Cities of the Plain
A Texas cowboy falls in love with a Mexican prostitute, only to discover he has a rival, her pimp. The pimp refuses to let her go because he will lose money and the stage is set for a violent confrontation.
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3recommend
7mentions
6people
2018–2026years
57% recommend43% neutral
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What Hacker News says
- > Could be that I liked "All The Pretty Horses" even more than "The Road".
Have you read the others in the Border Trilogy, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain? If you liked Pretty Horses, you'll probably like them, too. Pretty sure I've read all three twice.
- I think Blood Meridian is his best book by far. The first time I read it, when I got to the end, I didn't even get up from my chair, just went right back to the beginning and started reading it again.
I also like the border trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain. Sort of surprisingly, never actually read No Country for Old Men although I've seen the movie three or four times.
I think The Road is overrated.
- Read The Border Trilogy first (a coming-of-age story set on the US-Mexico border):
Then Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men.* All the Pretty Horses * The Crossing * Cities of the Plain - Love Cormac as well he is also one of my favourite authors. That Judge passage is also one of my favourite passages in literature, alongside the ending of The Road which I have framed with a technical drawing of a brook trout:
Just finished Cities of the Plain after reading the rest of the border trilogy and not being that impressed, but this one absolutely floored me and I shed tears at the end. Will need to go back and read all three in quick succession at some point.Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.Still really need to read Child of God.
- I first heard of Cormac McCarthy when Harold Bloom raved about his "Blood Meridian". I am sorry to say this, I was not moved by Cormac McCarthy. I read "All the Pale Horses", and "No Country for Old Men". I started reading "Blood Meridian", but there was a gruesome scene involving infants. I never saw the point of Judge Holden, even though in my mind, I kept visualizing him being played by Daniel Day-Lewis. My plan is to read "Cities of the Plain" and "Outer Dark" - they are poetic titles, but I wonder whether I should spend the time.
- I think you will find those two novels similar to his other work. Also, there is a book in the Border Trilogy between "All the Pretty Horses" and "Cities of the Plain" - "The Crossing".
"Suttree" doesn't come up as often as his other work but is my personal favorite. There are some darker moments but it's a very funny book - a lot of "Charles Portis"-esque conversations and encounters.
