Desert Solitaire - Edward Abbey

Reflections on life at the edge of the wilderness and making sense of civilization's encroachment.

The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy

Reread, repost: As a person comes of age their own story takes center stage. When we are younger we inhabit the orbit of adults; our parents and elder family members. The world is defined by and in relation to them. As we grow and chart an independent course our actions increasingly become our own. Yet we are never freed entirely from our ties to others. McCarthy's novel is, among many other things, about the tension between ties that bind and independence. Billy Parnham's story becomes about himself, but as time goes by and he remains disconnected, it is increasingly populated by the lives of others. Yet, these are mere episodes. Parnham passes-by and passes-through. Finally, alone on the border plains, Parnham is unable, or unwilling, to let others into his life fully. He seems truly alone.

All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy

Reread, repost: The arid lands along the Texas-Mexico borderlands were, and remain, a vast space of dust, mesquite, and sun. Cormac McCarthy's spare style somewhat mimics the spare landscape. The country, the people, and the relationship between them come alive in prose embodying distance and space. As they traverse the rangelands the lives of John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins take shape. They grow and change in response to a land, the bones of which are laid before us. The country is hard on people.

John Grady Cole starts as a young man, moving gradually toward adulthood. There are no plans to speak of. He takes what is allowed to him, but is not swallowed by circumstance. Both he and Lacey seem content in the knowledge that most things don't have a suitable explanation. There are human powers which move our lives and we can choose how to meet these powers, but most people will have little say in their actions. The world is alternately bright as the open plains and dark as a jail cell. Only at certain, fleeting times is there balance between the two. Nevertheless, life pulses with blood and there is no horizon beyond death.

Cities of the Plain - Cormac McCarthy

Third of the Border Trilogy and the end of the story of John Grady Cole and Billy Parnham.

Worst. President. Ever. - Robert Strauss