Just read my first Cormac McCarthy novel, which won the Pulitzer. My wife picked it up for me at the library because I like post-apocalyptic fiction. Must say, this one's so bleak it makes most of the others seem a bit like adventure novels.

Noticed God stuff here and there. Is that common for this author? Reading a few blurbs for his other books, sounds like the extremely dark and violent element shows up elsewhere.

Thoughts from anybody who's read other McCarthy books? Anybody know anything about the guy?

Link to our existing Cormac McCarthy thread.

Ron, you really should read All the Pretty Horses. It's wonderful. The film version is a train wreck... or, no, better to say it's "scenes from what might have been a great film, if editors hadn't chopped it to pieces."

Link to the thread on the film adaptation.

Just finished this. Really quite a shocking read. It's my first McCarthy novel, and though I'm now very interested in his other works of fiction, I'm definitely going to space them out; I simply need time between such intense moments of darkness in my time spent reading.

However, I wouldn't have traded a bit of the incredible depth of character he gives the relationship between the Man and the Boy. There's such a deep relationship here, I almost feel like I need to re-read the book and pay attention more closely to each conversation and thought trail. I've become so indulgent upon the modern ultra-climax in my reading, that in this book I kept on expecting an incredible plot twist that didn't come, and probably lost some of the depth of the dialogue along the way. The book could have been a personal diary or journal had it not been written predominately in third person. The closest thing to a plot twist was the Man's death, which I'd come to expect almost from the get-go (either the son or the father). Does McCarthy write that way as a rule?

Anyway, great read. I'd love to hear other fans talk more about the book in the context of McCarthy's perspectives, and how this relates to his other works. I'd also love suggestions on where to go with McCarthy from here.

I'm a big fan of All the Pretty Horses. Avoid the movie.

No Country is even more interesting after you've seen the film... and much easier to follow, I find.

Joel C go and get a big bag of beef jerky and this novel , Blood Meridian as soon as possible. now stay hydrated throughout for this novel's reading experience is stunning and carries a 220v wallop much like the Road. The beef jerky is not because u are wisened by ur experience with the Road, nor is it because u are a "method" reader...it's there because u might just forget to eat while reading this book as i had. Do note that while The Road had the heart bond.... this has panorama and great characters to boot...one in particular named the Judge... this text creates a vista that is truly unforgettable.

Just a warning, though: while Blood Meridian may be one of the best novels written over the past 100 years, it's a harrowing, unrelenting and utterly unforgiving book. It's like a trip to the bowels of Hell, complete with emotional scars. I still can't fathom them doing a film adaptation, since — at least what I read on the page — I think this is unfilmable.

I will read anything by McCarthy. The Christian imagery in The Road was an odd surprise. It is a wonderful book.

Blood Meridian is an all-time favorite of mine as well.

I loved The Road.

But it is much different from other McCarthy books. The surprise in that contributed to my affection.

Blood Meridian is a knockout punch.

Just finished this. Very powerful story. The bleakness is absolute.

Really? I remember the ending being somewhat ... optimistic, or hopeful, despite the post-apocalyptic setting. I thought the ending was more upbeat that in NCFOM. Maybe I'm imagining that.

No, I felt the same. But that flickering of light that appears at the end so intense because of the almost oppressive darkness in the book. Some of the images are permanently burnt into my brain, in an unsettling way. (And this is just from the BOOK.)

While the ending can be seen as a spark of hope, it certainly isn't a flare being shot into a starless sky. In fact, I find the ending to be just as ambiguous as the ending of No Country for Old Men. Seeing hope there probably says more about us that anything else.

As someone who has argued for an optimistic reading of the NCFOM ending, I realize I might be predisposed to looking for hope where it's arguably absent. I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy.

I read The Road earlier this year, and one of the things that struck me about the final paragraph was how much it reminded me of the final paragraph of A River Runs Through It. There are some similarities, and I kind of wondered if perhaps Cormac McCarthy was paying homage to Norman Maclean. I was struck by how both stories use the image of a river as a guardian of time, and a secret keeper of history.

The Road -

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins whimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polishished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.


A River Runs Through It -

Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.

Coincidently, both authors had these books published when they were 74.

I just got "The Road" and "Blood Meridian" for my birthday. I started with "Blood Meridian". I'm now having trouble sleeping.

More power to you. I couldn't make it past the first third of that one, the point of which eluded me. Now that I've made it through a couple of other McCarthy books, maybe I should give Blood Meridian another shot.

It does feel a bit like Peckinpah on steriods.