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The Border Trilogy #3
Cities of the Plain
On a ranch in southeastern Texas, soon after World War II, a group of solitary, inarticulately lonely men gathers to work animals as the sun sets for good on the mythic American West. All of these men nurse losses both personal (siblings or wives) and collective (a shared lifestyle and philosophy). Among them is John Grady Cole, the adolescent hero of the first book in Cormac McCarthy's Border trilogy, All the Pretty Horses. John Grady remains the magnificent horseman he always was, and he still dreams too much. On the ranch, he meets Billy Parham, whose own tragic sojourn through Mexico in The Crossing, the second book of the set, continues to quietly suffocate him. The two form a friendship that will nurture both but save neither from the destiny that McCarthy's characters always sense lurching to meet them. Soaked in storm-heavy atmosphere but brightened by the ranch-hands' easy camaraderie and gentle humor, Cities of the Plain surprises with its sweetness. The awkward doomed-romance plot at the center of this tight, concise novel fails to convince, but, remarkably, does little to undercut the book's impact. What lingers here, and what matters, are the brooding, eerie portraits of the plains and the riders, glimpsed mostly alone but occasionally leaning together, who slip across them, over the horizon into memory. --Glen Hirshberg
304 pages, Paperback
First published May 12, 1998
1047 people are currently reading
33556 people want to read
About the author
Cormac McCarthy
49 books28.8k followersCormac McCarthy was a highly acclaimed American novelist and screenwriter celebrated for his distinctive literary style, philosophical depth, and exploration of violence, morality, and the human condition. His writing, often characterized by sparse punctuation and lyrical, biblical language, delved into the primal forces that shape human behavior, set against the haunting landscapes of the American South and Southwest.
McCarthy’s early novels, including The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark, established him as a powerful voice in Southern Gothic literature, while Blood Meridian (1985) is frequently cited as his magnum opus—a brutal, visionary epic about violence and manifest destiny in the American West. In the 1990s, his "Border Trilogy"—All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain—garnered widespread popularity and critical acclaim, blending coming-of-age themes with philosophical introspection and tragic realism.
His 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film by the Coen brothers, and his harrowing post-apocalyptic tale The Road (2006) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was also made into a major motion picture. Both works brought him mainstream recognition and a broader readership later in his career.
Despite his fame, McCarthy remained famously private and rarely gave interviews, preferring to let his work speak for itself. His legacy endures through his powerful, often unsettling portrayals of humanity’s struggle with fate, violence, and redemption, making him one of the most influential and original voices in modern American literature.
McCarthy’s early novels, including The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark, established him as a powerful voice in Southern Gothic literature, while Blood Meridian (1985) is frequently cited as his magnum opus—a brutal, visionary epic about violence and manifest destiny in the American West. In the 1990s, his "Border Trilogy"—All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain—garnered widespread popularity and critical acclaim, blending coming-of-age themes with philosophical introspection and tragic realism.
His 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film by the Coen brothers, and his harrowing post-apocalyptic tale The Road (2006) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was also made into a major motion picture. Both works brought him mainstream recognition and a broader readership later in his career.
Despite his fame, McCarthy remained famously private and rarely gave interviews, preferring to let his work speak for itself. His legacy endures through his powerful, often unsettling portrayals of humanity’s struggle with fate, violence, and redemption, making him one of the most influential and original voices in modern American literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,264 reviews
May 17, 2010
I met Cormac McCarthy and he transcribed our conversation about Cities of the Plain:
The author asked, Whad'ya think about the book?
The last in the trilogy?
That's it.
It was alright, Jason said.
What was alright?
Cities of the Plain
What specifically?
The simple language and the economy of words and the lack of punctuation, quotations especially. How you made simple things like chores seem interesting and wonderful.
That's fair. It's actually harder to write like that than you think.
I bet.
Was it better than the first two, the first two books I mean?
No.
Why?
I thought the second book was better.
The author shifted in his seat and lit a cigarette and picked musingly at a fingernail with a jag in it. He looked from the cargazón de espaldas of his house and toward the wall of scrub that marked the edge of some New Mexico wilderness. Do you like my polysyndeton?
Polysynda what?
Polysyndeton. It's where I use a lot of correlative conjunctions to string out sentences instead of using commas.
Oh. I reckon.
Only 3 stars. What could I have done better?
Don't figure I'm the best person to ask about that.
You count. I write for people like you.
Still.
No, lemme hear.
Then, I guess you could of jazzed up some of the action especially toward the first half of the book.
The story didn't draw you in?
No sir it didn't.
There was a theme I was huntin' for, that first half. I wanted life to seem timeless and I did that through the sustained description of routine life for several vaqueros.
I understand.
The author exhaled through both nostrils making an opaque column of smoke that stretched uniformly to the wooden cubierta. Were the characters likable?
I liked Billy and John Grady and Mac. I liked the part when they saved them puppies in the traprock escarpment.
That's a critical part. Those boys had to kill the adult dogs in order to save the pups. It was an exchange of life. Those pups woulda likely died out there for want of food.
Yep. They kept having to kill calves to feed the pups. Once them calves got bigger, the dogs would've been outta food.
That's exactly right.
I liked the knife fight too and how John Grady was fallin' so in love with that whore.
Good.
She was very young.
That's right.
And I like when you mash up two words.
You mean when I make one word out of an adjective and a noun?
Yes.
I do that quite often.
You do it on almost every page.
About.
Hey, I understand your writing. It's just, I gave 3 stars because your second book had 4 stars and since I didn't think your third book was better than the second, I couldn't give the same rating.
Okay.
But I did really like the descriptions you made of the environment and the way the sky looked and how a man would have felt looking out across the llanos. And I even liked how you dropped a lot of spanish words in the book, almost as if you was searching for the right word and the absolute right word wasn't an english word but a spanish word. And then you used some big words that I had to look up.
Uh-huh. I did that. He flipped the cigarette in a flection out into the dirt. Is there anything I wrote that you didn't like?
The short dialogue.
How's that?
The dialogue was always so staccato.
That's how they talk. It's realistic.
Yes sir.
But you said you liked my economy of words, earlier you said that.
I know what I said.
Well. That's how I wrote my dialogue.
I reckon you did.
Well, then, what about the dialogue you didn't like?
Maybe it was the lack of quotations. Made it hard to read. I don't know.
That's fair. I done that in most of my books.
You know what Mr. McCarthy? I especially liked the very last part after Billy was grown up and met that vagabundo and he went into that bizarre tirade about the dream he had and what it meant to him and therefore what it meant for all of mankind.
I only did that once in this book.
I know.
You liked that huh? You think I should have done that more?
Yes sir I do.
Hmmm.
When you do that, when you make your characters get all fantastic, those are some good parts.
I try to divine the essence of the human condition, Jason.
Right.
And you liked that?
I liked it very much.
But once wasn't enough?
No. The second book was better.
Because it had more episodes where my characters had fantastic tirades?
That's right.
Mr. McCarthy crossed his arms and put his boots on the barandilla and tipped his chair back on two legs. He looked at the skyline just above the scrub in the distance. The world had a light gauzy dome of high cloud. The sun was getting low in that direction, but the color of the sky was as if it was still sizzlin', a couple of sun dogs on either side. The author asked, Did you like the whore?
She was young.
Yes.
You made her sound pretty.
Yes.
I figure I wouldn't want to marry a whore.
The others tried to stop him.
But they didn't.
No.
I don't think I would have died for her.
You aint John Grady.
No sir.
Would you recommend Cities of the Plains to your friends? He scratched his ankle deep down the inside of his boot.
I would.
Do you think the books can be read individually or should be read as a trilogy?
Well, I can only answer for myself.
I aint askin' anybody but you.
What's the question?
Can they be read separately or should they be read as a whole?
As a whole. Altogether, I reckon.
Do you think I should write a fourth book?
Ever'body's old and dead now.
Kind of a prequel.
Kind of a prequel?
Uh-huh.
No.
You don't think?
No, it's just right now, especially that second book.
Jason slapped the dust off his trouser thighs and stood for awhile lookin' out toward the sun. He took a final sip from the glass of ice lemonade and set it back on the paso among all the other water rings that sweated off the glass. Mr. McCarthy, he said.
Cormac.
Mr. McCarthy, sir, it's been a pleasure.
Pleasure's mine.
Alright, but it's been nice talkin' to you and learnin' what you put into them books.
I appreciate the feedback.
From me?
Yes, you read all 3 books, makes you as close an expert as me.
Uhh, I don't reckon I understand what you just said.
Look, Jason, a writer spends an awful lot of time putting words on paper and figurin' and refigurin' how to change those words so it has an effect on the reader, someone like you.
I understand.
So if my writing doesn't have an effect, well, then...
Then it don't mean nothing.
No, it means something. But then it means something only to me.
I see.
Do you?
Sure.
If my writing doesn't affect you, then my writing is nothing more than a glorified journal entry. If it don't sell, then it stays with me.
So you mean to share it with folks like me.
Correct.
Yes sir.
What's that face your making?
I still don't like the idea of a prequel.
Don't worry 'bout that.
You're not going to write one.
No.
Good.
That story's over.
That's how I feel about it.
The author rose and took Jason's hand in his and shook it and shook it again and when they let go there was an understanding among men that cascaded through all the understandings between men and had arrived at this point firmly, and hung there, deep, like a great granite batholith. Take care reader.
I will.
Bye.
Oh, one last thing.
Anything.
When you transcribe this discussion, would you send me a copy.
For what?
So I can put it on this computer Goodreads thing.
I can do that.
Much obliged.
Take care then.
Bye Mr. McCarthy.
New words: dishabille, peened, niello, fard, replevin, ned, maguey, quirted,
Cool sentences:
There were grounds in the bottom of the cup and he swirled the cup and looked at them. Then he swirled them the other way as if he'd put them back the way they'd been.(p. 138)
Billy flipped the cigarette out across the yard. It was already dark enough that it made an arc in the fading light. Arcs within the arc.(p. 147)
When they reached the trail along the western edge of the floodplain the sun was up behind the mesa and the light that overshot the plain crossed to the rocks above them so that they rode out the remnant of the night in a deep blue sink with the new day falling slowly down about them.(p. 171)
The ceiling of the room was of concrete and bore the impression of the boards used to form it, the concrete knots and nailheads and the fossil arc of the circlesaw's blade from some mountain sawmill. There was a single sooty bulb that burned there with a grudging orange light and a millermoth that patrolled it in random clockwise orbits.(p. 208)
The word polysydeton was given to my by Isaiah H.
The author asked, Whad'ya think about the book?
The last in the trilogy?
That's it.
It was alright, Jason said.
What was alright?
Cities of the Plain
What specifically?
The simple language and the economy of words and the lack of punctuation, quotations especially. How you made simple things like chores seem interesting and wonderful.
That's fair. It's actually harder to write like that than you think.
I bet.
Was it better than the first two, the first two books I mean?
No.
Why?
I thought the second book was better.
The author shifted in his seat and lit a cigarette and picked musingly at a fingernail with a jag in it. He looked from the cargazón de espaldas of his house and toward the wall of scrub that marked the edge of some New Mexico wilderness. Do you like my polysyndeton?
Polysynda what?
Polysyndeton. It's where I use a lot of correlative conjunctions to string out sentences instead of using commas.
Oh. I reckon.
Only 3 stars. What could I have done better?
Don't figure I'm the best person to ask about that.
You count. I write for people like you.
Still.
No, lemme hear.
Then, I guess you could of jazzed up some of the action especially toward the first half of the book.
The story didn't draw you in?
No sir it didn't.
There was a theme I was huntin' for, that first half. I wanted life to seem timeless and I did that through the sustained description of routine life for several vaqueros.
I understand.
The author exhaled through both nostrils making an opaque column of smoke that stretched uniformly to the wooden cubierta. Were the characters likable?
I liked Billy and John Grady and Mac. I liked the part when they saved them puppies in the traprock escarpment.
That's a critical part. Those boys had to kill the adult dogs in order to save the pups. It was an exchange of life. Those pups woulda likely died out there for want of food.
Yep. They kept having to kill calves to feed the pups. Once them calves got bigger, the dogs would've been outta food.
That's exactly right.
I liked the knife fight too and how John Grady was fallin' so in love with that whore.
Good.
She was very young.
That's right.
And I like when you mash up two words.
You mean when I make one word out of an adjective and a noun?
Yes.
I do that quite often.
You do it on almost every page.
About.
Hey, I understand your writing. It's just, I gave 3 stars because your second book had 4 stars and since I didn't think your third book was better than the second, I couldn't give the same rating.
Okay.
But I did really like the descriptions you made of the environment and the way the sky looked and how a man would have felt looking out across the llanos. And I even liked how you dropped a lot of spanish words in the book, almost as if you was searching for the right word and the absolute right word wasn't an english word but a spanish word. And then you used some big words that I had to look up.
Uh-huh. I did that. He flipped the cigarette in a flection out into the dirt. Is there anything I wrote that you didn't like?
The short dialogue.
How's that?
The dialogue was always so staccato.
That's how they talk. It's realistic.
Yes sir.
But you said you liked my economy of words, earlier you said that.
I know what I said.
Well. That's how I wrote my dialogue.
I reckon you did.
Well, then, what about the dialogue you didn't like?
Maybe it was the lack of quotations. Made it hard to read. I don't know.
That's fair. I done that in most of my books.
You know what Mr. McCarthy? I especially liked the very last part after Billy was grown up and met that vagabundo and he went into that bizarre tirade about the dream he had and what it meant to him and therefore what it meant for all of mankind.
I only did that once in this book.
I know.
You liked that huh? You think I should have done that more?
Yes sir I do.
Hmmm.
When you do that, when you make your characters get all fantastic, those are some good parts.
I try to divine the essence of the human condition, Jason.
Right.
And you liked that?
I liked it very much.
But once wasn't enough?
No. The second book was better.
Because it had more episodes where my characters had fantastic tirades?
That's right.
Mr. McCarthy crossed his arms and put his boots on the barandilla and tipped his chair back on two legs. He looked at the skyline just above the scrub in the distance. The world had a light gauzy dome of high cloud. The sun was getting low in that direction, but the color of the sky was as if it was still sizzlin', a couple of sun dogs on either side. The author asked, Did you like the whore?
She was young.
Yes.
You made her sound pretty.
Yes.
I figure I wouldn't want to marry a whore.
The others tried to stop him.
But they didn't.
No.
I don't think I would have died for her.
You aint John Grady.
No sir.
Would you recommend Cities of the Plains to your friends? He scratched his ankle deep down the inside of his boot.
I would.
Do you think the books can be read individually or should be read as a trilogy?
Well, I can only answer for myself.
I aint askin' anybody but you.
What's the question?
Can they be read separately or should they be read as a whole?
As a whole. Altogether, I reckon.
Do you think I should write a fourth book?
Ever'body's old and dead now.
Kind of a prequel.
Kind of a prequel?
Uh-huh.
No.
You don't think?
No, it's just right now, especially that second book.
Jason slapped the dust off his trouser thighs and stood for awhile lookin' out toward the sun. He took a final sip from the glass of ice lemonade and set it back on the paso among all the other water rings that sweated off the glass. Mr. McCarthy, he said.
Cormac.
Mr. McCarthy, sir, it's been a pleasure.
Pleasure's mine.
Alright, but it's been nice talkin' to you and learnin' what you put into them books.
I appreciate the feedback.
From me?
Yes, you read all 3 books, makes you as close an expert as me.
Uhh, I don't reckon I understand what you just said.
Look, Jason, a writer spends an awful lot of time putting words on paper and figurin' and refigurin' how to change those words so it has an effect on the reader, someone like you.
I understand.
So if my writing doesn't have an effect, well, then...
Then it don't mean nothing.
No, it means something. But then it means something only to me.
I see.
Do you?
Sure.
If my writing doesn't affect you, then my writing is nothing more than a glorified journal entry. If it don't sell, then it stays with me.
So you mean to share it with folks like me.
Correct.
Yes sir.
What's that face your making?
I still don't like the idea of a prequel.
Don't worry 'bout that.
You're not going to write one.
No.
Good.
That story's over.
That's how I feel about it.
The author rose and took Jason's hand in his and shook it and shook it again and when they let go there was an understanding among men that cascaded through all the understandings between men and had arrived at this point firmly, and hung there, deep, like a great granite batholith. Take care reader.
I will.
Bye.
Oh, one last thing.
Anything.
When you transcribe this discussion, would you send me a copy.
For what?
So I can put it on this computer Goodreads thing.
I can do that.
Much obliged.
Take care then.
Bye Mr. McCarthy.
New words: dishabille, peened, niello, fard, replevin, ned, maguey, quirted,
Cool sentences:
There were grounds in the bottom of the cup and he swirled the cup and looked at them. Then he swirled them the other way as if he'd put them back the way they'd been.(p. 138)
Billy flipped the cigarette out across the yard. It was already dark enough that it made an arc in the fading light. Arcs within the arc.(p. 147)
When they reached the trail along the western edge of the floodplain the sun was up behind the mesa and the light that overshot the plain crossed to the rocks above them so that they rode out the remnant of the night in a deep blue sink with the new day falling slowly down about them.(p. 171)
The ceiling of the room was of concrete and bore the impression of the boards used to form it, the concrete knots and nailheads and the fossil arc of the circlesaw's blade from some mountain sawmill. There was a single sooty bulb that burned there with a grudging orange light and a millermoth that patrolled it in random clockwise orbits.(p. 208)
The word polysydeton was given to my by Isaiah H.
September 2, 2021
LINEA D’OMBRA
Ed ecco che la celebre trilogia si spiega e assume il suo significato: non solo temi e ambientazioni e umori e atmosfera comuni, ma questo terzo romanzo diventa il punto di congiunzione dei precedenti due, la prosecuzione, temporale e logica, considerato che i giovani protagonisti – che definire adolescenti probabilmente dimostra un punto di vista da terzo millennio, perché la loro età, in quell’epoca, in quella terra, in quelle condizioni, era considerata già adulta, uomini pronti, in grado di cavalcare, lavorare, sparare, uccidere – John Grady Cole di Cavalli selvaggi – All the Pretty Horses e Bill Parham di Oltre il confine – The Crossing, qui si incontrano e diventano amici, lavorano insieme.
Sempre a contatto coi cavalli, sempre in zona confine messicano, e partendo temporalmente (1952) più o meno da dove le due storie precedenti si concludevano.
Edward Weston: Saguaro, 1941.
John è il giovane uomo che sussurra ai cavalli, mago nel domarli, Bill gli fa in qualche modo da fratello maggiore.
Il ranch rischia di essere acquistato dal governo americano per costruire una base missilistica o altri esperimenti simili. Il mondo nuovo non sembra più buono e sicuro, meno violento e prepotente del vecchio.
Il ranch dove i due, John e Billy, lavorano e vivono è in territorio texano, la sera i due sconfinano in territorio messicano per andare a bere e a donne.
Una sera John vede una giovanissima prostituta, così bella che s’innamora a prima vista. Non sa che è epilettica, ma vede comunque che non è l’immagine della felicità e della prosperità. E quindi, forse più che amore, è desiderio di salvataggio, di redenzione.
Ma Magdalena, come le altre prostitute del White Lake, appartiene, in senso assolutamente letterale, al suo proprietario, protettore magnaccia e sfruttatore, il messicano Eduardo.
È pertanto con Eduardo che il giovane cowboy dovrà vedersela. In un duello finale al coltello tra vicoli e strade laterali di una “città della pianura”.
Edward Weston: Maguey Catus, 1926.
La trilogia della frontiera ha portato i suoi protagonisti a varcare più volte confini diversi – quelli geografici, tra stati, tra USA e Mexico, quelli con la legge, nel momento in cui si accetta che rubare e uccidere possono essere una forma di giustizia, quelli esistenziali, i passaggi di età – ora, nel finale di questo terzo capitolo sembra varcare anche il confine del tempo. Con un salto temporale che McCarthy non quantifica, Bill si trova a cavalcare accanto a un’autostrada.
Ma il vagabondo che incontra, e che gli racconta il suo sogno – sogno che riconduce tutto a una violenza primordiale che l’autostrada non si è portata via, e progresso e modernità che quel nastro d’asfalto rappresenta – fa sparire in un attimo qualsiasi per quanto vaga sensazione di ‘happy ending’, che certo non appartiene a McCarthy, e aggiunge un brivido gelido al ‘siamo ciò che siamo’ che emergeva dai precedenti due romanzi: qui si può concludere che è quello che è, accade quello che accade.
E quindi, quanto conta, come incide il nostro volere? Che ruolo abbiamo e cosa possiamo davvero fare?
Edward Weston
Questa tua vita alla quale dai tanta importanza”, afferma il senzatetto, “non è opera tua, qualunque sia il nome che decidi di darle. La sua forma è stata imposta al vuoto fin dall’inizio del mondo, e tutto ciò che si può dire di come sarebbero potute andare altrimenti le cose è senza senso, perché non si dà nessun altrimenti.
McCarthy ci porta in un paesaggio che sa rendere fisico e metafisico, una natura che le sue parole ci fanno toccare con mano, ma che sanno anche farci percepire come assoluta. Carne e spirito, corpo e anima.
Densa e asciutta al contempo, insieme ricca e secca, la scrittura di McCarthy si conferma per me un piacere che purtroppo non si è ripetuto nelle due opere successive che ho letto (La strada e Non è un paese per vecchi) quanto piuttosto in alcune precedenti.
Georgia O’Keeffe: Dark Hill Ghost Ranch, 1934.
Ed ecco che la celebre trilogia si spiega e assume il suo significato: non solo temi e ambientazioni e umori e atmosfera comuni, ma questo terzo romanzo diventa il punto di congiunzione dei precedenti due, la prosecuzione, temporale e logica, considerato che i giovani protagonisti – che definire adolescenti probabilmente dimostra un punto di vista da terzo millennio, perché la loro età, in quell’epoca, in quella terra, in quelle condizioni, era considerata già adulta, uomini pronti, in grado di cavalcare, lavorare, sparare, uccidere – John Grady Cole di Cavalli selvaggi – All the Pretty Horses e Bill Parham di Oltre il confine – The Crossing, qui si incontrano e diventano amici, lavorano insieme.
Sempre a contatto coi cavalli, sempre in zona confine messicano, e partendo temporalmente (1952) più o meno da dove le due storie precedenti si concludevano.
Edward Weston: Saguaro, 1941.
John è il giovane uomo che sussurra ai cavalli, mago nel domarli, Bill gli fa in qualche modo da fratello maggiore.
Il ranch rischia di essere acquistato dal governo americano per costruire una base missilistica o altri esperimenti simili. Il mondo nuovo non sembra più buono e sicuro, meno violento e prepotente del vecchio.
Il ranch dove i due, John e Billy, lavorano e vivono è in territorio texano, la sera i due sconfinano in territorio messicano per andare a bere e a donne.
Una sera John vede una giovanissima prostituta, così bella che s’innamora a prima vista. Non sa che è epilettica, ma vede comunque che non è l’immagine della felicità e della prosperità. E quindi, forse più che amore, è desiderio di salvataggio, di redenzione.
Ma Magdalena, come le altre prostitute del White Lake, appartiene, in senso assolutamente letterale, al suo proprietario, protettore magnaccia e sfruttatore, il messicano Eduardo.
È pertanto con Eduardo che il giovane cowboy dovrà vedersela. In un duello finale al coltello tra vicoli e strade laterali di una “città della pianura”.
Edward Weston: Maguey Catus, 1926.
La trilogia della frontiera ha portato i suoi protagonisti a varcare più volte confini diversi – quelli geografici, tra stati, tra USA e Mexico, quelli con la legge, nel momento in cui si accetta che rubare e uccidere possono essere una forma di giustizia, quelli esistenziali, i passaggi di età – ora, nel finale di questo terzo capitolo sembra varcare anche il confine del tempo. Con un salto temporale che McCarthy non quantifica, Bill si trova a cavalcare accanto a un’autostrada.
Ma il vagabondo che incontra, e che gli racconta il suo sogno – sogno che riconduce tutto a una violenza primordiale che l’autostrada non si è portata via, e progresso e modernità che quel nastro d’asfalto rappresenta – fa sparire in un attimo qualsiasi per quanto vaga sensazione di ‘happy ending’, che certo non appartiene a McCarthy, e aggiunge un brivido gelido al ‘siamo ciò che siamo’ che emergeva dai precedenti due romanzi: qui si può concludere che è quello che è, accade quello che accade.
E quindi, quanto conta, come incide il nostro volere? Che ruolo abbiamo e cosa possiamo davvero fare?
Edward Weston
Questa tua vita alla quale dai tanta importanza”, afferma il senzatetto, “non è opera tua, qualunque sia il nome che decidi di darle. La sua forma è stata imposta al vuoto fin dall’inizio del mondo, e tutto ciò che si può dire di come sarebbero potute andare altrimenti le cose è senza senso, perché non si dà nessun altrimenti.
McCarthy ci porta in un paesaggio che sa rendere fisico e metafisico, una natura che le sue parole ci fanno toccare con mano, ma che sanno anche farci percepire come assoluta. Carne e spirito, corpo e anima.
Densa e asciutta al contempo, insieme ricca e secca, la scrittura di McCarthy si conferma per me un piacere che purtroppo non si è ripetuto nelle due opere successive che ho letto (La strada e Non è un paese per vecchi) quanto piuttosto in alcune precedenti.
Georgia O’Keeffe: Dark Hill Ghost Ranch, 1934.
November 22, 2022
I guess it was a kind of ending...
Our heroes, John Grady Cole and Billy Parham, are back in the saddle for the third and final installment of the Border Trilogy. Not near as good as the first two books. McCarthy goes from shades of black in All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing to somewhere in the off-white range with Cities of the Plain.
John Grady, I'm telling you this as a friend. I rode the trail to Mexico with you and Rawlins. I was there when Belvins was executed. I fought alongside you and Rawlins in that horrible Mexican prison, and I'm telling you, you have a problem with falling in love with the wrong girls. Senoritas will break your heart every time. Maybe listen to your friends a little more and follow your heart a little less.
Billy, you fought for your friend. It's not your fault he was too fool-hearted to listen to you. You fought for him right to the end. We watched you grow up in The Crossing. We felt the bond you had with the she-wolf. We cried when she died. We loved Boyd like a brother and felt your pain when we learned he died. You were a great friend, and you deserved a better ending to your story.
Overall, it was just okay. It wasn't the ending I wanted. It wasn't the ending I expected. It wasn't the ending I think we all deserved. We laughed, we cried, we lost friends and got our hearts broken, and in the end, we got cheated.
Our heroes, John Grady Cole and Billy Parham, are back in the saddle for the third and final installment of the Border Trilogy. Not near as good as the first two books. McCarthy goes from shades of black in All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing to somewhere in the off-white range with Cities of the Plain.
John Grady, I'm telling you this as a friend. I rode the trail to Mexico with you and Rawlins. I was there when Belvins was executed. I fought alongside you and Rawlins in that horrible Mexican prison, and I'm telling you, you have a problem with falling in love with the wrong girls. Senoritas will break your heart every time. Maybe listen to your friends a little more and follow your heart a little less.
Billy, you fought for your friend. It's not your fault he was too fool-hearted to listen to you. You fought for him right to the end. We watched you grow up in The Crossing. We felt the bond you had with the she-wolf. We cried when she died. We loved Boyd like a brother and felt your pain when we learned he died. You were a great friend, and you deserved a better ending to your story.
Overall, it was just okay. It wasn't the ending I wanted. It wasn't the ending I expected. It wasn't the ending I think we all deserved. We laughed, we cried, we lost friends and got our hearts broken, and in the end, we got cheated.
December 12, 2025
Cities of the Plain is a masterfully crafted conclusion to the Border Trilogy, blending lyrical prose with profound themes of love, loss, and fate. McCarthy's writing is hauntingly beautiful, immersing readers in a stark, yet deeply human world. The characters are rich and complex, particularly the bond between the two protagonists, John Grady Cole and Billy Parham. This novel captures the desolate beauty of the American Southwest while exploring the inevitable clash between dreams and reality. A poignant, thought-provoking read, Cities of the Plain is a testament to McCarthy's unparalleled storytelling.
November 9, 2023
The novel starts with a bunch of young cowboys in the American southwest — just after World War II — volubly choosing whores in a tavern-cum-bordello. That image evokes the cities of the title, which were in the end, it should be observed, destroyed by God.
This is the last volume of a border trilogy following Billy Parham and his ilk. All the Pretty Horses was the first volume and The Crossing the second. It's full of cattle and horses and horse whisperers, an epileptic hooker, those who remember the Mexican Revolution, James Ensor-like bacchanalia, and so forth.
As Billy Parham explains one night:
"When you're a kid you have these notions about how things are goin to be, Billy said. You get a little older and you pull back some on that. I think you wind up just tryin to minimize the pain. Anyway this country aint the same. Nor anything in it. The war changed everthing. I dont think people even know it yet.
"The sky to the west darkened. A cold wind blew. They could see the aura of the lights from the city come up forty miles away.
"You need to wear more clothes than that, Billy said.
"I'm all right. How did the war change it?
"It just did. It aint the same no more. It never will be."
(p. 78)
—
The mood is in the low-key camaraderie of the men. There's a sense of community among them almost completely without conflict. There is conflict but it's impinging the community from the outside, like the brutality of Eduardo, the pimp.
The young John Grady falls in love with a sex worker at a bordello in Mexico and makes an offer to the proprietor, one Eduardo, to buy the girl. Eduardo then proceeds to enlighten John Grady as to certain real world matters. It's an astonishing scene.
This girl, Magdalena, is sixteen. At thirteen she was sold by her family to cover some debts. She was hired out for men's pleasure at that age. She ran away to a convent. She was sold again by the sisters. She watched as Eduardo paid the cash into their holy hands, and after violent beatings she was put back on sale. She is traumatized; she's epileptic. This is the poor girl John Grady proposes to. She says yes.
Last half now and the narrative pleasure is enormous. I'm reading slowly to savor it. The end is a knockout.
This is the last volume of a border trilogy following Billy Parham and his ilk. All the Pretty Horses was the first volume and The Crossing the second. It's full of cattle and horses and horse whisperers, an epileptic hooker, those who remember the Mexican Revolution, James Ensor-like bacchanalia, and so forth.
As Billy Parham explains one night:
"When you're a kid you have these notions about how things are goin to be, Billy said. You get a little older and you pull back some on that. I think you wind up just tryin to minimize the pain. Anyway this country aint the same. Nor anything in it. The war changed everthing. I dont think people even know it yet.
"The sky to the west darkened. A cold wind blew. They could see the aura of the lights from the city come up forty miles away.
"You need to wear more clothes than that, Billy said.
"I'm all right. How did the war change it?
"It just did. It aint the same no more. It never will be."
(p. 78)
—
The mood is in the low-key camaraderie of the men. There's a sense of community among them almost completely without conflict. There is conflict but it's impinging the community from the outside, like the brutality of Eduardo, the pimp.
The young John Grady falls in love with a sex worker at a bordello in Mexico and makes an offer to the proprietor, one Eduardo, to buy the girl. Eduardo then proceeds to enlighten John Grady as to certain real world matters. It's an astonishing scene.
This girl, Magdalena, is sixteen. At thirteen she was sold by her family to cover some debts. She was hired out for men's pleasure at that age. She ran away to a convent. She was sold again by the sisters. She watched as Eduardo paid the cash into their holy hands, and after violent beatings she was put back on sale. She is traumatized; she's epileptic. This is the poor girl John Grady proposes to. She says yes.
Last half now and the narrative pleasure is enormous. I'm reading slowly to savor it. The end is a knockout.
October 11, 2018
The Border Trilogy – Part 3 of 3
In this final novel of The Border Trilogy, both John Grady Cole and Billy Parham are working at Mac Ranch, owned by a fellow named McGovern. Everyone calls him Mac, and all the cowboys on the ranch know that their time together appears to be limited as the government plans to take over huge tracts of land in the area, including Mac Ranch.
John Grady is now 19 and Billy is 28. They have become good friends through sharing their stories of Mexico and working together every day. They have one major area of disagreement. John Grady is once again madly in love – this time with a young Mexican prostitute just a short (and very expensive) trip across the border. She is in love with him, too, but there are definite problems in the relationship. Not least is that Magdalena (her real name) works for a pimp who also happens to be in love with her.
This novel has many incidents that occur on the ranch, and also in the Mexican town. Once again, Cormac McCarthy grabbed my attention with his writing: it is bold, beautifully descriptive, sensorially alive, and with dialogue that sounds real. I am in awe of his ability to write believably of situations where the cruelties of nature and of man collide, separate, and then clash again.
There is an epilogue at the end of this novel that I suspect some readers may not enjoy. It takes a giant leap, carrying the reader along, 50 years into the future. Billy had long returned to his nomad ways and he isn’t any richer financially than when he’d started out as a boy. He is unconcerned as his life has always been lived that way. One night he meets a man that he shares some crackers with, sitting on the concrete footing of an underpass.
This section is almost like a short story. Although I already knew a great deal about Billy’s younger days, the 50 year gap time contained a lot of hard living, too. However, “the narrator” Billy is sharing this spot with has a great deal to say, and the two of them sit discussing life, dreams, and what amounts to philosophy. Some of it is down-home and some of it sophisticated. I found it fascinating, even though the pace is wound down substantially from the main chapters of this book. As always with Cormac McCarthy’s novels, there is much more substance than what meets the eye if the reader is willing to follow the pace Mr. McCarthy sets.
As with the other two books in this Trilogy, I enjoyed this novel immensely and I would recommend this Trilogy to people who enjoy well-crafted stories, and authentic characters. The writing is so good it often doesn’t offer its gifts until the mind takes over after setting the book down and deeper processes and meanings come through.
In this final novel of The Border Trilogy, both John Grady Cole and Billy Parham are working at Mac Ranch, owned by a fellow named McGovern. Everyone calls him Mac, and all the cowboys on the ranch know that their time together appears to be limited as the government plans to take over huge tracts of land in the area, including Mac Ranch.
John Grady is now 19 and Billy is 28. They have become good friends through sharing their stories of Mexico and working together every day. They have one major area of disagreement. John Grady is once again madly in love – this time with a young Mexican prostitute just a short (and very expensive) trip across the border. She is in love with him, too, but there are definite problems in the relationship. Not least is that Magdalena (her real name) works for a pimp who also happens to be in love with her.
This novel has many incidents that occur on the ranch, and also in the Mexican town. Once again, Cormac McCarthy grabbed my attention with his writing: it is bold, beautifully descriptive, sensorially alive, and with dialogue that sounds real. I am in awe of his ability to write believably of situations where the cruelties of nature and of man collide, separate, and then clash again.
There is an epilogue at the end of this novel that I suspect some readers may not enjoy. It takes a giant leap, carrying the reader along, 50 years into the future. Billy had long returned to his nomad ways and he isn’t any richer financially than when he’d started out as a boy. He is unconcerned as his life has always been lived that way. One night he meets a man that he shares some crackers with, sitting on the concrete footing of an underpass.
This section is almost like a short story. Although I already knew a great deal about Billy’s younger days, the 50 year gap time contained a lot of hard living, too. However, “the narrator” Billy is sharing this spot with has a great deal to say, and the two of them sit discussing life, dreams, and what amounts to philosophy. Some of it is down-home and some of it sophisticated. I found it fascinating, even though the pace is wound down substantially from the main chapters of this book. As always with Cormac McCarthy’s novels, there is much more substance than what meets the eye if the reader is willing to follow the pace Mr. McCarthy sets.
As with the other two books in this Trilogy, I enjoyed this novel immensely and I would recommend this Trilogy to people who enjoy well-crafted stories, and authentic characters. The writing is so good it often doesn’t offer its gifts until the mind takes over after setting the book down and deeper processes and meanings come through.
March 1, 2019
For me the least successful of the trilogy though there was still much to love. This brings back the central characters of books one and two. It's essentially a love story. John Grady Cole falls in love with a young girl who suffers from epilepsy and works in a Mexican brothel. His aim to rescue and marry her. The problem is her pimp is very possessive of her. The most moving relationships though are those the boy shares with the elderly Mac and his friend Billy. This novel is less violent than the others I've read by Macarthy but follows the usual formula. Lots of fabulous poetic writing, brilliant descriptions of the natural world and the usual cast of seers who provide a marvellous philosophical structure.
November 21, 2022
A Real Cowboy Never Sells His Horse
Billy, from “The Crossing,’ is older now and is working on a ranch in Southeastern New Mexico. The year is 1952. John Grady, a character from maybe “All the Pretty Horses,” is there too.
Ranch work can be interesting, that is, if you only talk about the interesting aspects of it. The stories I heard in Creston, CA, a very small cow town, were always interesting,. If they weren’t, they would not have been told.
In this McCarthy book, interesting doesn’t matter, even though it mattered greatly to me. Still, I learned a lot: When Billy and some of the guys were driving down the road late one afternoon, they saw a truck pulled over on the side of the road. Mexican men were trying to change a tire, and they didn’t know how or didn’t have the right tools. What? That doesn’t seem plausible. Mexicans can fix anything. Billy stopes and helps them change the tire, and in the process, the details of this as given by McCarthy, has taught me how to change a tire. I knew how anyway. On the way home, an owl hit the windshield, and the following day I learned how to change the windshield of an old pickup truck. But mostly, I learned how boring it can be to be a ranch hand, at least through McCarthy’s eyes.
The story picks up after 4 hours of it being narrated to me. And when it does, it is because some cattle were being killed, not by wolves, but by dogs that have become feral. Well, that was short lived as far as excitement goes.
The other excitement is that John Grady Cole is in love with a 16-year old prostitute over in Juarez, Mexico. But so is her pimp. John wants to marry her, and I am thinking that this is where she or he gets killed, if not, perhaps, if he gets her to the U.S., everyone on the ranch will be in danger. And what does he really know about her? He continually talks about her beauty, and I think that is why he is so smitten. When John Grady decides to fix up a house for her on the ranch, I begin to feel bad for him. Will she ever get to see it? Would she even want to live alone in that house that is hard to find on the ranch? I even thought about how he sold his gun just so he could sleep with her, and I think that he may need it. One day he asked for an advance on his next month’s wages, $100 That bought a little more time with her. Next, he sells his horse. I always thought that a cowboy and his horse couldn't be parted.
So, the story comes to a head when it is time to get the girl, and I was just glad when it was over. I would have given this book 2 stars, but since the prose was good, it gest a 3, even though I didn’t notice his prose since I was so bored.
Billy, from “The Crossing,’ is older now and is working on a ranch in Southeastern New Mexico. The year is 1952. John Grady, a character from maybe “All the Pretty Horses,” is there too.
Ranch work can be interesting, that is, if you only talk about the interesting aspects of it. The stories I heard in Creston, CA, a very small cow town, were always interesting,. If they weren’t, they would not have been told.
In this McCarthy book, interesting doesn’t matter, even though it mattered greatly to me. Still, I learned a lot: When Billy and some of the guys were driving down the road late one afternoon, they saw a truck pulled over on the side of the road. Mexican men were trying to change a tire, and they didn’t know how or didn’t have the right tools. What? That doesn’t seem plausible. Mexicans can fix anything. Billy stopes and helps them change the tire, and in the process, the details of this as given by McCarthy, has taught me how to change a tire. I knew how anyway. On the way home, an owl hit the windshield, and the following day I learned how to change the windshield of an old pickup truck. But mostly, I learned how boring it can be to be a ranch hand, at least through McCarthy’s eyes.
The story picks up after 4 hours of it being narrated to me. And when it does, it is because some cattle were being killed, not by wolves, but by dogs that have become feral. Well, that was short lived as far as excitement goes.
The other excitement is that John Grady Cole is in love with a 16-year old prostitute over in Juarez, Mexico. But so is her pimp. John wants to marry her, and I am thinking that this is where she or he gets killed, if not, perhaps, if he gets her to the U.S., everyone on the ranch will be in danger. And what does he really know about her? He continually talks about her beauty, and I think that is why he is so smitten. When John Grady decides to fix up a house for her on the ranch, I begin to feel bad for him. Will she ever get to see it? Would she even want to live alone in that house that is hard to find on the ranch? I even thought about how he sold his gun just so he could sleep with her, and I think that he may need it. One day he asked for an advance on his next month’s wages, $100 That bought a little more time with her. Next, he sells his horse. I always thought that a cowboy and his horse couldn't be parted.
So, the story comes to a head when it is time to get the girl, and I was just glad when it was over. I would have given this book 2 stars, but since the prose was good, it gest a 3, even though I didn’t notice his prose since I was so bored.
November 30, 2021
Cities of the Plain was the final book in The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy and what a beautiful conclusion to this literary tribute to the American West. I have just been swept away with the gorgeous prose and breadth and scope of these unforgettable books with such compelling stories. This third book brings back together the characters of John Grady Cole and Billy Parham from the first and second books of the trilogy, All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing. It is in these two central figures pilgramage from youth to manhood meeting again, the cowboys working again on a ranch outside El Paso as their way of life is declining following World War II. It is a time of sweeping change across the American West and these books give witness to those difficult transitions in these border towns in Mexico, Texas and New Mexico.
Cormac McCarthy's prose is magical. A few of my favorite passages:
Cormac McCarthy's prose is magical. A few of my favorite passages:
"A man was coming down the road driving a donkey piled high with firewood In the distance churchbells had begun. The man smiled at him a sly smile. As if they knew a secret between them, these two. Something of age and youth and their claims and the justice of those claims. And of the claims upon them. The world past, the world to come. Their common transiencies. Above all a knowing deep in the bone that beauty and loss are one."
"This story like all stories has its beginning in a question. All those stories which speak to us with the greatest resonance have a way of turning upon the teller and erasing him and his motives from all memory. So the question of who is telling the story is very consiguiente."
"The world of our fathers resides within us. Ten thousand generations and more. A form without a history has no power to perpetuate itself. What has no past can have no future. At the core of our life is the history of which it is composed and in that core are no idioms but only the act of knowing and it is this we share in dreams and out. Before the first man spoke and after the last silenced forever. Yet in the end he did speak, as we shall see."
March 19, 2021
King of Campfire Philosophy. If you consider Cormac McCarthy novels from All the Pretty Horses to The Road/No Country for Old Men, Cities of the Plain is less violent but much more lyrical. It is a tad less fantastic and a speck more real in that literary realm. & the cities of El Paso and Juarez (Tale of Two Cities much?) are given an aptly lovely (though no less blood drenched) valentine in the form of the strong brotherhood between the ranchers and manly cowboys. That "he" is used in place of the character's names interchangeably throughout --a wise authorial motif of McCarthy (another being his lack of italics for Spanish statements; there is a fluidity of both languages and a democracy of both languages, which is an El Pasoan trait like any other)--tells us more about mankind than many other American works. A beauty to behold, those masculine activities such as the cleaning of guns, the inspecting of horses, handling a lovely woman; but juxtapose these (brilliantly!) with the loneliness of the plain, the inspecting of whores in the brothel, the killing of another human being.
March 8, 2011
The Border Trilogy finale, the ending--at least *an* ending.
I greatly enjoyed Cities of the Plain
. The book was much more dialogue-driven than the previous two--moreso than most McCarthy. It read quite like a screenplay (honestly I'm surprised there's no adaptation in the works--no Matt Damon please). Landscape descriptions, landscape as a character itself, is toned down, replaced with scene and scenario, the near-exciting humdrum of cowboy ranching life, a moribund profession and way of life. Billy Parham has seemingly matured past his conflicted downtroddenness, his inability to get or keep what he wants from The Crossing
. He's John Grady's brother, father figure, his confidant. They are each other's brother, with John Grady filling in for Boyd, bringing out Billy's protectiveness. Billy has a voice of reason, a pragmatic and fatalistic outlook. John Grady is ever the romantic, pursuing his desire with unfailing optimism and hope. Billy's intentions of holding him back are frivolous. The two are quite different, yet see in each other something of value, and it's their brotherly chemistry, conversation and care for one another that sucks the reader in, capturing their emotions entirely.
The story is slow to begin, but once it picks up it doesn't stop. Though McCarthy's books always leave me reeling, this one carried much emotional weight in both of its "endings." I still run some of Billy's last words through my head, and think of the power this story holds.
Highly recommended, though if you're going to read this it all, read the first two first. (For reference, my favorite of the trilogy was The Crossing, followed by Cities of the Plain, then All the Pretty Horses
--though each book is a masterpiece in itself.)
--- ---
Some select quotes, ordered they themselves tell a story:
--- ---
"A man is always right to pursue the thing he loves." (199)
"a thing once set in motion has no ending in this world until the last witness has passed" (205)
"there are no crossroads. Our decisions do not have some alternative. We may contemplate a choice but we pursue one path only." (286)
"... when things are gone they're gone. They aint comin back." (126)
"every act which has no heart will be found out in the end" (196)
"The world past, the world to come. ... Above all a knowing deep in the bone that beauty and loss are one." (126)
I greatly enjoyed Cities of the Plain
. The book was much more dialogue-driven than the previous two--moreso than most McCarthy. It read quite like a screenplay (honestly I'm surprised there's no adaptation in the works--no Matt Damon please). Landscape descriptions, landscape as a character itself, is toned down, replaced with scene and scenario, the near-exciting humdrum of cowboy ranching life, a moribund profession and way of life. Billy Parham has seemingly matured past his conflicted downtroddenness, his inability to get or keep what he wants from The Crossing. He's John Grady's brother, father figure, his confidant. They are each other's brother, with John Grady filling in for Boyd, bringing out Billy's protectiveness. Billy has a voice of reason, a pragmatic and fatalistic outlook. John Grady is ever the romantic, pursuing his desire with unfailing optimism and hope. Billy's intentions of holding him back are frivolous. The two are quite different, yet see in each other something of value, and it's their brotherly chemistry, conversation and care for one another that sucks the reader in, capturing their emotions entirely.The story is slow to begin, but once it picks up it doesn't stop. Though McCarthy's books always leave me reeling, this one carried much emotional weight in both of its "endings." I still run some of Billy's last words through my head, and think of the power this story holds.
Highly recommended, though if you're going to read this it all, read the first two first. (For reference, my favorite of the trilogy was The Crossing, followed by Cities of the Plain, then All the Pretty Horses
--though each book is a masterpiece in itself.)--- ---
Some select quotes, ordered they themselves tell a story:
--- ---
"A man is always right to pursue the thing he loves." (199)
"a thing once set in motion has no ending in this world until the last witness has passed" (205)
"there are no crossroads. Our decisions do not have some alternative. We may contemplate a choice but we pursue one path only." (286)
"... when things are gone they're gone. They aint comin back." (126)
"every act which has no heart will be found out in the end" (196)
"The world past, the world to come. ... Above all a knowing deep in the bone that beauty and loss are one." (126)
March 22, 2025
4,25⭐
Pierwsze 150 stron - 3,5⭐
Kolejne 200 - 4,5⭐
Epilog - 30 minut poświęcone na czytanie interpretacji (nice).
Recenzja: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vHKm...
Pierwsze 150 stron - 3,5⭐
Kolejne 200 - 4,5⭐
Epilog - 30 minut poświęcone na czytanie interpretacji (nice).
Recenzja: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vHKm...
February 10, 2017
Second Reading: January 2017
If All the Pretty Horses is a story about life happening without any way of stopping it, then Cities of the Plain is its perfect counterweight. This is a beautiful raw-earth story about forging ahead with one's dreams in spite of challenges and difficulties. And only a character such as John Grady Cole, who had to accept so much of life in his first appearance in All the Pretty Horses, could have the courage and kindness necessary to push through life in this second appearance to make his dreams come true.
---
First Read January 2015
McCarthy captures something magical in Cities of the Plain. He captures a fleeting moment in time in the American West right before the slowly creeping forces of the industrial revolution finally found their way into this vast but remote landscape. Right before the time when the traditional roles of cowboys and their horses became obsolete. It is this theme, all good things..., that McCarthy writes about in Cities of the Plain, in so many words, in direct and indirect ways.
It's a beautiful story that McCarthy writes, filled with the pure beauty of places that now only partially exist in our modernized world. There are wide fields of grass and sage, distant mountains, and cattle not in pens but grazing on the land until they need to be rounded up. There are beautiful sunsets and moonless skies filled with so many stars that they too shed a faint light upon the ground. It's not that these things do not presently exist. They indeed happen now if you can find the right place, but they certainly do not happen with the innocent knowledge that they are an endless commodity of life.
McCarthy also writes about honesty that is so true it can kill, and he writes about love.
In addition to his beautiful story, there is McCarthy's style of writing. It's not enough for McCarthy to simply let his readers read his tale. He wants them engaged and thinking about what he has to say. He starts strings of dialogue by only giving the name of the first speaker, all the while eliminating the use of quotation marks. He initiates scenes in which the identification of the main character is only provided through their characteristics. The result of this style of writing is the feeling that I had imagined this story as opposed to ever having read it.
If All the Pretty Horses is a story about life happening without any way of stopping it, then Cities of the Plain is its perfect counterweight. This is a beautiful raw-earth story about forging ahead with one's dreams in spite of challenges and difficulties. And only a character such as John Grady Cole, who had to accept so much of life in his first appearance in All the Pretty Horses, could have the courage and kindness necessary to push through life in this second appearance to make his dreams come true.
---
First Read January 2015
McCarthy captures something magical in Cities of the Plain. He captures a fleeting moment in time in the American West right before the slowly creeping forces of the industrial revolution finally found their way into this vast but remote landscape. Right before the time when the traditional roles of cowboys and their horses became obsolete. It is this theme, all good things..., that McCarthy writes about in Cities of the Plain, in so many words, in direct and indirect ways.
It's a beautiful story that McCarthy writes, filled with the pure beauty of places that now only partially exist in our modernized world. There are wide fields of grass and sage, distant mountains, and cattle not in pens but grazing on the land until they need to be rounded up. There are beautiful sunsets and moonless skies filled with so many stars that they too shed a faint light upon the ground. It's not that these things do not presently exist. They indeed happen now if you can find the right place, but they certainly do not happen with the innocent knowledge that they are an endless commodity of life.
McCarthy also writes about honesty that is so true it can kill, and he writes about love.
In addition to his beautiful story, there is McCarthy's style of writing. It's not enough for McCarthy to simply let his readers read his tale. He wants them engaged and thinking about what he has to say. He starts strings of dialogue by only giving the name of the first speaker, all the while eliminating the use of quotation marks. He initiates scenes in which the identification of the main character is only provided through their characteristics. The result of this style of writing is the feeling that I had imagined this story as opposed to ever having read it.
June 11, 2024
🐴 It seems a little odd, this novel, but ultimately it isn't.
We'd expect this book to come from an author in Mexico, or South America, or Central America, or Africa, or Europe, or the Middle East, or the Far East, or India, or Indonesia, or the South Pacific. It's not typical of America, or Canada, or the UK, or NZ, or OZ unless the person has immigrated there from another country and brought their world with them. Or they are Native American.
🐴The first half of the book moves ahead desultorily.
Cowhands smoke, buy horses, drink at bars for about half the story. Nothing much happens. Except ...... we begin to pick up that a young cowboy is smitten with a beautiful, young prostitute, and begins to sell things that are dear to him - his best horse, his gun belt and pistol that were passed down to him as an an heirloom - in order to draw closer to her. He wants them to marry. He is warned off but he persists. And tragedy begins to stalk the tale.
✨ There is no ending. Not really. Instead we have something of a parable. This is the odd part. It is like magical realism. It is about sleeping, and dreaming, and alt states, and alt realities, and death. It is a dream within a dream within a dream. And so we begin to fade into the ether along with the characters of the novel. We have, along the way, become one of them and are in the same book, the same dream dreaming.
The other book of his I’ve read that has some of the same skylines as this one is The Road [review on GR].
I’ve since read the first book of this trilogy, All the Pretty Horses, and am reading the second, The Crossing.
We'd expect this book to come from an author in Mexico, or South America, or Central America, or Africa, or Europe, or the Middle East, or the Far East, or India, or Indonesia, or the South Pacific. It's not typical of America, or Canada, or the UK, or NZ, or OZ unless the person has immigrated there from another country and brought their world with them. Or they are Native American.
🐴The first half of the book moves ahead desultorily.
Cowhands smoke, buy horses, drink at bars for about half the story. Nothing much happens. Except ...... we begin to pick up that a young cowboy is smitten with a beautiful, young prostitute, and begins to sell things that are dear to him - his best horse, his gun belt and pistol that were passed down to him as an an heirloom - in order to draw closer to her. He wants them to marry. He is warned off but he persists. And tragedy begins to stalk the tale.
✨ There is no ending. Not really. Instead we have something of a parable. This is the odd part. It is like magical realism. It is about sleeping, and dreaming, and alt states, and alt realities, and death. It is a dream within a dream within a dream. And so we begin to fade into the ether along with the characters of the novel. We have, along the way, become one of them and are in the same book, the same dream dreaming.
The other book of his I’ve read that has some of the same skylines as this one is The Road [review on GR].
I’ve since read the first book of this trilogy, All the Pretty Horses, and am reading the second, The Crossing.
October 10, 2018
Really sad to finish this trilogy. It's beautiful through and through.
October 18, 2025
I loved All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing had some of the greatest writing I've ever read, but my expectations of Cities of the Plain were tempered from the warnings people issued to me. They said this is a big departure from the previous two instalments in The Border Trilogy, and that it is a big step down. In large, I agree with that sentiment, but I do not think Cities of the Plain deserves as much hate as it gets.
I loved seeing our central protagonists from the previous two instalments together, and seeing them in work-life. I love seeing characters at the norm, their day-to-day routines and what that reveals about them. It is something neglected in fiction as we are largely thrown into the lives of characters just before a moment that changes their entire world and puts them on a different course.
Whilst I loved Billy and John working together and seeing John's work with horses, the *dramatic* part of the plot for Cities of the Plain felt quite lazy. The romance that acts as a catalyst for catastrophe felt unnatural and really had no momentum, which is a great shame. Whilst it still culminated in a powerful way and had an emotional impact, a large part of my disappointment is how much potential there was in this finale to The Border Trilogy. If executed slightly differently, it could've been a masterpiece. Still, it does not bring down the previous instalments, and it is still a good piece of fiction in my opinion. The lacklustre plot is somewhat forgiven because of McCarthy's knack for characterisation. Especially his central characters, John and Billy.
3.5/5 STARS
I loved seeing our central protagonists from the previous two instalments together, and seeing them in work-life. I love seeing characters at the norm, their day-to-day routines and what that reveals about them. It is something neglected in fiction as we are largely thrown into the lives of characters just before a moment that changes their entire world and puts them on a different course.
Whilst I loved Billy and John working together and seeing John's work with horses, the *dramatic* part of the plot for Cities of the Plain felt quite lazy. The romance that acts as a catalyst for catastrophe felt unnatural and really had no momentum, which is a great shame. Whilst it still culminated in a powerful way and had an emotional impact, a large part of my disappointment is how much potential there was in this finale to The Border Trilogy. If executed slightly differently, it could've been a masterpiece. Still, it does not bring down the previous instalments, and it is still a good piece of fiction in my opinion. The lacklustre plot is somewhat forgiven because of McCarthy's knack for characterisation. Especially his central characters, John and Billy.
3.5/5 STARS
April 21, 2024
The conclusion of the Border Trilogy. An excellent book, although the weight of the story of Billy and John Grady comes from knowing their past story, so I would recommend reading the Trilogy in order to get the full emotion and meaning of this book. Like the previous books, there is just a touch of drag in the story, although this one features less digressions. The continued use of dialogue in Spanish, without any translation, frustrates, especially as there is more reliance on dialogue in this book. Overall though, a powerful, thoughtful, violent read, and a more than satisfying ending that does make you ponder what the point of all of this life is.
October 14, 2015
« La donna gli diede un colpetto su una mano. Era tutta nodi, cicatrici lasciate dalle funi, macchie impresse dal sole e dagli anni. Le vene in rilievo la legavano al cuore. C’era quanto bastava perché gli uomini vi scorgessero una mappa. C’era abbondanza di segni e meraviglie, da farne un paesaggio. Da farne un mondo. »
Sfogliare l’ultima pagina, leggere le ultime righe, chiudere il libro e stringerselo forte forte contro il petto, con la stessa sensazione di quando si guarda rimpicciolire in lontananza l’ultimo vagone di un treno che porta via una persona che ci è cara. Una sensazione di indescrivibile solitudine, di solitudo: il sentimento del deserto e dell’essere disertati da storie, motivi, paesaggi, personaggi che ormai ci sono diventati così cari.
Questo ultimo volume della Trilogia della Frontiera strappa al lettore qualcosa di ineffabile. Qualcosa gli è stato donato e qualcosa gli è stato sottratto durante il percorso. Le mani sono vuote. E dentro resta un dolore senza oggetto, ma fortissimo.
Un grosso privilegio gli è stato concesso: vedere Billy Parnham e John Grady Cole agire e cavalcare sullo stesso sfondo, cacciare cani selvatici, mangiare e scherzare, essere amici. Gli è stato concesso di vedere a confronto due orizzonti mentali distinti che già aveva amato in “Cavalli selvaggi” e “Oltre il confine”. Gli è stato concesso di spiare le falle dell’uno e le falle dell’altro, di valutare i meriti, di criticare le intemperanze. E, infine, gli è stato concesso di assistere allo spettacolo impietoso di una tragedia annunciata, annunciata ai/dai personaggi e già intimamente nota al lettore.
La scrittura di McCarthy si fa portavoce di una ineluttabilità dolorosa e cosmica. L’uomo pensa di avere il controllo del proprio destino, di poter scegliere da sé i propri orizzonti e valori, ma la sua storia è già scritta da quando è scritta la storia del mondo, perché la storia del mondo e degli uomini che lo abitano sono la medesima storia.
Perciò, l’uomo è libero di tracciare la mappa della propria vita…
« Proprio nel mezzo della mia vita, disse, tracciai il cammino della mia vita su una carta geografica e lo studiai a lungo. Cercavo di vedere il disegno che quella linea creava sulla faccia della terra, perché pensavo che se avessi potuto scorgere quel disegno e comprenderne la forma avrei saputo meglio come continuare. Avrei saputo dove indirizzare il mio cammino. Avrei visto nel futuro della mia vita. »
… ma imparerà a vedere che…
« questa tua vita alla quale dai tanta importanza non è opera tua, qualunque sia il nome che decidi di darle. La sua forma è stata imposta al vuoto fin dall’inizio del mondo, e tutto ciò che si può dire di come sarebbero potute andare altrimenti le cose è senza senso, perché non si dà nessun altrimenti. Di cosa potrebbe essere fatto? Dove potrebbe nascondersi? Come potrebbe fare la sua comparsa? La probabilità di ciò che è reale è assoluta. Il fatto che non abbiamo il potere di intuirlo prima che accada non lo rende meno certo e determinato. Il fatto che possiamo immaginare storie alternative non significa nulla. »
Se l’ineluttabilità del destino è uno dei fili conduttori della Trilogia, altrettanta importanza hanno (almeno) due altri motivi: l’avventura/il viaggio e il racconto della propria storia.
Nell’avventura, colorata, arida, fredda, mangereccia, il lettore è precipitato a capofitto in ciascuno dei libri. Lo si fa sedere a cavallo fin da principio e gli si insegnano i rudimenti lungo il percorso. Alla fine, quando lo fanno smontare da cavallo, scoppia a piangere come un bambino che chieda ancora “cinque minuti”.
Il racconto della propria storia, la capacità di tracciare la mappa sono quello che resta alla fine, a Billy come a noi. Non abbiamo il controllo delle nostre scelte, ma possiamo raccontare la storia che ci ha condotto a esse. La nostra storia è tutto ciò che è abbiamo, l’unica merce di scambio con la vita, l’unico punto di connessione tra un essere umano e l’altro. La storia della nostra vita è un frammento della storia del mondo, ma è anche la storia di tutto il nostro mondo, un frammento e un intero, un paradosso inafferrabile. Imparare a raccontare la propria storia è salvarsi dalla dimenticanza, dalla finitudine della morte e guadagnare uno statuto di immortalità.
Cormac McCarthy ha voluto raccontarci queste cose. Lo ha fatto in tre libri intessuti di splendore, tre splendidi libri filosofici, tre splendidi libri di avventura, sintesi difficilissima ma perfetta della vita stessa. Ringraziarlo sembra al lettore poca cosa. Farne tesoro è riduttivo. Solo rimettersi in viaggio, rileggerlo… questa gli sembra l’unica cosa da fare. Che farà.
Sfogliare l’ultima pagina, leggere le ultime righe, chiudere il libro e stringerselo forte forte contro il petto, con la stessa sensazione di quando si guarda rimpicciolire in lontananza l’ultimo vagone di un treno che porta via una persona che ci è cara. Una sensazione di indescrivibile solitudine, di solitudo: il sentimento del deserto e dell’essere disertati da storie, motivi, paesaggi, personaggi che ormai ci sono diventati così cari.
Questo ultimo volume della Trilogia della Frontiera strappa al lettore qualcosa di ineffabile. Qualcosa gli è stato donato e qualcosa gli è stato sottratto durante il percorso. Le mani sono vuote. E dentro resta un dolore senza oggetto, ma fortissimo.
Un grosso privilegio gli è stato concesso: vedere Billy Parnham e John Grady Cole agire e cavalcare sullo stesso sfondo, cacciare cani selvatici, mangiare e scherzare, essere amici. Gli è stato concesso di vedere a confronto due orizzonti mentali distinti che già aveva amato in “Cavalli selvaggi” e “Oltre il confine”. Gli è stato concesso di spiare le falle dell’uno e le falle dell’altro, di valutare i meriti, di criticare le intemperanze. E, infine, gli è stato concesso di assistere allo spettacolo impietoso di una tragedia annunciata, annunciata ai/dai personaggi e già intimamente nota al lettore.
La scrittura di McCarthy si fa portavoce di una ineluttabilità dolorosa e cosmica. L’uomo pensa di avere il controllo del proprio destino, di poter scegliere da sé i propri orizzonti e valori, ma la sua storia è già scritta da quando è scritta la storia del mondo, perché la storia del mondo e degli uomini che lo abitano sono la medesima storia.
Perciò, l’uomo è libero di tracciare la mappa della propria vita…
« Proprio nel mezzo della mia vita, disse, tracciai il cammino della mia vita su una carta geografica e lo studiai a lungo. Cercavo di vedere il disegno che quella linea creava sulla faccia della terra, perché pensavo che se avessi potuto scorgere quel disegno e comprenderne la forma avrei saputo meglio come continuare. Avrei saputo dove indirizzare il mio cammino. Avrei visto nel futuro della mia vita. »
… ma imparerà a vedere che…
« questa tua vita alla quale dai tanta importanza non è opera tua, qualunque sia il nome che decidi di darle. La sua forma è stata imposta al vuoto fin dall’inizio del mondo, e tutto ciò che si può dire di come sarebbero potute andare altrimenti le cose è senza senso, perché non si dà nessun altrimenti. Di cosa potrebbe essere fatto? Dove potrebbe nascondersi? Come potrebbe fare la sua comparsa? La probabilità di ciò che è reale è assoluta. Il fatto che non abbiamo il potere di intuirlo prima che accada non lo rende meno certo e determinato. Il fatto che possiamo immaginare storie alternative non significa nulla. »
Se l’ineluttabilità del destino è uno dei fili conduttori della Trilogia, altrettanta importanza hanno (almeno) due altri motivi: l’avventura/il viaggio e il racconto della propria storia.
Nell’avventura, colorata, arida, fredda, mangereccia, il lettore è precipitato a capofitto in ciascuno dei libri. Lo si fa sedere a cavallo fin da principio e gli si insegnano i rudimenti lungo il percorso. Alla fine, quando lo fanno smontare da cavallo, scoppia a piangere come un bambino che chieda ancora “cinque minuti”.
Il racconto della propria storia, la capacità di tracciare la mappa sono quello che resta alla fine, a Billy come a noi. Non abbiamo il controllo delle nostre scelte, ma possiamo raccontare la storia che ci ha condotto a esse. La nostra storia è tutto ciò che è abbiamo, l’unica merce di scambio con la vita, l’unico punto di connessione tra un essere umano e l’altro. La storia della nostra vita è un frammento della storia del mondo, ma è anche la storia di tutto il nostro mondo, un frammento e un intero, un paradosso inafferrabile. Imparare a raccontare la propria storia è salvarsi dalla dimenticanza, dalla finitudine della morte e guadagnare uno statuto di immortalità.
Cormac McCarthy ha voluto raccontarci queste cose. Lo ha fatto in tre libri intessuti di splendore, tre splendidi libri filosofici, tre splendidi libri di avventura, sintesi difficilissima ma perfetta della vita stessa. Ringraziarlo sembra al lettore poca cosa. Farne tesoro è riduttivo. Solo rimettersi in viaggio, rileggerlo… questa gli sembra l’unica cosa da fare. Che farà.
May 27, 2024
Ecco il romanzo col quale Cormac Mc Carthy va a completare la “Trilogia della Frontiera” dopo “Cavalli Selvaggi” e “Oltre il Confine”: anche qui, come nei precedenti le sconfinate pianure del Texas meridionale percorse in lungo e in largo dalle mandrie di cavalli e mucche fanno da scenario alla vicenda e gli uomini sono giovani cowboys che dopo una giornata sfiancante di lavoro sotto un sole cocente e la polvere sollevata dagli animali, vanno in cerca di un po’ di svago serale nei bordelli del confinante Messico: John Grady, appena più che ragazzo ma domatore e intenditore di cavalli apprezzato e rispettato, si innamora a prima vista di una giovanissima prostituta che vorrebbe portar via e sposare ma deve fare i conti con il magnaccia Eduardo anche lui invaghito della ragazza…romanzo che non permette al Far West immaginario e cinematografico di alterare e modificare la cruda realtà della vita, “Città della Pianura” è un’ opera potente e sincera, cruda e realistica, bella da leggere e da ricordare.
July 3, 2018
This series was pretty hit or miss for me. I loved the first book, All the Pretty Horses, and then somewhat enjoyed book two, The Crossing. Similarly, this one had parts I enjoyed and other parts I found to drag a bit. It didn't have the same emotional depth that I felt the previous books had, but it also had more action and exciting elements than book two. I'd say at least read the first book because it's a great story.
July 21, 2024
Stop reading anything you are reading and pick up a copy of "All the Pretty Horses." That is McCarthy's master work, and it is literature the way literature started. A story that you listen to. Imagine a long, long time ago. Before your time. Before mine. Before the time of machines. Before paper and pen. There was story. The Border Trilogy is poetic story. Like the Iliad and the Odyssey ( fun fact: Homer did not know how to read nor write. His work was spoken poetry and only found paper long, long after he was gone). This book, "Cities of the Plain," is the 3rd part of a great, sad, heartrending, story of epic proportions. The sorrow of love and loss, and the sorrow of youth that has no mentor. The power of friendship. The truth of friendship that outlasts violence and bullets and pain and hunger. As a plus, after reading these three books you will feel, know, understand, and love much more. You will still be alone. But alone with the understanding that we all are, and we all have to cross what we will to get to where we are destined to go. Poetry. Plain perfect Poetry.
February 6, 2021
Video review
The Border Trilogy combines great literary nourishment of the most wholesome kind (interesting characters living extraordinary lives) with lofty reflections and a great sense of awe. With this in mind, Cities - as the book that ties the first two together - is everything we as readers had a right to expect.
The Border Trilogy combines great literary nourishment of the most wholesome kind (interesting characters living extraordinary lives) with lofty reflections and a great sense of awe. With this in mind, Cities - as the book that ties the first two together - is everything we as readers had a right to expect.
November 23, 2017
Solo due o tre cose, perché nulla si può aggiungere ad una tragica poesia… A fine lettura della trilogia, certo non posso dire di non essermi resa conto del continuo ricorrere del tema della ricerca di sé, del proprio posto nel mondo, del cammino, ma ciò che mi ha colpito per la sua “gentilezza” è il tema dell’ospitalità nei confronti del viandante e l’atteggiamento di facile accettazione da parte di quest’ultimo di ciò che gli viene offerto, senza convenevoli. “De todos modos el compartir es la ley del camino, verdad?” (pag. 306). Si prende e si rende, non necessariamente alla stessa persona. E questa è la prima. E poi, non mi resta che constatare che quello di McCarthy è un mondo quasi esclusivamente maschile, le figure femminili emergono dallo sfondo solo per mezzo di brevi accenni anche quando sono il motore della vicenda, in rarissimi casi parlano in prima persona. Non ho ancora maturato una definitiva opinione in merito, penso però che il limitarsi di McCarthy a dar voce solo ad una metà del mondo sia dovuto al fatto che ami parlare solo di ciò che meglio conosce, quasi dovesse considerare troppo impegnativo il raccontare di una materia tanto complessa. E la cosa a cui tanto dà importanza McCarthy, il sopravvivere dell’uomo attraverso la memoria e il racconto e il sogno degli altri, “perché in questo mondo qualunque cosa abbia inizio non ha più fine finché il suo ultimo testimone non scompare” (pag. 237), mi sembra essere affidata a fine racconto proprio ad una donna: “Be’, signor Parham, io so chi siete. E so perché. Adesso dormite. Ci vediamo domattina.” “Si, signora”.
O forse sbaglio…
O forse sbaglio…
February 10, 2019
A definite star rating for this would be 3.5. This is because there are parts of this book I loved and others that I didn't.
This is the story of John Grady and his friend Billy. Two cowboys working in country Texas at the borderarea with Mexico. As the title of this book alludes to the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Juarez, is the Mexican town where American cowboys go for drink and "excitement". It is during one of such trips that John Grady falls in love with a girl human trafficked into sex work and devices a way to rescue her.
A lot of the reviews that were on the front pages and the backcover of this book had the words "brutal", "beauty", "sadness" to describe this work. And it is true all these are found in it. A curious one talked about "masculine romanticism" and I don't quite understand what it means. Perhaps it is because he tells of a love story with cowboys and pimps and violence and death?
What I admired most about this book and the other McCarthy books I've read, is how with such few words he paints very rich and detailed scenes.
This is the story of John Grady and his friend Billy. Two cowboys working in country Texas at the borderarea with Mexico. As the title of this book alludes to the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Juarez, is the Mexican town where American cowboys go for drink and "excitement". It is during one of such trips that John Grady falls in love with a girl human trafficked into sex work and devices a way to rescue her.
A lot of the reviews that were on the front pages and the backcover of this book had the words "brutal", "beauty", "sadness" to describe this work. And it is true all these are found in it. A curious one talked about "masculine romanticism" and I don't quite understand what it means. Perhaps it is because he tells of a love story with cowboys and pimps and violence and death?
What I admired most about this book and the other McCarthy books I've read, is how with such few words he paints very rich and detailed scenes.
August 21, 2023
I wouldn’t call it a western. I’d call it an exquisite novel of questing, romance, honour, tradition, with humour and grit and beauty. Raw living. I’ve found no other writer that does it like Cormac.
“She looked across the old woman’s shoulder into the eyes in the glass as if it were some sister there who weathered stoically this beleaguerment of her hopes.”
“He looked at the horses across the creek where they stood footed to their darkening shapes in the ford with their heads raised looking toward the house and the cottonwoods and the mountains and the red sweep of the evening sky beyond … That’s a pretty picture, ain’t it.”
The above is an allusion to the pretty dream that never comes to pass. The golden life. Like those pretty horses from the first novel, only an image for a painting, a line for a storybook. It all becomes dust. Like Hemingway's last line of The Sun Also Rises: “Isn’t it pretty to think so.”
The world doesn’t heed your wishes and sooner or later it will break your heart.
I study books on writing, King, Saunders, Nabokov, Lamott, Strunk and several others. But nothing teaches me more than slowly reading my favourite novelists. I’ll never run that literary well dry and I’m grateful for that.
“Through the window far to the south he could see the thin white adderstongues of lightning licking silently along the rim of the sky in the darkness over Mexico.” Such imagistic portent.
"When she crossed the Boulevard 16 de Septiembre she kept her arms folded tightly at her bosom and her eyes lowered in the glare of the headlights, crossing half naked in a hooting of carhorns like some tattered phantom routed out of the ordinal dark and hounded briefly through the visible world to vanish again into the history of men’s dreams.” She’s as innocent as the boy from The Road. The suffering of innocents is most heartbreaking. Both books kill me.
CM writes several times of Maria’s arms crossed over her chest. It both highlights her beauty while suggesting the burden such beauty carries in places where the vileness of men is not well restrained. Much of the world.
Eduardo is a great and theatrical villain. The final fight, the approach of death in the child’s playhouse is all theatrical brilliance. I’m not coming up with a better fight→death scene in all the literature I’ve read.
This book has perhaps the best two word ending. You’ll have to read it to know. :) I recommend that.
***
Friends, on the first Tuesday of the month I send out a short newsletter with updates on my novel-in-progress, a glimpse of one writer's life in small-town coastal Tofino, and a link to the month's free eBooks of various authors. It’s my privilege to stay connected to those who appreciate my work. If interested, and to receive a free copy of Immortal North, please sign up here: www.luckydollarmedia.com
“She looked across the old woman’s shoulder into the eyes in the glass as if it were some sister there who weathered stoically this beleaguerment of her hopes.”
“He looked at the horses across the creek where they stood footed to their darkening shapes in the ford with their heads raised looking toward the house and the cottonwoods and the mountains and the red sweep of the evening sky beyond … That’s a pretty picture, ain’t it.”
The above is an allusion to the pretty dream that never comes to pass. The golden life. Like those pretty horses from the first novel, only an image for a painting, a line for a storybook. It all becomes dust. Like Hemingway's last line of The Sun Also Rises: “Isn’t it pretty to think so.”
The world doesn’t heed your wishes and sooner or later it will break your heart.
I study books on writing, King, Saunders, Nabokov, Lamott, Strunk and several others. But nothing teaches me more than slowly reading my favourite novelists. I’ll never run that literary well dry and I’m grateful for that.
“Through the window far to the south he could see the thin white adderstongues of lightning licking silently along the rim of the sky in the darkness over Mexico.” Such imagistic portent.
"When she crossed the Boulevard 16 de Septiembre she kept her arms folded tightly at her bosom and her eyes lowered in the glare of the headlights, crossing half naked in a hooting of carhorns like some tattered phantom routed out of the ordinal dark and hounded briefly through the visible world to vanish again into the history of men’s dreams.” She’s as innocent as the boy from The Road. The suffering of innocents is most heartbreaking. Both books kill me.
CM writes several times of Maria’s arms crossed over her chest. It both highlights her beauty while suggesting the burden such beauty carries in places where the vileness of men is not well restrained. Much of the world.
Eduardo is a great and theatrical villain. The final fight, the approach of death in the child’s playhouse is all theatrical brilliance. I’m not coming up with a better fight→death scene in all the literature I’ve read.
This book has perhaps the best two word ending. You’ll have to read it to know. :) I recommend that.
***
Friends, on the first Tuesday of the month I send out a short newsletter with updates on my novel-in-progress, a glimpse of one writer's life in small-town coastal Tofino, and a link to the month's free eBooks of various authors. It’s my privilege to stay connected to those who appreciate my work. If interested, and to receive a free copy of Immortal North, please sign up here: www.luckydollarmedia.com
February 13, 2011
This has been one hell of a winter of McCarthy for me. Starting in early January I began his award-winning Border Trilogy with much trepidation. Having previously only read his Pulitzer-winning father-son dystopian nightmare, The Road, and found it severely lacking, I was curious to see if McCarthy's previous works were worthy of the acclaim in which they are held. After three weeks of being immersed in one of the most bleak interpretations of humanity and exposure to tragedy that would make even the ancient Greeks wince in sympathy, I can easily attest to McCarthy's merits as a thinker and a writer. That said, while still an eminently enjoyable read that I could not make myself put down (even under direct threat of bodily harm), Cities of the Plain is still the weakest of the Border Trilogy.
On face it sounds like a mishmash designed to cash in on the name value of two of McCarthy's most haunting characters. John Grady Cole, the lovelorn horse whisperer of All The Pretty Horses, and Billy Parham, the haunted wanderer of The Crossing, are working on a ranch in New Mexico in the early days of 1952. Threatened by plummeting profits and the loss of their grazing land through an eminent domain seizure by a Cold War military looking for the most unwanted, hard-scrabble land on which to test their weapons in the first days of the nuclear arms race. Cowboys in an atomic age, the protagonists know their world is ending and deal with it in their tried and tested ways. Grady Cole by throwing himself into a(nother) forbidden romance, this time no estancia owner's daughter but an epileptic prostitute across the border in Juarez, while Billy Parham rides the range from one end to another trying to outrun the ghosts of his past.
I have to admit that for the first two hundred pages I didn't quite understand the point of even including Parham's character as, up to that point, the story focused almost entirely on Grady Cole's fantasy of saving the hooker with the heart of gold. Of course, this being McCarthy, nothing works out as it should and eventually Parham's involvement makes sense as his coterie of shades swells in number and he attempts once more to find justice in Mexico, the country that has peeled away one attachment after another from him.
It is with his involvement that the story redeems itself. The character of Billy Parham stands as one of my all-time favorites. Desirous of new frontiers, haunted by the death of his family, always searching for a new place to call home and forever unable to attain it- he's like the Flying Dutchman on horseback. McCarthy uses him to great effect within these pages, too, as both a vengeful spirit and a barometer for measuring the changing standards of an age as the Southwest moves from the freedom of the open range to the ignorant, militia-enforced, border fence-building, we-don't-hablo-no-espanol standards of today.
On face it sounds like a mishmash designed to cash in on the name value of two of McCarthy's most haunting characters. John Grady Cole, the lovelorn horse whisperer of All The Pretty Horses, and Billy Parham, the haunted wanderer of The Crossing, are working on a ranch in New Mexico in the early days of 1952. Threatened by plummeting profits and the loss of their grazing land through an eminent domain seizure by a Cold War military looking for the most unwanted, hard-scrabble land on which to test their weapons in the first days of the nuclear arms race. Cowboys in an atomic age, the protagonists know their world is ending and deal with it in their tried and tested ways. Grady Cole by throwing himself into a(nother) forbidden romance, this time no estancia owner's daughter but an epileptic prostitute across the border in Juarez, while Billy Parham rides the range from one end to another trying to outrun the ghosts of his past.
I have to admit that for the first two hundred pages I didn't quite understand the point of even including Parham's character as, up to that point, the story focused almost entirely on Grady Cole's fantasy of saving the hooker with the heart of gold. Of course, this being McCarthy, nothing works out as it should and eventually Parham's involvement makes sense as his coterie of shades swells in number and he attempts once more to find justice in Mexico, the country that has peeled away one attachment after another from him.
It is with his involvement that the story redeems itself. The character of Billy Parham stands as one of my all-time favorites. Desirous of new frontiers, haunted by the death of his family, always searching for a new place to call home and forever unable to attain it- he's like the Flying Dutchman on horseback. McCarthy uses him to great effect within these pages, too, as both a vengeful spirit and a barometer for measuring the changing standards of an age as the Southwest moves from the freedom of the open range to the ignorant, militia-enforced, border fence-building, we-don't-hablo-no-espanol standards of today.
January 17, 2020
- A man is always right to pursue the thing he loves.
- No matter even if it kills him?
- I think so. Yes. No matter even that.
The final volume in McCarthy's grand trilogy which brings together John Grady Cole from All the Pretty Horses and Billy Parham from The Crossing, now working together on a ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border which is about to be taken over by the military. And the last dying days of an anachronistic cowboy lifestyle is matched by other endings.
Repetition structures these books as, yet again, the events of Pretty Horses play out in a different key: another doomed love affair sits at its heart, with border crossings and journeys, and another tense fight that recalls the one in the prison. What is different here is the chorus of cowboys against whom Billy and John Grady stand out: there is camaraderie, if only for a limited time, and humour, a fragile sense of possible stability till a visit to a Mexican brothel throws idealistic John Grady back into a ferocious dream.
These books are all about grand romance: women are fatally beautiful yet can never quite be possessed; men are stoical and laconic, their few words belying their depth of feeling; the landscape is raw and magnificent, a monumental backdrop against which the futile and temporary dreams of men play out; and a haunting sense of fatedness and death hovers.
McCarthy's prose is spectacular: stark and beautiful, stripped of apostrophes and speech marks, matching the typography to the elemental rawness of the story. And the violence when it comes is brutal and painful, exploding in tense scenes from which we cannot look away.
As a trilogy I'd say this is somewhat repetitive and it's worth leaving some space between the individual books - but it's unlike anything else I've read: the brooding landscapes of Hardy combined with the blood-sex themes of DH Lawrence, all given a U.S. makeover of cowboy mythology. And stunning, gorgeous writing from McCarthy who is a supreme prose stylist.
- No matter even if it kills him?
- I think so. Yes. No matter even that.
The final volume in McCarthy's grand trilogy which brings together John Grady Cole from All the Pretty Horses and Billy Parham from The Crossing, now working together on a ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border which is about to be taken over by the military. And the last dying days of an anachronistic cowboy lifestyle is matched by other endings.
Repetition structures these books as, yet again, the events of Pretty Horses play out in a different key: another doomed love affair sits at its heart, with border crossings and journeys, and another tense fight that recalls the one in the prison. What is different here is the chorus of cowboys against whom Billy and John Grady stand out: there is camaraderie, if only for a limited time, and humour, a fragile sense of possible stability till a visit to a Mexican brothel throws idealistic John Grady back into a ferocious dream.
These books are all about grand romance: women are fatally beautiful yet can never quite be possessed; men are stoical and laconic, their few words belying their depth of feeling; the landscape is raw and magnificent, a monumental backdrop against which the futile and temporary dreams of men play out; and a haunting sense of fatedness and death hovers.
McCarthy's prose is spectacular: stark and beautiful, stripped of apostrophes and speech marks, matching the typography to the elemental rawness of the story. And the violence when it comes is brutal and painful, exploding in tense scenes from which we cannot look away.
As a trilogy I'd say this is somewhat repetitive and it's worth leaving some space between the individual books - but it's unlike anything else I've read: the brooding landscapes of Hardy combined with the blood-sex themes of DH Lawrence, all given a U.S. makeover of cowboy mythology. And stunning, gorgeous writing from McCarthy who is a supreme prose stylist.
November 17, 2022
My least favourite of the three. This one seems undercooked and, for seemingly the first third, without a storyline at all. It’s good at points - some of the conversations are great - but it just kind of meanders.
Then, when it does finally stumble across its story, it seems recycled from the first book - John Grady Cole falls for a woman, it doesn’t go to plan, etc. While poor Billy Parham doesn’t get a story at all! He basically exists to call John crazy every once in a while, call him a fool.
It also feels like these characters could have been replaced with any others and it wouldn’t have mattered. What happens in the previous books with John and Billy are barely mentioned, and seem to have no bearing on anything at all.
It was at the end of chapter three, however, when for me the air went completely out of the book and it collapsed. After that, all the narrative thrust was gone and the book deflated in on itself.
Disappointing as I loved the previous two books.
Then, when it does finally stumble across its story, it seems recycled from the first book - John Grady Cole falls for a woman, it doesn’t go to plan, etc. While poor Billy Parham doesn’t get a story at all! He basically exists to call John crazy every once in a while, call him a fool.
It also feels like these characters could have been replaced with any others and it wouldn’t have mattered. What happens in the previous books with John and Billy are barely mentioned, and seem to have no bearing on anything at all.
It was at the end of chapter three, however, when for me the air went completely out of the book and it collapsed. After that, all the narrative thrust was gone and the book deflated in on itself.
Disappointing as I loved the previous two books.
May 5, 2015
Já conto quase duas semanas desde que terminei a leitura do último volume da Trilogia da Fronteira. Num primeiro momento fiquei desiludida. Cheguei a pensar que não deveria ter lido este terceiro livro, e assim guardar na memória o Billy e o John eternamente jovens, puros e sonhadores. Mas, como creio em Cormac, duvidei de mim. E reli - quatro vezes - o Epílogo (que me lembra As Ruínas Circulares de Borges) que me ajudou a encontrar um sentido para a Trilogia.
1. Belos Cavalos
John
O Humano. A Paixão. A Realidade.
2. A Travessia
Billy
O Divino. O Amor. O Sonho.
3. Cidades da Planície
John e Billy
A união da Vida com a Morte. O encontro entre o Homem e Deus.
A história do Mundo. Que não é mais do que a história de cada um de nós...que se repetem infinitamente, até um dia chegar o Fim...
1. Belos Cavalos
John
O Humano. A Paixão. A Realidade.
2. A Travessia
Billy
O Divino. O Amor. O Sonho.
3. Cidades da Planície
John e Billy
A união da Vida com a Morte. O encontro entre o Homem e Deus.
A história do Mundo. Que não é mais do que a história de cada um de nós...que se repetem infinitamente, até um dia chegar o Fim...
"Serei teu filho, cuidarás de mim
Sê tu eu mesmo ao chegar meu fim
Gela este mundo ruim
Espuma o gentio brutal
A história acaba assim
Volta a folha, eis o final."
November 3, 2020
This is the third book in McCarthy’s Border Trilogy. While the first two, All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing, can be read in either order, this one should come last. It brings together the protagonists of the first two novels, John Grady Cole and Billy Parham.
It is set in the early 1950’s in the plains around El Paso, Texas and across the border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The plot revolves around John Grady’s romantic interest in Magdalena, a sixteen-year-old Mexican prostitute. Nineteen-year-old John Grady is devoted to Magdalena to the point of obsession. He exhibits a strong-willed personality and the brashness of youth. Billy and ranch owner Mac serve as his mentors.
It is written in McCarthy’s signature style with short, direct dialogue. He realistically portrays the Southwestern desert, and the setting becomes, essentially, another character. I particularly like the indelible connection McCarthy establishes between the land and the people who traverse it. Themes include the inevitability of fate and good vs. evil. I doubt anyone that has read McCarthy would expect anything cheery, and this one is no exception. I am glad I read the trilogy. All three books are solid.
It is set in the early 1950’s in the plains around El Paso, Texas and across the border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The plot revolves around John Grady’s romantic interest in Magdalena, a sixteen-year-old Mexican prostitute. Nineteen-year-old John Grady is devoted to Magdalena to the point of obsession. He exhibits a strong-willed personality and the brashness of youth. Billy and ranch owner Mac serve as his mentors.
It is written in McCarthy’s signature style with short, direct dialogue. He realistically portrays the Southwestern desert, and the setting becomes, essentially, another character. I particularly like the indelible connection McCarthy establishes between the land and the people who traverse it. Themes include the inevitability of fate and good vs. evil. I doubt anyone that has read McCarthy would expect anything cheery, and this one is no exception. I am glad I read the trilogy. All three books are solid.
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