And there went my summer of reading...

Last summer, I really crushed it. Almost solely relying on commute time for my book reading, I read Catch-22, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, The Road, No Country for Old Men, All the Pretty Horses, High Fidelity, How to be Good, and the Good Earth.

So, this summer, I was all revved up to do it again. After months of reading nary a work of fiction (unless you consider the preview editions of Sports Illustrated fiction...see, long article about how the Mariners are the team to beat in the AL West because they've gone beyond Moneyball and are emphasizing defensive statistics), I launched myself back into fiction by...reading more Cormac McCarthy. Cities of the Plains wasn't bad; I preferred the three other McCarthy books that I read last summer. Well, I was incredibly bothered by the plot of Cities of the Plains because isn't falling in love with a 16 year old prostitute with epilepsy just incredibly cliche? That being said, the book is completely redeemed by the absolutely poetic knife fight at the end. But then the 50 page epilogue with Billy and the Traveler on the road just deflated the whole thing. A stumbling ending worthy of War and Peace (still the gold standard in the worst way to end a book). (Seeing how the end of No Country for Old Men was a buzzkill, I'm a little worried that McCarthy is the Jerry Lewis of novels. Brilliant [debatable in the case of Lewis], but just doesn't know how to end it.)

It took me a month and a half to make the Crossing. Just brutal. Maybe it's because I'm on my fifth McCarthy. Maybe it's because there seem to be so many aimless passages. (Billy drifting through Mexico, Billy drifting through the American West. Aaaaaaaaaaaaand repeat.) After slogging through to the end, I thought about swearing off fiction for another nine months. Then I picked up 100 Years of Solitude and was enchanted again.