Jillian

A fantastic, if brutal book with a great reader

Revisado: 04-08-10

Perhaps I shouldn't be so descriptive in the title of my review because that pretty much sums up what I will say below. Feel free to skip it.
The book itself, like all of McCarthy's work, is stark and brutal, with moments of the most extreme violence puncturing bleak journeys through Texas and northern Mexico. None of it is surprising - events are laid out in the chapter titles - but all of it is painted with such care that the listener can't help but be absorbed by the dread, the darkness and the emptiness that pervades the landscape and the characters. McCarthy is a master of tone and this particular novel a standout among his work.
I do want to say a few words about the narrator as well, because Poe does such a good job contributing to the book and not distracting from it. The roughness of his voice, the evenness of his tone blends in perfectly with the narrative and it was, at times, as if I were reading the book instead of listening to it, and this was my ideal imagined narrator.
In short: I like it.

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Entertaining but with grating reader

Revisado: 04-08-10

During the first few hours of this book, something bothered me. At first I couldn't figure out if it was bad writing or a bad narrator but I eventually concluded that I couldn't take another minute of this guy's voice - its meter, its emphasis, the way that the end of most of his sentences go up, like everything is a question. It was like listening to an Intro to Theater class get through their first monologues. The twentieth or so time the guy said "Breeeeeeethers" my driving partner and I both lunged for the dial and listened to talk radio instead.
Which is sort of a shame, because the story itself was good. Not great - not moving or particularly resonant - but a good driving book: fun and quick. Or, as Kirby Heyborne might say, "Fun and quiiiiick?" Overall it deserved a better narrator, one that better suited the sardonic tone of the narrative itself.
sigh.

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