The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, the Crossing, Cities of the Plain (Everyman's Library)

"The task of the narrator is not an easy one . . ." And so I continue to work my way slowly through McCarthy's brilliance. There is no order or plan to my approach: I just take them as they come to me, as the quoted title advises. This is a reader's dream, 1,020 hard-bound pages, with an embroidered gold satin placekeeper. This is a book to keep and treasure, that you will read again, and that you will want to pass on (ideally to a son), maybe adding your own note to the lovely dedication, almost hidden in the back pages. My father, dead three years now, read Louis L'Amour voraciously his entire life. From a teenager to a 75-year-old man, it was the same books, over and over. He never spoke of the west, of cowboys or gunfights or life on the range, but his unending flight there told me. I don't know what drew him, what he was missing in his life as an Army officer or husband or father. Maybe freedom, possibility, or just predictable simplicity. McCarthy's three books in this trilogy belie this assumed simplicity. The characters are simple, unassuming, honest, hard-working people to whom horrible things happen. Simple choices lead to life-altering events, saving and ending it. "He thought about his life and how little of it he could ever have foreseen and he wondered for all his will and all his intent how much of it was his own doing . . ." Synopsis: By page 77 in the first book it's clear: "Somethin bad is goin to happen" [sic] (and we get it again on page 36 of The Crossing). Young John Grady Cole flees to Mexico for work with horses and finds a woman and brutally adult reality in betrayal, pain and death. In the second Billy Parham flees to Mexico and unwittingly saves his own life only to find more cruelty, injustice and death. In the last the now young men find their simple existences just cannot remain so. Through it all is the beautiful, alluring and deadly enigma that is Mexico. I don't really care to read about cowboys or horses. I know there are people who dedicate their lives to them and can work magic with them. Such are John Grady Cole and Billy Parham. All the Pretty Horses is clearly McCarthy's love song to the horse, with the other two novels complementing. If you are a cowboy, these three books are the best thing ever written for and about you. In all of this is the intimidating wonder of McCarthy's magnificent writing, his beautiful, attentive descriptions and perfect depiction of movement and action. I will read anything he writes about. Describing a man's interest in a woman: "The prism-broken light from the chandelier that ran in a river over her naked shoulders . . ." In Blood Meridian I took notice of his description of the night sky, and it came through again and again here, one starry night most certainly not the same as any other, with multitudes of things so subtly different, and therefore McCarthy's devotion to chronicling just that: * Constellations "rising up through the phosphorous dark like a sea-net." * ". . . worlds sprawled in their pale ignitions upon the nameless night . . ." * ". . . the myriad constellations moving upon the blackness subtly as sealife . . ." * ". . . the stars in flood above her . . ." * ". . . the lights of the cities burning on the plain like stars pooled in a lake." * ". . . the stars which wer belled above them against the eternal blackness of the world's nativity." Yes, this collection did make me cry, twice. Both times it came on surprisingly abruptly, despite me knowing what was coming; it just hit me, me in the story and living its depth and presence. Only one book has ever done that before, The Road , and that's the truth. This is profoundly powerful stuff. I'll make my simple complaint again: the Spanish frustrates me intensely. I'm learning it slowly as I read McCarthy's work, but there is so much I know I'm missing in these passages. McCarthy has put a lot of time and attention into his work, and it pains me that I don't have the capacity to access this. Bottom line: ". . . the world was sentient to its core and secret and black beyond men's imagining . . ." This is a masterful collection, a worthy addition to your library of the greatest literature ever written. These are stories of cowboys and horses and adventure in the dusty Southwest but are so much more, magnificent tales of existence and musing on human purpose and destiny.

"The Border Trilogy" is magnificent writing, over 1000 pages of it, whether you are into cowboys and Westerns or not. McCarthy's is a dark, powerful, and tragic vision, one conveyed with epic sweep. Cormac McCarthy grew up outside Knoxville, and his first four novels are set in the Southeast. But few had heard of him until he moved to El Paso in 1976 and began his "Western period." First came "Blood Meridian" (1985), and then his breakthrough to public acclaim with "All the Pretty Horses" (1992), which won the National Book Award and was made into a movie. He followed it with two more similar novels: "The Crossing" (1994) and "Cities of the Plain" (1998). With "The Border Trilogy," set from the late Thirties to 1952, McCarthy moves both forward in time from "Blood Meridian" and to a less mythic and more personal level, with the characters of John Grady Cole and Billy Parham. The action ranges from Texas and New Mexico into Mexico. Be prepared: necesitarás mucha traducción. (You will need much translation.) There are passages in Spanish throughout, so you will need a Spanish-to-English translator. I read "The Crossing" first. I was attracted to the story of a wolf being returned to the mountains of Mexico. I had read "Blood Meridian" and "The Road," and only after being amazed by "The Crossing" did I tackle the rest of the trilogy. I read the first and third books back-to-back in this volume. "All the Pretty Horses" is about John Grady Cole, and is set in 1949. "The Crossing" is about Billy Parham, and is set from the late Thirties through WW2. "Cities of the Plain" brings John Grady and Billy together, though the story centers on John Grady. It is set in 1952. With compelling characters, amazing descriptions of the landscape, laconic and often humorous dialogue, and dark philosophy, the novels of The Border Trilogy are among McCarthy's best, and more accessible than "Blood Meridian," which may be his masterpiece.

Great story and it’s nice to have all 3 books in one book. The book is high quality and the print is still a nice easy size to read. It’s Worth it for sure

There's few books that I could hardly wait to get and this is one. I got the book (hardcover edition) in perfect condition. It's an authentic copy, printed in Germany. I haven't read it but I'm excited to do so as I expect it to be as good as Blood Meridian, if not better.

I received the book in perfect condition and within the time expected. I’m very confident on your sevice.

its pages are falling out

The printing quality is superb.

邦訳もされているし、訳者も信用できるのですが、近づきがたい雰囲気が漂う作者と云う印象があってこれまで避けてきたのですが、思い切って読むことに。「越境」から読もうと始めは考えていたのですが、三部作であることで最初からに。カーボーイや西部劇的設定にアナクロニズムではと一瞬、感じたのですが会話と地の文が混然一体となった文章のスピード感に圧倒され一気に読了。簡単な感想でいえばスペイン語の頻出する会話が効果をあげているのは間違いないし、男性的世界観に充ちているのに嫌な感じがしないのは作品の完成度の高さと作者の潔さか、何か清々しい読後感。本の出来もいいし、ファンなら必携。私は大変満足しました。昨年、作者は長逝されたが、感謝を込めて、ありがとうございました。