The Crossing (McCarthy novel)

Last updated
The Crossing
Crossing mccarthy cover.JPG
First edition
Author Cormac McCarthy
LanguageEnglish
SeriesBorder Trilogy
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date
June 1994
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages432 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN 0-394-57475-3
OCLC 29844718
813/.54 20
LC Class PS3563.C337 C7 1994
Preceded by All the Pretty Horses  
Followed by Cities of the Plain  

The Crossing is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy, published in 1994 by Alfred A. Knopf. The book is the second installment of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy," following the award-winning All the Pretty Horses (1992), and preceding Cities of the Plain, where the protagonists of both novels work together on a ranch in southern New Mexico. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Plot introduction

The book begins focusing on the life of the protagonist, Billy Parham, and his brother Boyd, with their family living in southern New Mexico in the early 20th Century. The Crossing is a coming-of-age novel, and throughout the book, physical, cultural, and social boundaries play a large role in the telling of the story. The story tells of three journeys taken from New Mexico to Mexico, and throughout the story and Billy's crossings, the writing contributes to the idea that crossing borders is a catalyst for bad tidings. [4] It is noted for being more melancholic than the first book of the trilogy, without returning to the hellish bleakness of McCarthy's early novels. [2]

Although the novel is not overtly satirical or humorous, it has many of the qualities of a picaresque: a realistic portrayal of a destitute hero embarking on a series of loosely connected, arguably doomed quests.

Plot summary

The first sojourn details a series of hunting expeditions conducted by Billy, his father, and to a lesser extent, his brother Boyd. They are attempting to locate and trap a pregnant female wolf which has been preying on cattle near the family's homestead. McCarthy explores themes throughout the action such as the mystical passage describing his father setting a trap:

Crouched in the broken shadow with the sun at his back and holding the trap at eyelevel against the morning sky he looked to be truing some older, some subtler instrument. Astrolabe or sextant. Like a man bent at fixing himself someway in the world. Bent on trying by arc or chord the space between his being and the world that was. If there be such space. If it be knowable.

When Billy finally catches the animal, he harnesses her and, instead of killing her, determines to return her to the mountains of Mexico where he believes her original home is located. He develops a deep affection for and bond with the wolf, risking his life to save her on more than one occasion.

Along the way, Billy encounters many other travelers and inhabitants of the land who relate in a sophisticated dialogue their deepest philosophies. Take, for example, a Mormon who converts to Catholicism and describes his vision of reality in this way:

Things separate from their stories have no meaning. They are only shapes. Of a certain size and color. A certain weight. When their meaning has become lost to us they no longer have even a name. The story on the other hand can never be lost from its place in the world for it is that place. And that is what was to be found here. The corrido. The tale. And like all corridos it ultimately told one story only, for there is only one to tell.

In the second border crossing, Billy and Boyd have set out to recover horses stolen from their family's spread. Their relationship is a strained one, with Boyd displaying a more stubborn nature than that of his brother, a characteristic that hinders Billy's attempts to protect him. Boyd is eventually shot through the chest in a squabble. After he is nursed back to health, he disappears with a young girl.

The third crossing features Billy alone attempting to discover his brother's whereabouts. He learns Boyd has been killed in a gunfight and sets out to find his dead brother's remains and return them to New Mexico. After finding Boyd's grave and exhuming the body, Billy is ambushed by a band of men who desecrate Boyd's remains and stab Billy's horse through the chest. Billy, with the help of a gypsy, nurses the horse back to riding condition.

The last scene shows Billy alone and desolate, coming across a terribly beat up dog that approaches him for help. In marked contrast to his youthful bond with the wolf, he shoos the dog away angrily, meanly. Later, he feels a flood of remorse: he goes after the dog, calling for it to come back—but it has gone. He breaks down in tears.

Reception

Critics disagree about the greater significance of Billy's encounters with the wolf. Wallis Sanborn argues that “[a]lthough noble, Parham’s mission to return the captured she-wolf to Mexico is abjectly flawed . . . [it is] nothing more than a man violently controlling a wild animal through the guise of pseudo-nobility” (143). [5] Raymond Malewitz argues that the wolf's "literary agency" becomes visible when Billy's way of thinking about the wolf conflicts with the way the narrator describes the creature. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cormac McCarthy</span> American writer (1933–2023)

Cormac McCarthy was an American author who wrote twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories, spanning the Western, postapocalyptic, and Southern Gothic genres. His works often include graphic depictions of violence, and his writing style is characterised by a sparse use of punctuation and attribution. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists.

<i>White Fang</i> 1906 novel by Jack London

White Fang is a novel by American author Jack London (1876–1916) about a wild wolfdog's journey to domestication in Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush. First serialized in Outing magazine between May and October 1906, it was published in book form in October 1906. It is a companion novel to London's best-known work, The Call of the Wild (1903), which is about a kidnapped, domesticated dog embracing his wild ancestry to survive and thrive in the wild.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corrido</span> Mexican narrative musical tradition

The corrido is a famous narrative metrical tale and poetry that forms a ballad. The songs are often oppression, history, daily life for criminals, the vaquero lifestyle, and other socially relevant topics. Corridos were widely popular during the Mexican Revolution and in the Southwestern American frontier as it was also a part of the development of Tejano and New Mexico music, which later influenced Western music.

<i>Blood Meridian</i> 1985 epic historical novel by Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian; or, The Evening Redness in the West is a 1985 anti-Western epic historical novel by American author Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy's fifth book, it was published by Random House.

<i>All the Pretty Horses</i> (novel) 1992 novel by Cormac McCarthy

All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. It was a bestseller, winning both the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It is the first of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy".

<i>Outer Dark</i> Novel by Cormac McCarthy

Outer Dark is the second novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy, published in 1968. The time and setting are nebulous, but can be assumed to be somewhere in Appalachia, sometime around the turn of the twentieth century. The novel tells of a woman named Rinthy who bears her brother's baby. The brother, Culla, leaves the nameless infant in the woods to die, but tells his sister that the newborn died of natural causes and had to be buried. Rinthy discovers this lie and sets out to find the baby for herself.

<i>Cities of the Plain</i> (novel) 1998 novel by Cormac McCarthy

Cities of the Plain is the final volume of American novelist Cormac McCarthy's "Border Trilogy", published in 1998. The title is a reference to Sodom and Gomorrah.

<i>No Country for Old Men</i> (novel) 2005 novel by Cormac McCarthy

No Country for Old Men is a 2005 novel by American author Cormac McCarthy, who had originally written the story as a screenplay. The story occurs in the vicinity of the Mexico–United States border in 1980 and concerns an illegal drug deal gone awry in the Texas desert back country. Owing to its origins as a screenplay, the novel has a simple writing style that differs from McCarthy's earlier novels. The book was adapted into a 2007 Coen brothers film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

<i>No Country for Old Men</i> 2007 film by Ethan and Joel Coen

No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American neo-Western crime thriller film written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin, the film is set in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas. The film revisits the themes of fate, conscience, and circumstance that the Coen brothers had explored in the films Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), and Fargo (1996). The film follows three main characters: Llewelyn Moss (Brolin), a Vietnam War veteran and welder who stumbles upon a large sum of money in the desert; Anton Chigurh (Bardem), a hitman who is sent to recover the money; and Ed Tom Bell (Jones), a sheriff investigating the crime. The film also stars Kelly Macdonald as Moss's wife, Carla Jean, and Woody Harrelson as Carson Wells, a bounty hunter seeking Moss and the return of the money, $2 million.

<i>All the Pretty Horses</i> (film) 2000 Western film

All the Pretty Horses is a 2000 American Western film produced and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name, and starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz. It premiered on December 25, 2000 to mostly negative reviews. It grossed $18 million worldwide on a $57 million budget.

<i>Arriero</i> Person in Spain and South America that leads mule trains

An arriero, muleteer, or more informally a muleskinner is a person who transports goods using pack animals, especially mules.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anton Chigurh</span> Fictional hitman

Anton Chigurh is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel No Country for Old Men. In the 2007 film adaptation of the same name, he is portrayed by Javier Bardem.

The Border Trilogy is a series of novels by the American author Cormac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing (1994), and Cities of the Plain (1998).

Roger Andrew Caras was an American naturalist, animal welfare activist, wildlife photographer and writer.

James Carlos Blake is an American writer of novels, novellas, short stories, and essays. His work has received extensive critical favor and several notable awards. He has been called “one of the greatest chroniclers of the mythical American outlaw life” as well as “one of the most original writers in America today and … certainly one of the bravest.” He is a recipient of the University of South Florida's Distinguished Humanities Alumnus Award and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Josyph</span> American artist, author, filmmaker

Peter Josyph is a New York artist who works concurrently as an author, a painter, an actor-director, a filmmaker, and a photographer.

<i>The Hell Bent Kid</i> 1957 American Western novel

The Hell Bent Kid is a 1957 American Western novel by Charles O. Locke.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cormac McCarthy bibliography</span>

A list of works by or about Cormac McCarthy, the American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. McCarthy published twelve novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and post-apocalyptic genres, as well as multiple short-stories, screenplays, plays, and an essay.

<i>The Passenger</i> (McCarthy novel) 2022 novel by Cormac McCarthy

The Passenger is a 2022 novel by the American writer Cormac McCarthy. It was released six weeks before its companion novel Stella Maris. The plot of both The Passenger and Stella Maris follows Bobby and Alicia Western, two siblings whose father helped develop the atomic bomb.

Cloverdale, New Mexico is a ghost town in the Animas Valley of Hidalgo County.

References

  1. Wood, Michael (6 October 1994). "Where the hell? The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy (Book Review)". London Review of Books. 16 (19). Retrieved 4 April 2023.
  2. 1 2 Quinn, Anthony (26 August 1994). "BOOK REVIEW - Long shadows passing: 'The Crossing' - Cormac McCarthy". independent.co.uk. Retrieved 4 April 2023.
  3. Hass, Robert (12 June 1994). "Travels With A She-Wolf: The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy (Book Review)". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved 4 April 2023.
  4. "Western Myths in All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing", Cormac McCarthy's Western Novels, University of Arizona Press, pp. 63–96, 2000-07-01, doi:10.2307/j.ctv1mgmcc8.7 , retrieved 2024-12-09
  5. Sanborn, W. (2006). Animals in the Fiction of Cormac McCarthy. McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. ISBN   9780786423804.
  6. Malewitz, R. (Fall 2014). Narrative Disruption as Animal Agency in Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing.