The greater our hatred the more persistent the memory of them so that a truly terrible enemy becomes deathless. So that the man who has done you great injury or injustice makes himself a guest in your house forever. Perhaps only forgiveness can dislodge him."

"When you look at the world is there a point in time when the seen becomes the remembered? How are they separate? It is that which we have no way to show. It is that which is missing from our map and from the picture that it makes. And yet it is all we have."

"...and he said that while it was true that time heals bereavement it does so only at the cost of the slow extinction of those loved ones from the heart's memory which is the sole place of their abode then or now. Faces fade, voices dim. Seize them back, whispered the sepulturero. Speak with them. Call their names. Do this and do not let sorrow die for it is the sweetening of every gift."

Have you not read these? Stop. Do it now.

Well, I've finished it -- I read All the Pretty Horses more than a decade ago as a wide-eyed and baby-faced college freshman who thought he was going to be the next Raymond Carver, before realizing I didn't like most people enough to write about them empathetically, and as a teenager who believed in the paramount value of sincerity and authenticity in art.

So I re-read All the Pretty Horses (still loved it), before moving onto The Crossing -- which didn't quite hit me as much as I was hoping it would, except for the part with the fallen airplane at the end. Fuck me, that was a gorgeously painted scene (sidenote: my Spanish is rusty enough that I probably should have had a dictionary for most of the book). And then Cities of the Plain, which is where McCarthy's protagonists run headlong into the modern world, and it turns into a Southwestern version of Taxi Driver, with sad-eyed prostitute, nasty pimp, and a man who has difficulty confronting the world in which we find ourselves.

The whole thing was a lot to take in, and I'm not sure how I feel about reading all three as a single volume instead of spacing them out as I normally would. But hey, it's McCarthy, so can't really go wrong.

Nachtrag. Meisterwerke, möchte 2025 zumindest diese drei Werke von McCarthy erneut lesen.
Hoffentlich schaffe ich es (zeitlich).
Jetzt habe ich es mir hier ja versprochen

I had a hard time with this, very stark writing, slow, he makes his point but I wish he could have done it in a shorter version. I had no involvement with the stories or the characters, mostly finished it because I was told he was a magnificent author.

Very much enjoyed the trilogy as a whole. I went into it blind in terms of story, leaving me to believe after the second book that the three books together were linked in theme only. That was surprisingly, and enjoyably, false. A few thoughts on each book:

In All the Pretty Horses, the first novel of the trilogy, McCarthy laments the passage of time, the ways that life pulls the earth from under us. The novel concerns 16-year old John Grady Cole, and as he passes into adulthood, we mourn with him the passing of simpler times, the fencing in of boundless hope, and the dousing of those first, pure flickers of love. McCarthy's almost musical descriptions of the hard landscape set an appropriate tone for the unforgiving world that awaits Cole, and yet the main character remains steadfast despite it all. Compelling stuff.

The Crossing is a heartbreaking dirge for the old west, a rumination on true brotherhood, and an illustration of the power of myth to unite and even create communities across space and time. That said, the myth of the west is clearly in decline as the modern world--symbolized through the overwhelming influence of WWII in the US--leaves people searching for the power and personality of myth in the midst of an impersonal machine-world.

Cities of the Plain brings the two primary characters from the first two novels together in a story that once again highlights what appears to be an eternal disjunction between the US and Mexico. For the resident of one country to seek his fortunes in the other leads only to pain, heartache, and loss. McCarthy concludes the novel with a searching epilogue that's laced with hope--or at least some measure of solace or comfort. It yields a cathartic ending to this perceptive and beautifully written trilogy.

I am so happy that I read the entire Border Trilogy straight thru, > 1000 pages in all. Three exceptional books, which each unto themselves are monumental, but read as a complete set of three, it was truly a journey. I read them individually in the early 1990s when they first came out, and living in the Midwest, exiled from my native Colorado lands-- much the same as the border region some 400 miles to the south-- they made me long for the land I'd left behind. The sense of place in these books is extraordinary, and the richness of detail makes you become a part of the story. For sure McCarthy must be a cowboy-- his intimate knowledge of horses, the workings of the ranch, the cattle, the country-- truly a marvel. John Grady Cole the protagonist from the first book reappears in the third, as does Billy Parhnam-- and naturally they form a deep friendship. Mexico is always there, just across the river, and their adventures take them there and back across-- the pastoral world, painted with such richness-- such lovely caring, generous people-- except the bad guys. To say I recommend these books is an understatement. Right up there with 100 Years of Solitude as all time greats. But the reader should be forewarned-- these are very sad stories.

Cormac McCarthy è un fottuto visionario e una volta terminata La trilogia della frontiera, sono diventata una voyeur della sua vita.
Come fai ad inventarti un modo così, parallelo e distante, profondamente unico e suggestivo, e nello stesso tempo restare umano? Continuare a fare spesa? Leggere il giornale? Pagare le tasse?

‘Sulla superficie ricurva della terra buia e senza luce che sosteneva le loro figure e le innalzava contro il cielo stellato, i due giovani sembravano cavalcare non sotto ma in mezzo alle stelle, temerarie circospetti al contempo come ladri appena entrati in quel blu elettrico, come ladruncoli in un frutteto lucente, scarsamente protetti contro il freddo e i diecimila mondo da scegliere che avevano davanti a sé.’

Il Messico è colore e suggestione, un mondo di pura esteriorità che McCarthy raffigura nelle sue pagine in contrapposizione con il pallido impero degli USA.
Non mi sarei mai aspettata un estetismo estremo da un libro western. Nulla di stucchevole ma tutto ben calibrato, senza eccessi.

Il Messico ha un’anima antica. Oltre ad essere la frontiera, vista come una possibilità infinita di vita, diventa anche una possibilità infinita di morte. Le strade sterrate diventano tombe e il rosso del tramonto prende lo stesso sapore del sangue.

‘Sorrise. Parlava come uno che sembrava ritenere che la morte fosse la vera condizione dell’esistenza e la vita una semplice emanazione di quella.’

E prima di arrivare alla morte si passa per la natura selvaggia di animali poco inclini all’addomesticamento.
In Messico l’unica cosa che si riesce a tenere sotto controllo sono i ricordi, le storie narrate intorno al fuoco da viandanti senza meta. In Messico i ricordi hanno autorità e potere.

‘Come tutte le storie, anche questa nasce da una domanda. Le storie che ci parlano più intensamente hanno la capacità di sopraffare chi le racconta, e cancellare dalla memoria lui e le sue ragioni. Perciò la questione di chi stia veramente raccontando la storia è molto contingente.
Non è vero che tutte le storie nascono da una domanda.
Sì che è vero. Là dove ogni cosa è nota, non si da narrazione.’

Mar 13 ~~ Wow. Gotta catch my breath. Review coming tomorrow.

Mar 14 ~~ First of all, a big Thank You to GR friend Daniel for suggesting I read these books. I would have missed an amazing experience if not for your tip!

This particular volume contains the three books of McCarthy's border trilogy: All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities Of The Plain. I have been immersed in these books for a month. Was it a good idea to read them one right after the other? In many ways McCarthy's world is raw, brutal, violent and bloody. Over 1000 pages worth of his type of realism could be overwhelming for some people.

But I think this was the best way for me to read these books. I cannot say I completely understand all the messages McCarthy was sending, not after just one reading. But I did get completely lost in the stories. It helped that I am very familiar with the areas of the two countries (USA and Mexico) where these books take place. When he mentions the Animas Valley, the Guadalupe mountains, Fabens, Janos, Torreon, El Paso, nearly every place our cowboys went through, I have either been there myself or know enough about it to easily 'be there' while reading.

I also was familiar with the type of man the main characters were. I used to work with such men, and I have yet to meet their equals. The conversations and the relationships between the various men all rang true and reminded me of times (and people) from my past. I was lucky to have known certain people, lucky to have shared a bit of time in life with them. Riding along with John Grady Cole and Billy Parham reminded me of those magical years. Not because of the violence of the adventures they had, but because of the down-to-earth way they faced each moment. There is a certain honesty and integrity here, just like there was around my old friends.

I was surprised at being so personally touched by this book. I was not expecting that to happen. All I was expecting was some good writing about horses, and that only because friend Daniel had mentioned it. I had never read McCarthy although I had heard a little bit about him. But while I read I laughed, I cried, I was shocked and awed, I was eager to keep turning pages and sad to reach the end.

One tiny nit I have to pick comes from The Crossing, where Billy Parham and his brother Boyd are riding from Lordsburg New Mexico to Douglas Arizona, planning to head down into Mexico. They could have saved a lot of miles if they had just turned left at Rodeo and gone from there to Douglas, but McCarthy has them ride through another mountain range and then go south through McNeal and Elfrida. That seemed to be the long way to skin that particular cat, but maybe McCarthy felt that traveling through the fairly rugged Silver Creek area would have been too hard for a horse carrying two men, I don't know. I just know that I would have turned left a whole lot sooner if it had been me.

I haven't said much about the plots of these books. Basically in All The Pretty Horses we have a young man who is feeling a bit lost in the world ride to Mexico to try to find himself, going through hell while there. In The Crossing we meet two brothers who go through hell trying to find something they have lost. And in Cities Of The Plains, the young man and one of the brothers are working together on a ranch near El Paso. But do they go through hell together? You'll have to saddle up and ride along to decide for yourself.

Perhaps, it was the strength of the two prior novels in ‘The Crossing Trilogy’? Maybe, it was my excitement at both major characters from the previous novels coming together in this third book? Potentially, I had a pre-conceived idea of how I felt their story should unfold. Because for the first time reading a Cormac McCarthy book, I was struggling. For the first half of this book, although, as always beautifully written, although, still finding such delight in being with these characters I have come so far with, I just could not get a feel for where this was going and it felt a little aimless. But only a fool would doubt a writer this magnificent. It needed the slow build here to pay off what was one of the most incredible last thirds I have ever read. I was moved to tears. Profound, powerful and gut wrenching. There are honestly not enough superlatives in the dictionary to capture the magnificence of this trio of novels.