Cormac McCarthy Ranked!
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- Опубліковано 7 чер 2024
- At last, after reading all of Cormac McCarthy's novels, it's time to rank them in ascending order of greatness.
00:00 - Intro
01:06 - Number 12
05:12 - Number 11
07:31 - Number 10
10:06 - Number 9
12:27 - Number 8
14:33 - Number 7
16:07 - Number 6
18:06 - Number 5
19:59 - Number 4
22:16 - Number 3
26:29 - Number 2
29:33 - Number 1
32:43 - Outro
No Country for Old Men is a fantastic novel, so powerful. The film adaptation is brilliant too. Interesting ranking video, thanks.
Thnx for watching! :)
No Country is brutally good. Many folks say the Judge in BM is the most evil character in modern fiction but I found Anton Cigur (sp)in No Country as bad-like an evil tracking droid you couldn’t escape-chills
The Falcon has landed! Making a bold number one pick! My list looks way different, but you have a very well thought out process with your rankings. Keep up the good work!
Thanks so much! :D Yeah, I know this ranking was probably gonna raise some eyebrows, but I did hope to give sufficient reasoning. :)
I am delighted that a fellow Arkansan appreciates Cormac McCarthy so much. I have read a few of his books and have plans to read more. I just discovered your channel and look forward to viewing more of your videos.
Thank you for watching! Yep, showing the world that we Arkansans can in fact read, one video at a time! XD
I’m so glad you ranked the Passenger so high. I had such intense feelings for Bobby and the characters he tried to befriend. The most emotional was in the periods he was totally alone, with the minute free-associating details of nature, tender descriptions of birds-whatever setting he found himself in seemed to continually revive him. I live or lived in several areas described, and it is accurate how many intellectuals and intuitive people find or lose themselves in NOLA and the coastal south. Well done! I’ll be reading your review next!
Thnx for watching! :) I knew The Passenger was gonna be #1 after the homecoming sequence when Bobby goes back to his family's farm. That whole section was some of the most moving writing I've ever encountered. I don't think I've ever read a scene of such utter desolation as when he sits down in the woods and says, "Oh baby, I'm sorry. It's all just darkness." 😭😭😭 Blew all his other books out of the water in terms of emotion.
@@TH3F4LC0Nx Agreed 👍 Starting it again tonight. Just finished BM again-listening to Audiobook narrated by Richard Pie while reading. He gives the Kid a definite Clint Eastwood voice that’s so cool. Have much more respect for the Kid on reread. But the Passenger makes me cry just thinking about Bobby
The Passenger was confusing to me. Who was the missing passenger?
Great video, very helpful!
Thank you! :)
Really enjoyed your take on these masterpieces!! Great job!
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed the vid! 😄
I love your reviews. I can’t believe you don’t have more subscribers! But I’m sure they’ll all come. Keep reviewing - love it.
Thank you! :)
I just love your book reviews. None better.
Thnx so much! Glad you're enjoying the content! :D
This dude is so underrated what an eloquent and thought provoking list, you’ve definitely made me pick up several of his books! As well as earned yourself a new subscriber! Keep up the great work Falcon!
Thanks so much! :D
I've found your channel thanks to mccarthy. Man, it's awesome! Full of thousand clever reviews! Btw my favourite mccarthy's book is suttree, my less favourite the road. But I'm going to reread all of them and everytime I do this, my most favourite book becomes the less favourite one. Thanks!
Glad you're enjoying the content! :)
I'm just now stumbling onto this video and I loved your analysis of the novels. Also, I too live in Arkansas
Thnx for watching! Glad you enjoyed it. One Razorback to another. ;)
Thanks heaps for the video!! Wanting to read more McCarthy, I’ve only read The Road. Since watching Wendigoon’s video on Blood Meridian, my interest has been reignited and I’m so excited to devour some mcarthy books. Nice vid
Have fun! Hope you end up liking his work as much as I did! :)
@@TH3F4LC0Nx Thank you!
Such a terrific video! I'm a new fan to McCarthy. Having read No Country multiple times--and having slogged through the horror of Blood Meridian, and The Road. Terrific writing; an overpowering genius.
Indeed, his was a singular mind. He will be missed. And yeah, No Country for Old Men I've read multiple times myself. Given the times we live in, I find there are certain things in it which resonate quite powerfully with me. If you haven't read The Passenger yet I would highly recommend it. :)
Man. What a fabulous ranking. I started the video preparing to see the passenger in last place and the to rage quit. I think you nailed it. And The Crossing is much stronger than the other two borders, spot on man. Glad to see my tastes preferences transcend my marooned carapace.
Thnx for watching! :)
Thanks for the list. I need to reread the passenger. I think my second reading may have me agree with you.
Very interesting. I've only read three of his novels at this point, but liked them all so far. I knew what your number one would be.
Yeah doing the review of that book right before the ranking sorta blew the surprise. 😂
I haven't read all yet but I completely agree with the way you differentiate between the first place and second.
Unbelievable just how flawless Blood Meridian really is when viewed holistically. There just isn't anything I would change.
There's one place, iirc, when Glanton kills the dogs, they're described as "...dragging themselves along the ground like seals and other things." The "other things" I think is a little silly; like, if you can't think of another thing to liken something to, then you should probably just stop the simile with "seals". 😅 But yeah, whatever quibbles I have with Blood Meridian are just little things like that. It's impeccably plotted, the writing is breathtaking, and I still think about its themes all the time. Definitely his most perfect creation I'd say. 😉
I enjoyed watching this video and hearing your thoughts about these books. I disagree with you pretty much from top to bottom, but it was great listening to you discuss this topic.
Thanks for watching! I knew there would be a lot to disagree with, but I gots to calls it likes I sees it! 😁
I've been thinking about where I want to start with reading McCarthy, so this ranking is really helpful.
Glad you found it helpful! :)
One thing I’d recommend is holding off on Falcons top two books. I agree with him that they are McCarthy’s two crowning achievements But it would make sense to build up to them by reading some of his more accessible books like the road or no country for old men or all the pretty horses so that way you can get a stylistic key for what you were about to encounter with blood Meridian. Also this may be a total strain but I’d highly highly recommend saving the passenger for when you’ve read at least three McCarthys!
@@Joe-ol5bq thanks for the tips! I was debating starting with No Country for Old Men or Blood Meridian since I'm a fan of the extreme and violent themes, so I'll probably begin my descent into McCarthy madness with No Country 🤠
Good video, man!
I should totally get around to Sutree. Listening to why you dislike it so much makes me think I'll love it! Hope all is well, btw.
Thanks! So many people do seem to respond to that book, but I just think they're overlooking some pretty grievous transgressions that it makes against the tenets of good storytelling. But if nothing else the writing is jaw dropping, so there's that. XD
I was about to get so mad at your placement of Suttree until I listened to your explanation, and then it made perfect sense. It's my favorite CM book, but I mainly read CM for the prose rather than the story. Glad you liked The Passenger, I really enjoyed it. It's nice he wrote so many great books for us all to endlessly re-read.
Yeah, I knew I was prolly gonna be poking the bear with my placement of Suttree, but it just fell so short for me. Except the writing, and like I say, it's probably the best thing he ever wrote in that regard. But after reading Blood Meridian and The Crossing and No Country for Old Men, I was expecting some more contemplation and philosophizing, which is a large part of what I love McCarthy for, but there really wasn't any of that in Suttree. But yeah, most of his other books I know I'll always be able to go back and reread. :)
Meh, I’m just mad. Suttree is a thing of sheer beauty, and is a deeply philosophical novel, it just doesn’t make this explicit: it’s a kind of sordid, lyrical paean to stoicism and the savage nobility of poverty. I guess having been a broke and sometimes homeless artist in my twenties it spoke to me. It was my first McCarthy after I read No Country for Old Men because of the movie, and the writing absolutely blew me away. So ranking Suttree last out of his oeuvre is just wrong in my opinion. But hey, opinions are like arseholes, everybody has got one; and I feel sure Cormac would agree.
@@carlkligerman1981 I can see why people like Suttree, but for me it missed pretty much every mark. As for the "savage nobility of poverty", well, not that you can't be noble and impoverished, but I think you would have a hard time arguing that any of the characters in Suttree demonstrate much nobility. And beyond that they're severely underdeveloped. I view Suttree more as a writing exercise than anything else, an excuse for McCarthy to flex his vocabulary and craft pretty sentences, but sentences that I didn't find particularly meaningful. But you're right; just differing opinions. :)
Great video. I have quite a few more McCarthy to read through before I can do my own ranking, but when I do I’ll come back to this video to see how I agree and disagree, as wrong as that might make me. 🤣😉
Ooh, I can't wait to see how you line them up! :D I do hope I'm not the only one out here loving The Passenger this much! XD
Great breakdown. I'm curious if you have read any of Ian Mcewan's novels or what you think of his work?
I have 2 of Ian McEwan's books: Atonement and The Comfort of Strangers. I thought Atonement was a pretty good book, although I didn't quite understand why it's as lauded as it is. The Comfort of Strangers I found intriguing but the characters were so stupid that the tragedy was lessened.
Hell yeah. I love the bold #1 choice. I'm one of those wicked souls who think Suttree is his best, but after that Id go with The Passenger as well. What a brilliant coda to Cormac's career.
Brilliant indeed! 🤓
Oh no, there's seems to be a technical issue with the video... somehow the marvelous Suttree ended up at the bottom. I'd look into that glitch! 😉
I will most certainly look into it! 😂
when i saw that suttree was on last place i felt like sharing your address and urging you to conclude your own existence, but you made good points, I must admit it. Good video.
Err, thnx! XD
This is a tentative list, since I haven't read everything by McCarthy yet and I'll most likely change my list around once I read other books from the old man. It's gonna be tough, since I've not actively disliked any of McCarthy's novels and I think that I've taken away something different from every one of them. But here goes:
1. Blood Meridian
2. The Road
3. The Sunset Limited
4. No Country For Old Men
5. All The Pretty Horses
6. Child of God
I'm reading Suttree at the moment, and I think it might go down as one of my lesser favorites. Indeed, it has a lot of great evocative descriptions and characterizations that McCarthy is renowned for. It's also pretty funny as well. But I don't really feel as strong as I did with some of my favorite McCarthy. I definitely will add on to the list in the future.
I really need to read The Sunset Limited! But I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who didn't jive with Suttree after all! :D
Have you read Outer Dark yet? It took about 100 pages for me to start getting interested but then it just took off, I consider it one of his most underrated works
@@plaguepandemic5651 Not yet, I’m thinking it’ll be my next McCarthy read after I finish The Crossing.
Seeing The Passenger at #1 brings a tear to my eye. What an incredible novel.
Right?! It got slept on so hard, but I really do believe that he went the hardest in The Passenger, even if it occasionally stumbles in its construction. :)
I agree with you so far. I say so far because I still have a few novels to read. I just finished Child of God. Not bad but it's certainly not great. The book seems to be a type of outline that will be fleshed out at a later date. Ballard in particular. He seems to be the outline of a character. What makes him what he is? What drives him, etc. It's basically a series of Ballard's various crimes that goes no where.
Now, mccarthy may be one of my favorite writers just behind Pynchon. One exception being Blood Meredian, which is on a singular level of greatness.
You're exactly right about Child of God. Like, what even was the point of telling that story when you didn't plan on giving any greater insight into the main character than you did? But that's McCarthy's M.O. by and large; only show what the characters do and rarely if ever what they think. That's why I say character was really his weak spot, and also why No Country for Old Men and The Passenger ended up where they did, because those books were the exception to the rule. :)
Kim from Middle of the Book march and I buddy read _Blood Meridian_ and she (with a background in religious studies) said it was dripping with religious discussion.
It really does. Not only is Judge Holden strongly, though subtly, correlated with Satan, (albeit more from Milton than from the Bible), there's also such an interesting passage about God speaking more through silence than sound, and such. Part of the reason why I've read that book so many times. 😁
Stonemason and Sunset Limited are great definitely read them.
I'm itching to read The Sunset Limited! :D
Suttree is my favorite Cormac McCarthy book. It’s pretty amazing to be able to write a book on that is so controversial in its popularity. That being said I understand why people hate it.
I really wanted to like it, but damn it just went over the same ground so many times, and the main character had so little depth. Felt more like a writing exercise to me, but I do understand that it has a certain grimy charm to it that I think a lot of people appreciate. :)
Though I disagree about Child of God, obviously, I love your listing here. Still have a few I need to read though!
Yeah I think you got more out of Child of God than I did. 😅
To me, Child of God was about how being shunned by society and treated like an outcast, paired with loneliness and underdeveloped sexual and emotional maturity, can lead somebody into deeper and deeper depths of depravity. One of the most telling scenes for me was when he found the dead woman in the car and gradually worked himself up to taking her home; it was like he knew his desires were wrong, but having been away from other people for so long, he decided to give in to his lusts rather than supress them. He didn't start off as a murdering necrophiliac predator, but rather we see his transformation into such a monster, and all the steps that led to his final form.
Yeah, I get that that's what the book was going for, but for me it was too thin. The scene you reference where he gradually worked himself up to stealing the woman's corpse was like the one real scene where I felt like I was witnessing something actually insightful. The total lack of any kind of interior look into the character's thoughts made the book just feel to me like a bunch of random crap. Like reading a well written newspaper.
@@TH3F4LC0Nx I can definitely agree with that, it was far from being my favorite McCarthy novel. At times it felt like he was seeing how far he could push it and still be published. I did love certain parts, like when he calls Lester "a child of God, much like yourself perhaps," these parts definitely hinted at a deeper meaning to the story, almost like a commentary on the common understanding of morality. But yeah, compared to his other works, it's absolutely low on the list. Personally I'd put The Orchard Keeper in last place because it felt really jumbled and confusing to me (although I loved the ending), then Suttree, then Child of God.
I understand your assessments, though I cannot see "Stella Maris" as separate from "The Passenger;" "Stella Maris" is the massive object around which "The Passenger" orbits.
I can understand that. 🙂
Why is the title of the book Child of😢 God? Is it a reference to the main character? How so?
The narrator exhorts us at one point to remember that the main character is "a child of God, much like yourself perhaps." The point being that as depraved as he becomes, he's still a human being, and thus not too far removed from anyone else.
Was expecting Blood Meridian to win. Have to read the Passenger now
Most people probably wouldn't put The Passenger at number 1, but for me it just hit right. We're talking about Marianas Trench levels of depth, a bone-deep, aching emotional poignancy, and a clarity of character which is unusual for McCarthy. He threw in *a lot* and it kinda staggers under the weight at times, but still, to me it tops Blood Meridian. :)
@@TH3F4LC0Nx Thanks, sounds like its definitely worth the read
I’ve read all McCarthy’s novels except The Orchard Keeper. It would be hard to rank them fairly as it’s been a long time for some of them. But broad stokes…
Unsatisfactory: No Country for Old Men, The Road
Satisfactory: The Passenger, Stella Maris
Good: Outer Dark, Suttree, The Border Trilogy
Very Good: Child of God
Excellent: Blood Meridian
I don't think you're missing too much with The Orchard Keeper. Although I must admit to not comprehending how Child of God ranks that highly. 😅
@@TH3F4LC0Nx Some people find Child of God fascinating. Now No Country for Old Men I thought was very weak. You mentioned it was originally a screenplay and I guess that shined through creating in me that sense of dissatisfaction.
@@anotherbibliophilereads Writing-wise, yes, I would concur that it's probably his weakest.
Read only two McCarthy. Became instant fan of No Country. Hated The Road. Look forward to Blood Meridian.
Hope you like Blood Meridian! :)
My list would read.
10. The foibles of pippington wood.
9 pip strikes again
8 oh for the love of pip
7 the pip chronicles
6 pip goes to Zanzibar
5 3 pips
4 pip and the lady killer
3 the da Vinci pip
2 catcher in the pip
1 pip pip!
The best one is where Pip says, "It's pippin' time!" and then pips all over the place. XD
@@TH3F4LC0Nx Yes, that’s the last line in No Country for Old Pips.
Interesting ranking! I quite disagree on both Suttree and No Country, and I have a soft spot for Child of God that may rationally be hard to defend.
I can't really rank them in detail. The following is my tier ranking according to some weird mixture of what I consider literary achievement and my personal attachment. ;-)
C-tier) No Country for Old Men, Cities of the Plain
B-Tier) All the Pretty Horses; The Orchard Keeper
A-Tier) The Crossing, Child of God
S-Tier) Suttree, Outer Dark, The Road, Blood Meridian
Unranked: Stella Maris/The Passenger
Nice! Although I do think The Passenger's gotta go in S tier. XD
@@TH3F4LC0Nx I'm looking forward to reading it! I've had it here for more than a year ... but for personal reasons, it's been too painful to get into it at this point, which hasn't been helped by the fact that he died. I'm going to read it, but I need to get there (again)...
Otherwise, I've read pretty much everything, including the dramatic texts as well as Whales and Men. ;-)
@@patternsofdisorder1695 Hope you enjoy it! I really think it's like a capstone for his career. He went out on top, imo.
There are moments in The Crossing that I find to be almost unbearable. Especially the end of the first chapter, when the wolf was killed i literally considered putting the book down and never picking it up again because it was so emotionally devastating. Had a similar reaction when Billys little brother Boyd ran away, then again when Billy is transporting Boyds remains and bandits scatter Boyds bones and take all of Billys belongings.
It really is like a catalogue of failure and heartbreak. Silly me thought it was gonna be some kind of "boy and his wolf" story, and oh how I was wrong. XD When the wolf died was rough, but for me it's the ending that really brought the devastation. :(
IMO Suttree really needed a heavy edit. There felt like there were long stretches that did not need to be in at all. It is so far my least favourite, however I have heard it needs a re-read. Then again, how many are going to re-read something they did not enjoy.
Hard agree. I might have liked Suttree more if it hadn't been so long. And since the story basically just goes over the same ground repeatedly, I'd say it for sure could have and should have been edited down.
@@TH3F4LC0Nx It did seem odd when it arrived in the mail how large it was. My edition clocked it at nearly 600 pages. For such a meandering novel, I do not see how it needed to be nearly double the length of Blood Meridian.
When you ranked Suttree last I put no stock into anything else you had to say. But I kept watching just out of curiosity. So when I realized you were going to rank The Passenger #1, I regretted not clicking off after your Suttree review.
I’ve been a die hard fan of McCarthy’s novels since 1992. I really wanted to love The Passenger. And for a couple of days I walked around in denial that it was a complete disappointment. After a while I had to swallow the sour truth that after sixteen years of waiting, the last novel from one of the best writers in the English speaking world, was a drag. It was terrible.
What I find ironic is that you ranked Suttree last and The Passenger first when they are both in significant ways the same story. Bobby Western is just a smarter version of Cornelius Suttree.
Well, I suppose I can understand that position. And yes, The Passenger and Suttree do resemble each other in certain ways, but I liked The Passenger infinitely more because the story had much more weight to it, both emotionally and intellectually, I thought. I can understand not liking it - a lot of people seemed to not have - but I do think it'll have its time eventually.
Suttree last? So much more interesting than say The Road for example.
I put Suttree at #1- the one I will read many times.
You're not the only one, I'll wager. I wanted to like that book, but damn, it just didn't connect with me at all. But hey, to each their own. :)
While I agreed with most of this analysis, putting The Passenger at #1 smacks of Recency Bias. Many of the same criticisms of Suttree can be leveled against The Passenger. Perhaps this list will be revisited once that Prisoner of the Moment brain has worn off.
I can understand that perspective, but I can assure you I did not place The Passenger where I did because of recency bias. Rather I consider it his best because I think it went the hardest and reached the farthest. It's the most cerebral thing he ever wrote by a pretty good margin, the characters were actually fairly well fleshed out I thought, or at least in comparison to the majority of his previous, and its overall intellectual and emotional impact exceeded that of any of his other books to me. Admittedly it does resemble Suttree in a structural sense, no denying, but the story actually does go somewhere (even if it's not where a lot of readers might have wanted or expected), and the events actually carry real weight. Even though McCarthy is my favorite author, I didn't go into The Passenger with rose tinted glasses. I strove to evaluate it impartially, and it does have flaws, as I believe I mentioned, but I still think what it achieves is beyond any other of his works.
I actually enjoyed Orchard Keeper better than Outer Dark, I guess I am ok with realistic descriptions :)
I'm down with realistic descriptions, although I sort of wish he had spent more time realistically describing the characters than the scenery. XD
Child of god is one of my favorite insanlly dark and scary
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I liked the writing in Child of God, but the story I found rather pointlessly sordid. Its brevity saves it though for me.
Suttree last and Blood Meridian second? Falcon trying to start fights over here.
Yep. I'm a instigator. ;)
If One does not have a basic grasp of Esoteric Christianity and Luranic Kabbalah I'm not sure the point of reading McCarthy other than the pure entertainment of them. OTH, My experience is Peeps do not want to accept the truth of these philosophies anyway. McCarthy himself argues for the reincarnational possibility an individual. Anyway, all shit in the corner, the audiobook production of The Passenger and Stella Maris was monumental.
I love rankings of everything. I make my own all the time and am constantly comparing and constrating every type of media.... But when it comes to ranking Cormac Mcarthy would be to undermine every ideal and philosophy posed not only by Mcarthy's subconscious but the collective human subconscious looking for some sort of validation for the imperfect meaning of existence. That is the true essence of vanity and one day you will have to submit to a higher court.... Sorry bro my inner Judge Holden came out there for a second. 😂 I enjoyed the video but when I think about ranking Cormac Mcarthy books I tend to rank them on how I precieve the subtext and philosophys posed over whatever sort of narrative that's playing second fiddle.
I tried to balance the narrative with the subtextual elements in regards to how I lined his books up in this video. Usually though I find he didn't really sacrifice one for the other.
@TH3F4LC0Nx While I agree you're not wrong about that, it's definitely the way to attempt such an ambitious ranking. The reason I love Mcarthy so much is I want to be challenged, and the style and narratives always raise so many philosophical questions about literally everything that every single story just feels like a starting conduit into my own mind and souls unravelment that overshadows the narratives (though still always engaging)... But this was a well made awesome video bro... and I think It was the only video on UA-cam I could find to even attempt such an ambitious ranking.
@@joshua3367 Thnx! :)
Other Reviewers: The Passenger wasn't very good.
Me (In Anton Chigurh's voice): You can say that The Passenger could have turned out differently. That it could have been some other way. But what does that mean? It is not some other way. It is this way.
Exactly! XD And this way was fine by me! :D
Subtree is #2 IMO
Yeah I knew where I put that one was gonna buck some people. XD
@@TH3F4LC0Nx I think It speaks to the desolate life Suttree lives after leaving his family. Child of God would be too horrifying if we were closer to the mind of the protagonist. Blood Meridian must be #1, without a doubt.
BTW, you did a great job on that video. Very nice!
@@jackwalter5970 Thank you! :)
*said the guy who disliked SUTTREE..
Loud and proud. ;)
I have read Suttree and will not read any more McCormark. It's just gratuitous violence.
Well, I hate that that book put you off his work, but I can definitely understand not liking that book. 😁
If you can’t relate and appreciate Suttree, you haven’t been kicked around by life enough yet.
Lol, maybe not, but if Suttree gets kicked around by life it's only because he chose to. He voluntarily elected to go live in a houseboat and be unemployed and get beaten up in bar fights. Likewise, none of the characters he associates with make any effort to improve their own lot. Sorry, but I found it hard to sympathize with severely underdeveloped characters who in many ways invite their own misfortunes.
Turned video off at last place.
It's not a Western! Most of Blood Meridian takes place in the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua. The Glanton gang members are not American "cowboys" -- they are not even mostly Americans. The era of the American "west" begins after the civil war and takes place in America. Blood Meridian's plot -- cause and effect -- is the crisis of Apache depredations on the Mexican settlers and how the presidents of those Mexican states reacted, then how the Mexican Army reacted to the Glanton's criminality. Calling Blood Meridian a "Western" is calling The Untouchables an "Eastern". You are not the only reviewer to have done so but it drives me nuts.
I'd only quibble with The Crossing. So dull and unengaging I gave up third of way through.
Trust me, the ending is quite powerful.
Don’t say it’s our prerogative to be wrong that’s disrespectful and antagonizing to the viewer. Just say it’s okay to have your own opinion.
Just being facetious.
@@TH3F4LC0Nx ah. Understood.