Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The people who scoff at McCarthy, this book specifically, don't seem to understand his style. It's not that they're wrong to call it "hard to read" and "plotless". And I'm not trying to sound pretentious here. I agree with them semantically. It is not an easy to read piece, a normal article of literature that follows a smooth plot curve with complex, developing characters. It also isn't even cryptic poetry. I honestly think it's simpler than that. In the few interviews, and instances where he has been directly quoted, he explains it -- he's a naturalistic writer. He's simply narrating every second of a life in a real world. No one -- not him, not the characters, not us -- knows the plot. There is no plot in life. And his writing is very straight forward and flowing --"The judge walked." "They crossed the western edge of the playa." He's just taking you on a visual journey. And it's all a terrifyingly vivid journey, as close to reality as you can get. That's the beauty of it. Almost all literature distorts reality in some way for the sake of the "story" and what is supposed to be included in it. But real life is not a piece of literature. McCarthy captures real life. And it doesn't surprise me that he says his best friends are not writers but scientists. He hates writers. His idea of literature is almost that of scientific observation of humanity, and humanity's story is a strange and animalistic one, not some blocky cartoon. I can tell you that I don't like his stuff for the same reasons as anyone else. I'm not going to sit and read it for the same reason I would read a non-fiction narrative or something. Life is short and you can't always devote hours of your time slogging through such a vivid record of one characters life, only to find no meaning at the end. But sometimes I want to, and I have to applaud McCarthy on being one of the only people who can open that door in the world of literature.