The Crossing: Border Trilogy (2)

Well what can I say. More brilliant writing by a master AND for the first time I found myself laughing -a lot- while reading a McCarthy book. I know you might not believe me, but truly there are some extremely funny bits in this story. [My husband kept looking at me wondering if perhaps I had slipped the dusk jack for "The Crossing" onto another book. ] And alas, lest you wonder, McCarthy was just leading me on. Up, up he took me. Wonderful story (expected). Humor (okay, not expected). But I was laughing and soaring and I was beginning to wonder if this book might be wildly different from the others. Certainly neither "The Road", nor "Blood Meridian" had me cackling: those were all grim fare. But rest assured. As high as McCarthy took me, that was where he dropped me from. It was a long plummet but finally I was back on familiar territory... heart torn out... feelings wrenched and twisted. Five Stars. "The Crossing" is a McCarthy story that should make you laugh and then cry. Simply a wonderful tale with characters to care about. Exquisite prose.

I found all the reviews missing one essential element in this powerfully moving work. I sat in the chair and wept at the end, even the last paragraphs projecting the fate of the wolf which began Billy's quest. The Wolf, Billy, and the disfunctional dog in the very last page represent eloquently the disappearance from our pre-packaged and sterile society a raw emotion and freedom represented by the disappearance of the wolf from our landscape and the struggles of Billy, his brother, Boyd, and other characters in old Mexico and the Southwest of America to find traction in a society increasingly predictable and unreal. Billy's tragic rejection of the broken dog in the last paragraphs and the morning attempt to find her are wrenching. In this sense, I found Cormac's adventure tale the opposite of An American Tragedy by Dreiser in its reality relative to a way of life that is essential to our American character: devotion to family, independance, persistance, and raw simple frontier intelligence. To anyone who wishes to be challenged by a poetic and emotionally moving tribute to the Southwest contribution to our National character..read this book!

Cormac McCarthy is a national treasure. The Crossing begins with a long section where the protagonist, Billy Parham, is tracking a she-wolf, setting traps which she fails to get caught in, finally catching her, then being unable to kill her. So he sets off to Mexico from his home in NM, planning to return her to the mountains where from which she surely came. Things don't quite work out the way he'd planned. And when he returns home, he finds his world forever changed. He and his brother, Boyd, return to Mexico to try to find his father's stolen horses and the men who stole them. Again, things don't quite work out as planned.Without saying too much that would reveal the plot line, I'll mention that Billy eventually sets out to Mexico a third time on a mission of reclamation and redemption. And yet again, all does not go according to plan.Along the way, there are long stretches of other travelers or characters Billy meets who tell their stories: a priest, a blind man, a gypsy, among others. The overall effect is one of melancholy, and of course, having been written by such a consummate master of the art, the eloquence of the language shines through everywhere. As a side benefit, you'll learn or re-learn quite a bit of Spanish along the way. I began by rewinding the tape and doing word for word translations from my rusty memory. By about tape #6 I became aware that I was understanding the Spanish perfectly, scarcely aware he'd shifted into it. Spectacular book on tape.

It begins as an innocent story of two young brothers, Billy Parham, 16 and Boyd Parham, 14 giving food to an Indian. Billy and Boyd live on a ranch with their parents in New Mexico and are required to help with the work there. One of Billies tasks is to trap a wolf who is attacking and killing their cattle. Billy becomes intrigued by the primitive and wild creature, who seems to intelligently elude capture. He attempts to learn about the wolf by asking an old and learned man about the ways of wolves. As Billy begins to feel a kinship with the wolf he discovers it caught in one of his traps. He realizes that he cannot kill it and impulsively sets out for the Mexican border to return the wolf to where it came from. By crossing the border, Billy adventures into an nether world. It is not simply another country, but another reality.We could easily call The Crossing a coming of age story, an adventure story, a quest or an epic poem, but it is all that and much more. As with any coming of age story, Billy Parham loss of innocence comes with a price of great consequence. Like an adventure story The Crossing is filled with action and unexpected situations. As with tales of quests as the Iliad and Gulliver's Travels we meet strange and interesting creatures along Billy's path. Like an epic poem The Crossing is filled with lyrical prose, both in Spanish and English. Cormac McCarthy is one of the great American authors of the twentieth century and he proves it in once again in the Crossing the second book of his border trilogy. His prose is beautiful to read, with dialogue devoid of quotation marks and contractions missing apostrophes. He shifts from English to Spanish can be challenging to the non-Spanish reader. His scenes rich with descriptors can be stark and ruthless. The reader should be prepared to be shocked and moved. Reading McCarthy comes with a price. After reading one of his books the reader feels changed, drained and at a loss. I, like Billy cannot retrieve my innocence. It disappeared when I went south of the border with him. As the Spanish Gypsy tells him "We think we are the victims of time. In reality, the way of the world isn't fixed anywhere. How could that be possible? We are our own journey. And therefore we are time as well. We are the same. Fugitive. Inscrutable. Ruthless."I cannot helped but be moved by Cormac McCarthy's work and The Crossing was perhaps the favorite, which I have read.