I finished this book a while ago, but quickly forgot about it. I never really got into it. Maybe because I couldn’t relate to the characters. Maybe because I thought the writing was mediocre. Here is my biggest gripe about the writing. Cormac McCarthy limits his use of character names. He’s constantly using pronouns (i.e., ‘he,’ ‘I’). He’ll do this for pages and pages until you’re scratching your head, wait, who is he talking about?! How hard is it to reference your characters’ names every other paragraph or so. The ambiguity was maddening.
I believe I had read this book before. Starting out, it felt like new material. Towards the middle, I distinctly started recalling passages. At least it was a quick read. Can’t say I recommend it. The movie with Javier Bardem did a great job of capturing the essence of the book. Given I didn’t really like the book, I’d advise sticking with the movie.
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