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dzuc | 5 months ago

The only book I've ever read in a single sitting.

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groos|5 months ago

After reading the Road, I started on Blood Meridian and could not continue, swearing never to read McCarthy again. The man's soul was just too dark.

username223|5 months ago

If you think "Blood Meridian" is dark, try "Child of God." I'm a huge McCarthy fan, but "Blood Meridian" is tough to appreciate. "The Road," "No Country for Old Men," and "All the Pretty Horses" are his most readable works; try them, then decide how much farther you want to go.

ycombinete|5 months ago

Yes. There’s something cruel there, or perhaps simply resigned, to reflecting the most brutal aspects of humanity in their most casual, logical, and inherent expression ([0] spoiler).

You certainly never shake the feeling that something terrible is going to happen at any moment.

I have read The Road and All the Pretty Horses. I won’t read any of the others. AtPH has less horror than The Road, for what it’s worth. It’s very much a bildungsroman.

If you enjoyed the road and want more like that, but without the horror; I’d say try our Steinbeck if you haven’t. He’s a greater writer, and less cruel.

[0] AtPH spoiler: For example mangling that boy’s feet. It’s not arbitrary, not entirely necessary, but it had a logic to it; and is exactly the type of thing people do to each other.