I'm not sure any review could do this justice.
Astounding. This will stay with me for a very long time.

What can I add to over 3000 ratings and nearly as many reviews all adding to a high 4? I loved the format of The Crossing, called a picaresq style by the experts. It was very challenging of my expectations about what a novel should be. But it was totally engaging and full of thought provoking philosophy. Quite apart from the philosophical depths of Mr McCarthy, he tells a ripping story. The grande finale is the knife fight, complete with McCarthy gore and brilliant prose. Give me a poet who writes prose any day! There, do you want to read it now?

Very mixed feelings about this book. Took me FOREVER to finish it and O MY LORD why is there no translation for the Spanish? Intensely frustrating. But then other parts are very moving and poignant and an evocative illustration of life. Glad to have finished this and yet it will also stay with me, I think.

Monumental trilogy. As I brushed off the ancient biblical dust from the pages, I found myself immersed in the slowly flowing atmosphere of its narrative.

In short, the characters journey through Mexico, embracing a philosophy of movement - I just need to keep moving (which resonates deeply with my own philosophy of travel), often taking illogical actions along the way (after all, how much logic is there in life?), and relying more on intuition than understanding. Life hits them hard, yet it's not a major concern for our heroes. They simply need to keep moving forward. I refer to multiple heroes because the novels are not interconnected and can be read independently without losing their essence.

The first novel, All the Pretty Horses, is a coming-of-age story filled with love, madness, and other corresponding attributes. Describing the plot feels redundant. While there is a film adaptation of the book, I hesitate to watch it, fearing it may diminish the magic of McCarthy's ascetic language.

I must highlight the first part of the novel The Crossing, which could easily stand alone as a separate book. It tells the story of a boy and a she-wolf, embarking on a metaphysical journey so profound that it overshadows everything written in the subsequent chapters.

And indeed, phrases like "The dead have no nationality." resonate deeply and deserve to be etched in stone.

«Мир не имеет имени, — сказал он. — Названия холмов и горных кряжей, пустынь и рек существуют только на картах. Мы их выдумали, чтобы не сбиваться с пути. Но сделать это нам пришлось по той причине, что с пути-то мы уже сбились. Мир нельзя потерять. Каждый из нас — это мир. Однако вследствие того, что эти названия и координаты придумали мы сами, они не могут спасти нас. Они не могут за нас найти верный путь.»

Монументальная трилогия. Сдувая со страниц древнюю библейскую пыль, я практически растворился в медленно-тягучей атмосфере её повествования.

Если коротко, то герои путешествуют по Мексике, ну как путешествуют – «мне просто нужно двигаться» (абсолютно моя философия путешествия), совершая по ходу действия нелогичные поступки (ну а много ли в жизни логики?) и действуя больше по интуиции, чем по разумению. А жизнь бьёт их, да всё по голове, хотя героям нашим это не так уж и важно. Им просто нужно двигаться. Говорю про героев во множественном числе потому, что романы между собой не связаны и их можно читать отдельно без потери смыслов.

Первый роман, «Кони, кони...» – похож на историю взросления, с любовью, безумием и другими соответствующими атрибутами. Думаю, что описывать сюжет не имеет смысла. По книге есть экранизация, но я не хочу смотреть её, так как понимаю, что картинка может разрушить всю магию аскетичного языка Маккарти.

Особо хочется отметить первую часть романа «За чертой», которую нужно было бы сделать отдельной книгой. Это история про мальчика и волчицу. Их метафизическое путешествие так впечатляет, что всё что написано в последующих главах, на его фоне сразу же теряется.

И да, фразы типа «У мёртвых нет национальности.» – можно высекать в камне.

I'm really starring up the place. I give the series five stars just because if I ever met McCarthy and he called me on giving him less than five stars I'd be afraid he'd beat me to death with a branding iron or cave my head in with a rusty shovel.

I love these books as a whole but mostly All the Pretty Horses and the opening chapter of The Crossing. Back when I was a twenty something punk, friends and I used to ride our motorcycles around this part of Texas and I made many forays into Mexico—call it All the Pretty Kawasakis. I love his heavy use of Spanish, untranslated and unapologetic. I love his sparse but accurate description of the landscape.

I recently read Spanish translations of these books which were really well done. I doubt he translates well into Polish or Russian, however. I love his style but I would hate to see a generation of hacks trying to imitate McCarthy’s disregard for convention. With lesser writers it just comes across as quasi-literacy or affected and tiresome.

"The fire burned down and it grew colder and they sat close to the flames and hand fed them with sticks and with old brittle limbs they broke from the windtwisted wrecks of trees along the rimrock. They told stories of the old west that once was. The older men talked and the younger men listened and light began to show in the gap of the mountain above them and then faintly along the desert floor below." (COTP, p 91)

The first volume of The Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses, combined intensely lyrical prose with the laconic wit of its cowboy protagonists. In it McCarthy mixed the quotidian details of ranch life with just the right balance of mythic phantasmagorical imaginings. Just when his prose seems to be over-the-top, he suddenly returns to the Beckett-like dialogue of two buddies alone on the prairie. One instance of this occurs when John Grady is out on the mesa with his buddy Lacey Rawlins--his Sancho to at least the extent that his adventures approached the Quixotic .

In the next volume, The Crossing, we read of two young brothers on a quest that plunges them into the bloody maelstrom of Mexican politics. Billy Parham who is later joined by his younger brother Boyd, sets out on a series of quests, all of which are doomed to failure. While the travels of Billy make up the action of the novel, it is less about achieving goals and more about larger themes of good and evil, fate and responsibility, and the nature of friendship and relationships in this gray and desolate world of shadows. Related to these themes that permeate the novel is the characters' ability or inability to clearly see the world around them.
"Between their acts and their ceremonies lies the world and in this world the storms blow and the trees twist in the wind and all the animals that God has made go to and fro yet this world men do not see. They see the acts of their own hands or they see that which they name and call out to one another but the world between is invisible to them." (The Crossing, p 46)

Cormac McCarthy concludes his border trilogy with a book that is spare and almost allegorical in its storytelling. In it he unites John Grady Cole with his older "buddy" Billy Parham, and focuses on a doomed relationship between John Grady and a Mexican prostitute. With Cities of the Plain the dreams have receded, the young men Billy and John Grady are older and their journeys have goals. This is a book that is bleaker in the telling even as the romanticism of John Grady Cole provides significant interest for the reader. The time is 1952, the place a cattle ranch in New Mexico. The West is changing as suggested by a brief interchange between John Grady and Billy early in the novel:
"What are you readin? Destry." (COTP, p 59)

Destry Rides Again by Max Brand is a classic example of the "myth of the old West". This is the life that is fading in the early 1950's and the question is will our heroes adapt or rebel against the inevitability of change. This change is not without difficulty and there are the ghosts of the past which they face as depicted in the following passage: "They sat against a rock bluff high in the Franklins with a fire before them that heeled in the wind and their figures cast up upon the rocks behind them enshadowed the petroglyphs carved there by other hunters a thousand years before." (p 87)

Shadowed by ghosts of the past and chastened but not defeated by their youthful misadventures, John Grady Cole and Billy Parham have become blood brothers of a sort, clinging stubbornly to a vanishing way of life. Billy reflects on their struggle, “When you’re a kid you have these notions about how things are goin to be. . . . You get a little older and you pull back some on that. I think you wind up just tryin to minimize the pain.”

While they fantasize about owning a little spread in the mountains, where they might run a few cattle and hunt their own meat, John Grady falls in love with a teenage prostitute. His desires collide with powers reminiscent of those he encountered in All the Pretty Horses.
''There's a son of a bitch owns her outright that I guarangoddamntee you will kill you graveyard dead if you mess with him,'' Billy warns him. ''Son, aint there no girls on this side of the damn river?''

Alas, for John Grady there are none that can compare with Magdalena. He does not worry about Eduardo, her pimp, with whom he must deal if he is to have her and his stubborn idealism sets in motion his inevitable doom. In fact, the question of one's destiny is present throughout this final part of the trilogy. Before the ultimate scenes of the novel there is a telling exchange between Billy and John Grady. I believe it alludes to John Grady's passions:
"John Grady nodded. What would you do if you couldnt be a cowboy?
I dont know. I reckon I'd think of somethin. You?
I dont know what it would be I'd think of.
Well we may all have to think of somethin." (COTP, p 217)

Combine McCarthy's two previous novels with the final somber tome and you have a masterpiece of contemporary fiction and a worthy contribution to the literature of the West. All three are works of a master story-teller, an author who speculates (some might say pontificates) on the nature of stories. So I will end with an observation about stories that I encountered during my journey through the novel.

"These dreams reveal the world also, he said. We wake remembering the events of which they are composed while often the narrative is fugitive and difficult to recall. Yet it is the narrative that is the life of the dream while the events themselves are often interchangeable. The events of the waking world on the other hand are forced upon us and the narrative is the unguessed axis along which they must be strung. It falls to us to weigh and sort and order these events. It is we who assemble them into the story which is us. Each man is the bard of his own existence." (COTP, p 283)

Reading this trilogy has been something of an act of endurance. There is little joy to be found, plenty hardships and myriad characters with strong jaws, cold hearts and few means. Each of these books shares something at its core and while I don’t struggle to find it while exploring the trilogy, I do have a hard time defining it. The biggest theme I find here is desolation and the need to complete one’s journey, regardless of the obstacles and the people (sometimes the selfsame) that prevent you from finding that Final Place. Even if the place isn’t a location.

God has a presence here, but gives little sympathy or relief, if those are the kinds of things they offer or have ever offered. Prayers are often lifted, myths are often bandied from one to the next, though despite the rumors of their existence, there is never a manifesting of its hand. On myths as well, the country and land of Mexico often feels like it is revered with a simultaneous malice and wonder, as if stepping over the border engulfs you in the timeless history of a land ruled by the frontiered lawlessness, the anarchy and chaos of a realm ruled by none and populated by spirits long deceased but ever watchful, ever vengeful. Things seem to be governed by a different set of supreme laws, ones which its inhabitants discover by in meters, measuring vengeance and prosperity by seconds and with little grace.

In these books, we revisit the theme of things coming that are bigger than us, greater than us, and absolutely unstoppable. This is something that shows up again in No Country For Old Men, a theme that feels like it’s one that reveals itself to people who age with a constant sense of observation, a sense of what lies before them in compare to what they have passed. In the Epilogue of the third book, we really dig deeper into the scale, the scope of all things as they come before us, as they come unto us, and we find there is little by way of redeemer. We find the sum of all of our actions becomes forfeit to the larger fate at hand, that all eventualities sustain beyond the ways in which we try to overcome. The ways that we are is often muted by the eventualities we eventually must face.

--All the Pretty Horses--
Rarely do I read books twice. There are just so many books out there, not only on my TBD list, but also physically on my shelves, that it’s hard to justify coming back to a book and spending the time it takes to get through a book and using it to reexperience something I’ve already done. Cormac McCarthy’s is an author I’ve done this with twice, once with The Road which I read back to back and then again with this book, All the Pretty Horses (I believe the only other novels I’ve read twice are Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit). In ways, thinking back to it, this book reminds me a lot of Kerouac’s On the Road. While I was reading it, I don’t think it felt that way to me, but the more I think back to it, the more I have the same sense of fresh experience, of coming-of-age and of being ill-prepared for the world ahead of us, but attempting to devour it anyway. In so many ways, this is a journey that shows its characters wading knee deep into the unknown, trying to find a version of themselves which they know exists but are unsure how to define. In Kerouac’s road story, there is fun, excitement and free-wheeling mania, utter joys that cannot be contained in a single heart, a fairy tale bewilderment that sees its protagonists swallowing the enchanting air in drowning gulps, unable to breathe for all the lust, all the love, all the adventure and all the youth. Instead, as is the standard with McCarthy, we see the boys here (Grady, Rawlins and even Blevins) get turned against and then into a darkness which they cannot turn away from. They bear witness to a frontier and a reality so desolate, sparse and expansive that they learn, along with us, that there is little they can do to escape its gaze. They must meet it, always, with the acceptance that their destiny’s undertow will always be stronger than the gait and range of their will.

This book does a lot for setting the tone of McCarthy’s west, and especially its romantic, mystic and violent vision of what lies beyond the border, of what McCarthy’s Mexico is comprised of.

The youths in this book seem to face more than I could ever imagine withstanding at their age, and the violence they witmess and engage in is something that will change you as you step through the prism. We are introduced to a trio of boys who are standing at the foot of a world which is primed to dim them in its shadow. When we come out the other side, one has given their life, one has taken a life, and one seems to have thrown in the towel, willing to accept whatever dull wit the earth and its timeline has in store for them.

There is a romance to be found in this book, one that sets the tone for one of its main characters and illustrates a major comprisal of his heart and the way in which he chooses to frame the world. There’s a naivety he shows, a hopelessness in his romanticism that feels somewhat out of place this word, but also one that speaks deeply of the way he chooses to engaeg with it, and also explores so much of the depth of what McCarthy’s vision of romance can withstand. Despite the darkness, despite the bleak and narrow view of all that can demean us, there is still a beating heart within it all, a grip on a lifeline that can be used to follow in the blackest of night.

Of all three individual books, I would say this is the one which I would recommend highest. I think this works well as a good introduction to Cormac McCarthy’s style and in certain ways expects the least of the reader. The writing style is indicative of a master, without any doubt, and I think its story holds the most water of all three stories. You won’t need to know it’s part of a trilogy to feel satisfied by the end of it, and I think all of the characters you meet, those that exist through the entire vein of it, and also those that only stand out on the promentories, will be highly memorable.

--The Crossing--
This book, following Billy Parham, feels like one where McCarthy wanted to try to reconnect with the epic of The Journey From Home, one where we come of age and become something bigger on the other side of where we began. But in …Horses, we see clear pacing and identity being gained by the lessons that lie before us. But here, failure becomes a commonplace event. I think we learn a little bit more about what it means to bite off more than we can chew and what the results of that can be.

What stands with me most in this story is the first big conquest, something that feels a little bit like trying to lasso a tornado. Billy Parham tries to trap a wolf, something he eventually succeeds in and then we follow him trying to set this wolf free back in Mexico. Returning to this deadly and unforgiving place, we learn lessons that are as bleak and as foul as ever. As this juncture of the book ramps up, peaks, and ends, these are some of the most emotionally connected I’ve felt to a conflict in this entire trilogy. It all feels way more helpless, way more desperate, and way more impactful than many of the events that play out. I think this campaign feels like it illustrates just how raw and hostile these places are. It also shows how stark the world can be. How silent it can be in response to one’s prayers. How little it shows remorse (or contempt, for that matter) towards one’s desires.

A bigger chunk of the book details what happens after the experiences with the wolf, once Billy comes back home and discovers that his family has been murdered, survived by his younger brother Boyd. Here, the story turns to a journey of trying to reclaim the horses that they’d lost in the invasion at their homestead. Through this portion of the story, we learn more about Bily’s experience in the world and a bit more of the way he has hardened during his first crossing into the other land. Even though he knows so little, the way he imparts the wisdom onto his younger brother feels stoic and seasoned, which I think reflects a little bit upon how much of an impact his first experience had on him. Boyd (his brother) is quiet and a bit rocked from watching the murder of his parents, but even still is accepting and tolerant of the new trail that the brothers are on. When they rescue a new companion, Boyd’s fortitude is mustered as he takes a stronger role in the protection of her. In his dialog, he also still remains as steadfast and ornery as ever when he is up against the odds of some major ranchers who are in possession of the stolen horses. In desperation, we see the main characters at the end of their ropes, but still maintain a forward trajectory, something that feels doomed from the start, but they remain resistant to defeat.

Billy’s crossing ends alone, which is another theme which seems to pervade the trilogy. We find that although companions are gained and family links in and out of the sojourns, the internal dialogs and the intentions of all characters remain mostly set in some solitary tunnel meant only for the protagonists themselves. Great strides are made to showcase just how alone we are in the world, no matter how surrounded we are by those who gravitate towards us.

This book is not necessarily one I would recommend unless you’re invested in the trilogy or interested in McCarthy’s style. Despite being part of a trilogy, this book does not require you to read the book previous in the series. It stands alone as a story about Mexico and its bordering states and while the themes tend to blend together, you can start here just as easily as in All the Pretty Horses and get the same experience. I would say that this one feels a little less populated by villainy, but almost twice as bleak. I think too, the book is longer than the other two, but feels a little less natural, as many of the conversations can feel a little bit more like soliloquoys from nameless bystanders, stories told by people that Parham stumbles across than they do natural expositions.

--Cities of the Plain--
This book acts as something of a Super Smash Bros. of the Border-verse, combining the characters of Billy Parham and John Grady and the pasts that you have become well acquainted with. Once more there is no storyline that trails its way across the three novels, only the same march of time across these two characters lives, only the changing landscape of the United States and its state of affairs and the impervious nature of Mexico and its stalwart ability to remain unchanged, unfazed and ancient in all its avenues.

Here, we are reintroduced to Grady’s inherent talent of speaking with and understanding horses, his ability to soothe them and observe them through the interspecies obstacles and discover ways to break them, to engage with them on a more natural level than other cowboys on the ranches he works within. There is a way that he believes in the way he speaks the truth to them, something about the way he tames them that initiates a deeper trust in him. The way it’s described makes one feel familiar with it, even though you may not be able to pinpoint a person or an instance where someone has been able to commune with animals, there is something that feels like a mystic communication at hand, where an animal absorbs the language more than from others. This, and the naive and romantic energy of John Grady Cole is the biggest of all themes throughout this book. One of the main plot points here is how he has fallen in love with a prostitute south of the border and is ready to give up all that he owns, all that he loves, all that he’s built, in order to marry her and live the rest of his life with her. This is something that feels like a revisitation from the first book.

Parham plays a bit of a lesser role in this book, though his presence is one that feels robust throughout. He feels a little bit lighter, a little bit less tied to any particular course. He keeps Grady light and he keeps him honest. We see him a little bit more as a sidekick character, one who throws a little bit more commentary into the mix along with the other ranch hands.

This book feels a little bit less engulfed in the occulted and ancient land of Mexico and shines a bit more light on the personalities and peoples that exist outside of it, though always standing in its shadow, each of them with stories to tell of their trials there, none willing to share the details from their time within it.

The plot here feels a bit more brief, a bit more direct. And even in their obtuse and peripheral affairs, they seem more like old-timers, more weathered in their direction. And while Billy’s been more worn out by the world, while he feels a bit more tired and a bit more contented to wile away his days as long as the ranch will have him, his buddy John Grady lets his bleeding and yearning romantic heart drag him into consequence in the end. This is the core of the story, and throughout the entire trilogy, probably the most passionate and dedicated discourse we’ll see in its 1020 pages. While it doesn’t take up a ton of real estate in the narrative on the page directly, all things are moving in that direction and towards the inevitable climax.

I think of the three of the books, I would say this is the only one that requires a reading of the other two that came before it, and also the one that feels the most unnecessary of the three. It was great to have the story of these two characters carry on into a conclusion, but I think in the true nature of McCarthy, I did love that each of the books prior left things as open as we wanted it to be, and wasn’t necessarily vague, but instead could be considered indefinite and horizonless. I think if you’ve read both of the other books in the trilogy, I’d say it might be worth seeing it through, though I don’t think I’d be as eager to follow through.

The writing on each of these books is exemplary of an absolute master of the language, a clear reason why he is one of, if not my absolute favorite writer. Despite some of my commentary halting the recommendation on checking these books out, if you can fall in love with the written word, and aren’t hesitant to read about a time and a place that feels like the waning days of “the west”, I would one hundred percent give these a look. There are passages in here that give me wretched pause, things that simultaneously make me never want to write again, but also inspire me to work on the craft endlessly.

Effettivamente questa trilogia della frontiera ha un respiro epico che la rende un po' diversa dagli altri libri di mcCarhty. Molta meno violenza, meno descrizioni, personaggi ben definiti che provano sentimenti. Sembra quasi che i due protagonisti rappresentino il cuore e la ragione, contrapposti. Manca per me per� l'ossimoro della bellezza della natura con la crudelt� della violenza che tanto mi fa amare questo autore.

If you enjoy extremely long monologues that do not advance the plot sprinkled within extremely flat narratives that do, these books are for you.

LA TRILOGIA DI McCARTHY, UN WESTERN KANTIANO

Se un libro dell’ultimo decennio del secolo scorso può vantare il diritto di essere considerato un classico della letteratura questo è senz’altro la “Trilogia della frontiera” di Cormac McCarthy. Fatto di rudi amicizie virili, cavalcate solitarie e bivacchi sotto le stelle, deserti polverosi e montagne innevate, villaggi abbandonati e (rare) sparatorie, è un western crepuscolare clamorosamente fuori tempo massimo (ambientato com’è negli anni intorno alla Seconda Guerra Mondiale), eppure assomiglia a certi epici film di John Ford, innervato in più da sorprendenti squarci onirici e folgoranti riflessioni metafisiche. E’ composto da tre romanzi autonomi, ma profondamente interrelati per via del fatto che i protagonisti dei primi due (John Grady e Billy Parham) si ritrovano entrambi nell’ultimo tomo (*). Il tema portante della trilogia è sicuramente l’attraversamento di quella “linea d’ombra” che separa conradianamente l’adolescenza dalla maturità: in “Cavalli selvaggi” John Grady e l’amico Lacey Rawlins fuggono dal presente senza speranza con lo scopo di inseguire “romanticamente”, lungo le stesse piste che percorrevano le tribù indiane molti decenni prima, una vita nobile e indipendente, costruita con le proprie forze e capacità (che è poi né più né meno che il sempiterno mito del “self made man” americano), oltre la frontiera che divide il Texas dal Messico; in “Oltre il confine” (in cui l’attraversamento della frontiera è prefigurato già nel titolo) Billy Parham si reca invece in Messico una prima volta per restituire al suo mondo una lupa catturata vicino al ranch del padre, successivamente insieme al fratello Boyd per ritrovare i cavalli rubati alla sua famiglia e infine per riportare in terra americana le spoglie del fratello morto. Entrambi, John e Billy hanno diciassette anni (anche se le vicende del secondo romanzo si svolgono alcuni anni prima), e non è un caso che McCarthy abbia scelto come protagonisti dei suoi romanzi due adolescenti. In un mondo profondamente tragico qual è quello della “Trilogia”, sono loro, i giovani, che la durezza della vita non ha ancora reso ottusi e insensibili, ad avere l’impegnativo onere di portare avanti un percorso di formazione che passa inevitabilmente per l’abbandono della casa natia e della famiglia e l’esplorazione di un ambiente selvaggio e ostile, in cui a una natura grandiosa e magnifica seppur spietata si contrappone la società degli uomini, crudele e spregiudicata anche se capace a volte di slanci di insospettata umanità.
L’universo di McCarthy è decisamente manicheo: in ballo ci sono sempre e comunque il Bene e il Male, senza sfumature e senza ambiguità. John e Billy non sono nati per essere paladini del Bene, ma sono costretti a diventarlo per non volere accettare il compromesso di tollerare il Male. McCarthy sceglie di collocare geograficamente il Male nel Messico, ma è chiaro che non c’è nessun intento sciovinistico in lui, in quanto il Messico è, prima ancora che un luogo geografico, un’entità simbolica, emblema di quello che nelle favole dell’infanzia era il bosco lontano da casa, ricco di attrattive ingannevoli e di pericoli fatali, e che qui è l’arena in cui guadagnarsi, attraverso lutti e sofferenze, cicatrici nel corpo e soprattutto nell’anima, il difficile diritto di considerarsi uomini. Questa lotta, eterna e ontologica, tra Bene e Male è melvillianamente rappresentata, in “Città della pianura”, nel duello all’ultimo sangue tra John Grady ed Eduardo, e non è un caso che lo scontro non lasci sopravvissuti: contro il Male non si può infatti uscire vincitori, ma alle sfide contro il Male non ci si può nondimeno sottrarre, pena la disumanizzazione, la corruzione morale o l’atarassia dei sentimenti.
Ecco che allora il destino degli uomini è quello di convivere con il dolore, inevitabile e insopprimibile, come ben sanno i poveri abitanti del Messico che John e Billy incontrano lungo le loro peregrinazioni, oppressi oltre ogni immaginazione dalle soverchierie e dalle violenze di soldati, guardie, latifondisti e banditi, eppure sempre pronti a dividere il loro scarsissimo cibo con i due forestieri o ad aiutarli con abnegazione ad uscire dalle difficoltà anche a rischio della loro stessa vita (come i contadini che aiutano Boyd ferito a sfuggire agli inseguitori). Il popolo messicano è un’entità manzoniana, umiliato, calpestato e sofferente eppure dignitoso nella sua miseria. Ma, a differenza che in Manzoni, nel mondo di McCarthy Dio, se pure esiste, è lontano, nascosto, un fantasma che aleggia in controluce. Non è su di lui che i suoi personaggi possono fare affidamento, ma tutt’al più sulla oscura e indecifrabile legge morale che essi hanno scolpita nei loro cuori, labile traccia di una lontana nostalgia di divino. I protagonisti di McCarthy sono in fondo mossi da quello che Kant ha definito “imperativo categorico”. Aiutare una persona incontrata per strada (il ragazzo di “Cavalli selvaggi”, la giovane messicana di “Oltre il confine”), così come restituire mezzo dollaro ricevuto in prestito molto tempo prima, diventano un dovere imprescindibile, senza che le conseguenze dell’atto possano assumere rilevanza nella decisione da intraprendere. In questo senso i romanzi di McCarthy sono intrinsecamente filosofici (o religiosi), senza che l’autore si allontani mai da una narrazione “terra terra”, fatta di fatica, sudore, polvere e sporcizia. Scrive Baricco che “la musica di McCarthy suona una sola canzone e sempre quella. Racconta di gente che con pazienza infinita cerca di rimettere a posto il mondo. Di riportare le cose dove dovrebbero stare. Di correggere le impurità del destino. Che sia una lupa, o dei cavalli rubati, o un cadavere, o un bambino perduto: quello che fanno è cercare di riportarli al loro posto. E non c’è spazio per la ragionevolezza o il buon senso: è un istinto che non conosce limiti, un’ossessione incurabile. Se occorre la violenza, si usa la violenza. Se bisogna morire, si muore. Con la ferocia e l’ottusa determinazione di un giudice che deve riequilibrare i torti della sorte, gli eroi di McCarthy vivono per ricomporre il quadro sfigurato del mondo.” “Non è sempre una buona idea fare quello che si può fare” dice Billy al fratello Boyd, però l’adesione istintiva e disinteressata a un codice morale fa sì che i personaggi di McCarthy lo facciano sempre, anche arrecando a loro stessi un danno o uno svantaggio. E’ questo codice morale che essi rispettano ostinatamente, pur vivendo in un mondo spietato che non concede nulla ai buoni e agli onesti, a essere il “messaggio nella bottiglia” lasciato dallo scrittore alle generazioni future: un flebile raggio di luce e di speranza nell’oscurità più buia e spaventosa.
Qual è allora il senso dell’esistenza per i personaggi di McCarthy? Quello che lo scrittore sembra suggerirci è che l’uomo per realizzare se stesso deve perseguire caparbiamente uno scopo la cui finalità ultima gli sfugge ma a cui non può sottrarsi (come ad esempio accompagnare una lupa al di là del confine per restituirle la libertà o sposare una prostituta intravista in un bordello messicano). Lui non capirà mai a cosa serve il suo adoperarsi per correggere le ingiustizie che la vita e il destino disseminano lungo il suo percorso, saprà solo che dovrà farlo senza guardare alle sue conseguenze pratiche, anche a costo di soffrire e perdere tutto ciò che ha di più caro. Il senso della vita va oltre quella vita, sarà trasmesso a qualcun altro, non si sa chi né quando (penso ad esempio al padre e al figlio de “La strada”, che vagano in un mondo desolato e apparentemente privo di umanità, non solo per sopravvivere a qualsiasi costo, ma per portare avanti, insensatamente, un ultimo barlume di umanità). Se è il prete che il Billy di “Oltre il confine” incontra nella città abbandonata ad aver ricevuto dall’anacoreta il senso della sua folle ricerca e a sua volta trasmette al protagonista il testimone della propria esperienza col suo lunghissimo racconto, allo stesso modo i personaggi di McCarthy vagano apparentemente senza meta per i paesaggi desertici e senza tempo della frontiera per potere a loro volta (anche se a loro insaputa) trasmettere il senso ultimo della vita. Al lettore è concesso questo privilegio, di poter discernere, in mezzo a una prosa scarna ed essenziale, apparentemente meccanica e ripetitiva, preziose e folgoranti gemme di filosofia e addirittura di metafisica.
Arriviamo qui a parlare del particolarissimo stile di Cormac McCarthy. Nei suoi romanzi non c’è traccia di psicologia, dei suoi personaggi non conosciamo mai i loro pensieri, ma solo le (poche) parole che pronunciano e i gesti che compiono. Eppure essi si imprimono indelebilmente nella nostra mente, fino a diventare nostri preziosi compagni di viaggio. Come fa McCarthy a realizzare questo miracolo? Il segreto di McCarthy è il “tempo narrativo”. Lo scrittore americano inventa un tempo tutto suo per raccontare le vicende di John e Billy, un tempo dilatato, ripetitivo, spesso e volentieri non essenziale (quanti tempi morti!), apparentemente noioso, eppure alla fine così essenziale e necessario da far riconoscere che simili storie potevano essere raccontate solamente così e in nessun altro modo. Prendiamo ad esempio il lungo viaggio di Billy con la lupa ferita: sono decine e decine di pagine di minimi gesti quotidiani, di avvenimenti banali, di osservazioni incolori, eppure in quelle pagine, impercettibilmente, il rapporto tra il ragazzo e l’animale lentamente cambia, evolve, si trasforma, e alla fine scopriamo che quanto abbiamo letto, apparentemente dimesso e prosaico, è di una poesia e di una delicatezza commoventi. Anche la natura che circonda i protagonisti, in apparenza sempre uguale nei suoi avvicendamenti stagionali e meteorologici, in realtà regala a distanza di tanto tempo ricordi unici e indimenticabili (come gli aironi intravisti da Billy in un campo allagato nel Messico, “grigie figure allineate l’una accanto all’altra come monaci incappucciati in preghiera”), fino a diventare essa stessa protagonista, senza prepotenza, ma con la forza incomprimibile di una presenza muta e costante.
McCarthy sembra non fare nulla per appassionare il lettore: la mattina del giorno in cui Billy trova la lupa ferita e si allontana con essa alla volta del Messico scrive che “uscì dal cancello ancor prima che il padre si alzasse e non lo vide mai più”, e lo stesso accade prima dell’ultimo incontro di John con Magdalena. A lui non interessa avvincere il lettore con la suspense o altre strategie abusate, anzi ci tiene a sottolineare che in fondo tutto è già stato determinato in anticipo, che la fine è già nota, e non può esserci alcun colpo di scena, e men che meno alcun lieto fine. Il determinismo di McCarthy è profondamente tragico (se concede a John e Rawlins una parentesi idilliaca in un ranch messicano è solo per farli sprofondare subito dopo nell’inferno della più bieca e sordida lotta per la sopravvivenza in un carcere messicano). Nonostante ciò, pur sapendo come va a finire, speriamo ugualmente, a dispetto di ogni evidenza, che l’amore e la giustizia trionfino, e che la giovane prostituta messicana riesca a sfuggire alla schiavitù del suo aguzzino. Se lo facciamo è perché non riusciamo a rassegnarci, come in fondo dev’essere, alla vittoria del Male, ma McCarthy non gioca sporco, non fa trucchi, non usa la suspense e il melodramma come facili espedienti narrativi, non è mai consolatorio. McCarthy è talmente grande che sembra che parli a ognuno di noi personalmente, che ci racconti la vita come essa veramente è, senza eufemismi e senza abbellimenti posticci. Così la narrazione può trascorrere sonnacchiosamente grigia e dimessa per decine di pagine per poi magari accendersi in momenti di lancinante drammaticità e di pregnante violenza; oppure i dialoghi essere a lungo poco più di monosillabi, o addirittura scritti in spagnolo, e poi di colpo diventare fluviali racconti (* *), i quali possono essere un compendio della storia messicana meglio di un libro di storia, o soffermarsi sul concetto di verità come un volume di filosofia, o rievocare picaresche avventure alla Alvaro Mutis (come nella storia narrata dal bizzarro gruppo di zingari che vagano trascinandosi dietro il relitto di un aeroplano).
La “Trilogia della frontiera” non arriverebbe però a essere un libro così bello e struggente e triste (e tante altre cose ancora, ma soprattutto triste, infinitamente triste), se alla base non ci fosse una profondissima fede nell’uomo (e anche in ogni creatura vivente, come si intuisce dal ruolo che nel romanzo hanno cavalli, lupi e cani, e che richiederebbe un saggio a parte). McCarthy è un autentico umanista, uno degli ultimi grandi umanisti della nostra epoca, che ha il coraggio, dostojevskijano oserei dire, di non ritrarsi di fronte alle inestricabili ambiguità dell’esistenza, e soprattutto il merito di credere che “ogni uomo è più di ciò che lui ritiene di essere”.

(*) E’ illuminante che già nel secondo libro una zingara legga la mano a Billy e gli dica che lui ha due fratelli e che avrà una vita lunga ma dolorosa, con ciò anticipando il rapporto fraterno che verrà instaurato nel romanzo successivo con John Grady e la sua sorte di vecchio cowboy che continua nelle ultime pagine a vagabondare senza una meta per le strade dell’America.

(* *) I racconti che i protagonisti ascoltano da altri personaggi (la zia dell’hacendado, il prete del villaggio abbandonato, il vecchio cieco, ecc.) hanno la funzione sia di intercalare il loro monotono e indefesso peregrinare, quasi sospensioni oniriche di una realtà fin troppo materiale, pause affabulatorie di un mondo che all’apparenza si nega alla narrazione, sia di rimarcare la crudeltà e la cattiveria, direi quasi ontologica e senza speranza, dell’esistenza, in cui le sofferenze dei giovani protagonisti trovano un’eco e un’anticipazione in quelle dei loro interlocutori.

been wanting to read this for a long while, and then I did. A lot lot of words, but in the end the question is what was it all about? The law is diminishing returns definitely applied for me here, as I found each novel less and less exciting. Indeed, I quite liked “all the pretty horses”, and didn’t mind “the crossing”, especially the first half, but really struggled with “cities of the plain”. It’s not so much the plots, which indeed are interesting in themselves, but the slow progress, the zillion words, the loooong diversion and sideways. All in all happy I took this off the bucket list, but in retrospect I wouldn’t have put it on it.