The first book in the trilogy is the most famous, winner of the National Book Award, frequently on AP Literature exams, etc. There was just SO MUCH to sink my teeth into, and I never enjoyed analyzing literature so much before or since. Personally, I wrote a 30 page paper on the role of myth and legend in the trilogy for a graduate level literature class, and it was my favorite paper that I wrote in college. You can delve deep with McCarthy, folks- as deep as any literary-analysis loving English major/book nerd dares to go. I also love how deeply he draws on numerous archetypes and myths that span almost every era of World Literature. I love almost everything about them, the unique, gorgeous poetry of McCarthy’s syntax and the depth of his philosophy, the complexity of his primary characters, who I love dearly. That said, these three books are the only ones that I truly love.

I have a great deal of respect for Cormac McCarthy’s talent, and have been impressed by everything I have ever read by him. So there is my disclaimer that this will probably be a rambling, besotted jumble of thoughts, more than a true review. I’m not sure why that is- maybe it’s because I feel SO MUCH for the books that are like old, beloved friends, that combing through all my weighty feelings and associations with them to find the right words is almost impossible. And yet strangely, it’s somehow harder to write reviews of the books I love the best.

I have this vague idea of going back and writing reviews of some of my favorite books, read long before I heard of Goodreads. In 2009, Cormac McCarthy won the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, a lifetime achievement award given by the PEN American Center. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner. Literary critic Harold Bloom named him one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and Philip Roth. His earlier Blood Meridian (1985) was among Time Magazine's poll of 100 best English-language books published between 19, and he placed joint runner-up for a similar title in a poll taken in 2006 by The New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, and his 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He has written twelve novels in the Southern Gothic, western, and post-apocalyptic genres and has also written plays and screenplays. Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright.

Pretty horses book