Welcome to Litsy!

21-4 Jul 24 (audiobook)
I kind of liked this - as in I enjoyed listening to individual sentences and paragraphs and even understood what was happening in whole scenes at times. But as a coherent novel, I really had no idea what was going on. I could not follow the timeline - perhaps an audiobook problem? - and although I liked Bobby I was so frustrated by his drifting and lack of action. McCarthy‘s writing, however, always appeals to me.

#CoverLove Day 1: #Red is this book that I inherited from a good friend and colleague who has left our university to teach at Indiana University this coming fall. We will miss him dearly. I got several boxes of books from him - all awesome! Here‘s my post about the rest of the titles: https://wp.me/pDlzr-qzW

I love McCarthy. I‘m sure this one was really ready for publication with so many unresolved aspects, important ones. (Maybe it‘s all resolved in Stella Maris) But regardless, I enjoyed this. It‘s terrific up front as we wander around New Orleans (~1980). It evolves poorly, becoming less fun as it moves along. It‘s ok for a character to find themselves, but Bobby tries like 3x here. 🙂 Still, I think it‘s mostly an enjoyable read.

Bookclub book for May, selected by my good friend Leigh Coop. Looking forward to beginning today.

“Where he walked the tideline at dusk the last red reaches of the sun flared slowly out along the sky to the west and the tidepools stood like spills of blood. He stopped to look back at his bare footprints. Filling with water one by one. The reefs seemed to move slowly in the last hours and the late colors of the sun drained away and then the sudden darkness fell like a foundry shutting down for the night.”

@Megabooks was right. At about 50% it got compelling. It‘s bookish Stockholm Syndrome. So I am giving it a pick, even though it has no plot, the tangents are indulgent (Kennedy assassination, Vietnam war, math and physics blah blah blah) and Bobby is a Gary Stu paragon of wounded masculinity, ascetically brooding over the lost love of his life, his dead sister. But it was so well written, even though I have no clue what it means. 🤯
#ToB2023

Well, I‘m shocked I was able to make it through this. I wouldn‘t have been interested at all if it wasn‘t for #tob2023. Though I try never to read detailed reviews prior to reading novels, the NYT article on this certainly helped me understand what I was reading and even with that, I am confident I did NOT catch everything McCarthy was doing with these two siblings: Bobby and Alicia. If I had to pick one word: manly. I listened to the audiobook.

#ToB23

I read Stella Maris first, and although I enjoyed it more, this was still an intriguing read. I can completely understand though why others did not enjoy this one because it is a difficult read to connect with.

Both books are dark, depressing character studies that take the reader on meandering paths through each sibling's life as they cope with tragedy.

To be fair, had I not read SM first I might have bailed on this one.

I tried. I really did. I want to be a person who enjoys Cormac McCarthy but, as this was my second attempt at reading him, I think I can safely say he is just not for me. The good news is that I only have one more #tob23 book to go.

Not too hopeful but I am giving it a try… #ToB23

Wow. Thank you @batsy for getting me to give this another try because I loved it. It took 200 pages for it to really click, but I totally would go back and read it again. There is not much coherent plot, and you don‘t get answers to some plot-based questions. But it was a very clever way for the author to grapple philosophically with life, the way your past comes back to haunt you, and what you have to give up to move forward. #tob23 Ice storms!

Saturday night = icing the broken foot, 90 Day Fiancé HEA trash on low (anyone else think Ed and Liz should just break the F up??), and trying again with The Passenger. #tob

My TV tastes may be low brow, but at least I read! ??

Upon finishing The Passenger I had the same two thoughts that I had after finishing Suttree (the only other McCarthy book I‘ve read): ‘Damn, that was exhausting‘ and ‘Damn, that may well be a masterpiece.‘

The novel creeps slowly into your psyche; it‘s meandering, experimental, existential, and I was utterly captivated by it. But truthfully I don‘t understand what McCarthy is doing here. The book is an enigma and I‘m not sure how to decipher it.

I tried. There are moments of grandeur and interesting characters, but the parts I‘m most interested in are dropped for a long stretch of the novel. Repetitive plot events that don‘t move the story along at the speed I wanted. It had a Lincoln in the Bardo flair, but less interesting to me.

I gotta admit, I am really struggling with this one. I seem to be missing the Cormac McCarthy appreciation gene. I've never really warmed up to anything he's written.

Oh McCarthy always makes his reader work, and that's something I love about his writing. It's pitch perfect on a word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence level. It's big ideas, confronting truths, impossible equations and the gritty reality of living imperfectly: lives and a world we can't completely understand.

Off to get Stella Maris ASAP and I expect I might find that extra star once I've had the full reading experience.

I felt like bailing for the first 20%, but I stuck with it and am glad I did. The style is challenging and there‘s an uncomfortable theme here that I wish hadn‘t been the focal point. But it‘s also highly captivating; the side characters provide colorful tangents and I really enjoyed Bobby‘s solitary sections. #tob23

I struggled with this book in the beginning - it‘s challenging in multiple ways. But it‘s worth it for paragraphs like this that take my breath away. #tob23

This completely absorbed me in the past few days. It‘s quintessential McCarthy, from plot to style, and that‘s why I loved it. Though marketed as a mystery, it‘s really a story about loss and grief. I‘m excited for Stella Maris – and for a return to some of McCarthy‘s classics because I remember so little of them. I‘ve also yet to read Suttree for the first time. Maybe a project for next year?

🛩️🐈‍⬛

Having said yesterday that I ‘wasn‘t hating‘ this one (damning with faint praise!), today I‘ve had a bit of a change of heart and decided to bail.

I was trying to understand a bit more of what was going on, so read some GR reviews. People either love it or hate it, but the one thing that stood out for me that made me bail was…. In spoilers below just in case! 😁

I‘m beginning to think I might just read books that *didn‘t*make the shortlist!

The general consensus is that if you're new to Cormac McCarthy, you should ease into his works & The Passenger is not the place to start. But I started here, & I'm entranced. It's a love letter to mathematics that's an interrogation about God, theology, spirituality, & the essence of being. I found it odd & bewildering, & also very welcoming, like I belonged in its pages despite not having my bearings most of the time. #ToB #ToB2023

This is a deeply weird book. The main storyline is riveting in places, but will then spin off somewhere else and never quite pick up the thread again. Some of the side characters are just awesome, but you kinda wonder what they‘re doing there at all. By the end, it was a serious slog and I just wanted it to be over. #toblonglist #whatweretheythinking

I love McCarthy‘s prose and I wanted to love this book, but it‘s nearly impossible to follow the dialogue. Switching to audio helped that, but then it was harder to follow the plot. As expected, it is bleak and heavy, but I‘m hard-pressed to give a summary let alone a review. I‘ll adjust my expectations for Stella Maris. Also, there‘s a secret hinted at which I hope is not explored further. I‘m uncomfortable with the implication.

I really wanted to like this one but the first seven pages is just beyond confusing and then none of the dialogue is quoted so trying to keep track of who was speaking was impossible. Sad really as this had the potential of being really good.

I tried with this one, but I just couldn‘t connect with the dialogue or either MC. Even Julia Whelan, whose narration I‘m finally enjoying more, and Macleod Andrews, whom I adore, couldn‘t get me into this. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I think I‘m just going to have to skip if this or its sequel makes it to the ToB shortlist.

It‘s a good day for reading on the deck. 😎

One of the dangers of preordering books when they are announced is that you forget about them. The Perfect Crime anthology was supposed to publish in September, I ordered it in January, and my local indie just got it in. The other danger is that when you walk into the store to pick up said “surprise” preorder, you walk out with more books. Hello, Mr. McCarthy. I‘ve been waiting for you. 💖