masterpiece of the west...

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	• Cities of the Plain Cormac McCarthy Vintage International, 1999 - 292 pages average customer review:based on 103 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Cities of the Plain

Incredible. One of the best novels I have ever had the pleasure to read. McCarthy is a master story teller. I have never read a book by him I did not fall in love with.

Bruce Dodson

masterpiece of the west...

be sure to read ALL THE PRETTY HORSES and THE CROSSING before jumping into the third of this trilogy by Cormac McCarthy..it brings you John Grady Cole from PRETTY HORSES and Billy Parham from THE CROSSING..working as ranch hands in New Mexico..their life consists of trail drives, horse auctions and stories by the campfire...their lives change forever when John falls in love with a Mexican prostitute..Billy agrees to help resuce her and the ensuing events told in the masterful words of Cormac McCarthy make for a classic story that will stay with you for a long time..

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The Measure of a Man

About 20 years ago, I bemoaned the lack of heroes in our society. The "anti-heroes", the good-bad guys had taken over and there were only the ones you love to hate in the spotlight. Cormack McCarthy wrote the first volume of his trilogy around the same time and I found some of the heroes I'd been looking for. McCarthy hasn't created his cowboy heroes, he communicated or maybe "channeled" them. It really seems to me that like some of the ancient storytellers, he serves as a medium for the ancient voices. That is not meant to minimize Mr. McCarthy's talent. No-one has been more successful as he in capturing the language and personalities of real cowboys.
"Cowboy" is more than a little ambiguous in our language. Some use the word to describe those who would take advantage of opportunities to scratch advantage from others without regard to conventional ethics or morality but for me and others, it suggests the rugged individualist who follows his own path, his own code, in the pursuit of his goals.
Maybe there's no place for cowboys in our current society and maybe that's too bad

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A fine book

This novel concludes the Border Trilogy. It follows protagonists from "All the Pretty Horses" and "The Crossings" through a final epoch. John Grady falls in love with an epileptic prostitute in Mexico and the men go down to try to rescue her. Grady intends to marry her.

This was the least interesting of the three books. McCarthy documents the day-to-day life of a ranching culture fast dieing out. Most of the dialogue lacks the brilliance of the previous books. Many of the scenes and much of the dialogue are simple give and take, with little revelation or philosophy. The epilogue is the exception. A brilliant conversation, falling in and out of reality, probing the meaning of death and purpose of life, takes place between an aged Billy Parham and a stranger. This final chapter is classic McCarthy.

Unlike the other books, which can be read on their own, much of the gravity of this book relies on previous books. The book would have little meaning to the reader who did not read the previous works. And this perhaps takes something away from the work itself, though I don't know how one could conclude a trilogy without falling back on the previous works.

But there is something else that the book lacks. It meanders for the first 150 pages, seemingly without purpose. John Grady is in love with a prostitute, the army is buying up ranch land, a way of life is dieing out.... The other books begin with a very clear direction, and though that direction shifts, there is always a strong sense of purpose to the narrative. The characters are driven and their actions and dialogue are inspired. There is tension. "Cities" falls short of that expectation. It is not a bad book, but it is not nearly as good as the others.

So much of the book is written in Spanish. There are entire paragraphs of conversation. McCarthy offer no explanation or restatement. I don't know what it would be like to read the book and not be able to read the conversations. I suspect that it would be annoying. But as a reader who can follow both conversations, the use of the Spanish seems authentic and almost expected.

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Epic out of time

In recent years, a lot of people have noticed that book clubs demand a lot of books. No surprise, but the next conclusion is that the taste of book club audiences influence what gets published. I think this is why we have books like "the Devil wore Prada" that are soon followed by "Prep." This is why people who read "Evensong" soon pick up "Brick Lane" and "The Liars Club." My wife belongs to a book club. They have read all of these books.
If men participated in books clubs to the same extent that women do (and I wish that they did), then Cormac McCarthy novels would spawn their own genre.
Cities of the Plain is not about balancing your career with your relationships. It is not about good shoes or good sex. It is about important things like falling in love with the impossibly wrong girl. It is about vast open spaces that leave room for men to make decisions. (Maybe that is what it takes.) Also, it is about horses and guns and blood and honor.
This is oversimplification. There is a specific plot: John Grady Cole works with his friend Billy Parham on a ranch near the border with Mexico. John Grady falls in love with a prostitute at a brothel on the other side. He wants to marry her. Their union is ill-fated.
John Grady feels that he loves her. To him, his love is worthless if it not worth dying for. That is the question he faces.
I encourage people to read this book. It is the last in a trilogy. It was my favorite of all three.

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