Customer Reviews

The Cormac McCarthy Value Collection: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain

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Cormac McCarthy is undoubtedly one of the best American writers alive today. This is precisely why I purchased one of his works for my first venture into the "books on tape" world. I feared that hearing his works read to me my a Hollywood actor would diminish its impact, but I am happy to report that Brad Pitt does a good job of keeping the spirit and humor of his writing up to par. There are, however, times when he seems bored with the task as his voice takes on a particularly lullaby-like quality, so be sure to keep a cup of coffee handy if listening while driving!

I have read all of these novels before so I was familiar with the stories. The abridgement did cut out some of my favorite passages (especially in the Crossing) where McCarthy embarks on a style parade worthy of Fitzgerald's or Faulkner's attention.

My wife and I listened to the stories while traveling through the Southwest, and it was a delight to experience the landscape through the eyes of the stories. If you are planning a cross country drive or a long drive through the New Mexico-Arizona-West Texas area, I cannot recommend enough these books on tape as travel companions!

Buy the other, the All The Pretty Horses alone, with reader Muller (sp?) Frank. Brad Pitt does a very poor job, and I was amazed how poor. He hardly seems like a trained actor. He badly mispronounces Spanish (pronounces 'jefe' as 'jeffy')and his reading is like something a grade-school child would produce. He carries the question tone over to the 'he said' in interrogative sentences and does not change voice tone from one speaker to another. He sounds like a slacker who has been forced to read a high-school composition. This guy is an actor?

And the abridgement ruins the stories in all three novels.

Now I have to go back and buy the other because I love ATPH very much and want to hear it read by someone who has had voice training and a good voice.

The abridgment keeps the work from making sense, especially in "The Crossing." Brad Pitt does not even bother to try to shape Spanish phonology, whether the Spanish is meant to be spoken by a North American who probably speaks the language fairly well but not with native phonology, or meant to be spoken by a native speaker.

The North Americans in these books would be speaking from "heard" language--not written language--so they would not say "jay fay" for Spanish "jefe," for example.

Brad Pitt's reading is so abysmal that you may be unable to continue to listen to it, especially if you speak or understand Spanish.

A competent producer would never have let a reader get away with this insulting performance. Insulting to the literature and insulting to the listener.

Pitiful effort by the reader. Pitiful production values. Should be withdrawn and re-recorded unabridged by someone who gives more than a rooty-toot-toot about literature, language, performance, and product on both sides of the glass.

First off why would someone abridge a novel? If you are looking at this collection you obviously already know how great McCarthy is but you may not know how awful Pitt butchers these novels. The main problem for myself isn't so much that his reading voice is mediocre or that his switching between characters is also mediocre - that i expected. His pronunciation of the words in Spanish is beyond poor - this may not seem important but it is for two main reasons. When McCarthy uses the Spanish names of say a mountain range it isn't just a range with a spanish name, but the name itself has an etymology which speaks of its history - each passage helps to shape what kind of country or world the author is creating. The second reason is that words retain a certain kind of meaning when they are in there original form and the remarks exchanged between spanish and english by the characters in the novels carry a differenty psychological weight - very evident in the crossing when the wolf is at the fair.

In short find an unabridged version. I read these novels myself first and got the audiobook version so that i wouldn't have to re-read it or to listen to in a car.

I get Cormac McCarthy and Frank McCourt mixed up, so after trying to read _Angela's Ashes_ by McCourt and absolutely hating it, I wasn't sure if I would like McCarthy's westerns. However, they were recommended to me by a trusted friend so I decided to give 'em a try. I really liked all 3 stories and Brad Pitt did an admirable job of reading them without his usual lisp, but by the end of the 3rd story, I was about ready to go postal if I heard the phrase "sitting his horse" one more time. (That's the author's fault, not the reader's.) Other than that, listening to the language flowing from one image to the next was very relaxing, and I found myself eager to get to the end of each story while at the same time hoping they'd never end.