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good to hear about the laws in Canada

Fantastic! Thank you for covering this book. - A fan

It sounds a great read. Minimalist style writing sounds like Hemingway.

Nice review. As a fan of the film, this book has been in my TBR for quite a while, but I'm actually trying to get my hands on a copy of The Searchers. Getting a physical copy of that book has proven difficult.

I just finished COG yesterday and came back to hear your insights. I have to say I disagree with you on this being his worst book (I have yet to read all of his books). I hadn't thought about it before you said it, but I agree with you, that with McCarthy, you get no inner thoughts in an 'epic' style. Obviously I cannot say what McCarthy thinks, but what you get from McCarthy is what you get in real life... the best you can get is what you see and what people tell you. You must interpret, as you do in real life. I am not sure it is intentional on McCarthy's part, but it is effectual. In this sense, McCarthy may have a central theme and whether the reader "gets it" is an exercise left to the reader. Perhaps this is McCarthy's most subtle book in that if you cannot see his "central theme" then he did not write as effectually as he could have made it. What you get out of it, because it is so subtle, probably says more about the reader than it does about McCarthy. It is early McCarthy, and yes, he does grow as an author, but you still get some incredibly evocative prose - <italics> "Wasps pass through the laddered light from the barnslats in a succession of strobic moments, gold and trembling between black and black, like fireflies in the serried upper gloom.” </italics> ... page 4. I love that line! what is the message that McCarthy wishes to convey in the title and this sentence? <italics> "A child of God much like yourself perhaps." </italics> The insight is not into a specific man (no inner thoughts) and not a character study (no inner thoughts) , but about all humanity. I think he tells us what the theme is: it's in the title, and then early on page 4 in that quote above. God, in capital G, so singular in the Abrahamic sense. Given it's Appalachia, Christianity. What's the first thing that happens? An auction. Selling a farm when the owner is still living at the farm. I don't think they say why it is being sold (unpaid taxes, or mortgage?). But what sort of Christian values are there that you take the roof from a person for money? Is not Lester a child of God when you take his home away from him? (I won't go so far as to say this is communism, but Christianity is communistic leaning, if not cultish (give up all your belongings and following Jesus)). I also won't say that Lester follows Jesus's advice to "love thy neighbor" very literally, because he does. (I don't think that is the point either). What does it mean to be a Child of God? Consider this: contrasts the seriousness of a hanging with the irony of holly boughs and Christmas candles... the celebration of the birth of a man who said "love thy neighbor" and yet it not even a week after said event, and the reminder of that garb still haunts village as they collectively take men's life by a very public hanging in a carnival atmosphere where women were selling sandwiches in the street. It speaks to the morbid sense of all the townspeople to enjoy such an event, and even remarks on the greed of people to financially capitalize on the event. The townspeople are (supposedly) children of God, and this is how they act toward of children of God (those hanged). This is America where greed and even morbid entertainment take precedence over religious beliefs. WWJD: What would Jesus do? "You without sin can cast the first stone..." what is the message that McCarthy wishes to convey? Who are the children of God, those hung or those watching, nay celebrating, the event; even profiting by said venture? Or, both? Is it a comment on organized mobs? humanity? Capitalism? penal policies and legal systems contrasting with organized religion? All of the above? And what does it say about 'civilization' when the most depraved person in this novel would rather be imprisoned than meet the fate of the townsfolk? <italics>“You think people was meaner then than they are now? the deputy said. The old man was looking out at the flooded town. No, he said. I don't. I think people are the same from the day God first made one.” </italics> In a way, this is an early peak on McCarthy's view of America - a place with religious freedom - in terms of depravity and greed of the "Children of God" who inhabit America, and perhaps a snub on organized religion itself, or even on God as he created us this way. ... OR perhaps that says more about me as a reader than what McCarthy wanted to convey.

To be honest, I really enjoyed how Hannibal got 'humanised' in the 3rd novel when we saw things through his perspective because every character prior to this novel just used to feed his ego to another level. I think it's funny to see his perspective vs how everyone overestimates and dramatises Hannibal in the novels like (SPOILER AHEAD) the priest guy who tells everyone Hannibal rode away on the carnivorous pigs with Clarice in his arms when really he just walked off normally. I liked the insinuations at the end that Clarice simultaneously became 'more' than him but was pretty much destroyed because of Hannibal and the drama surrounding him. She definitely wasn't herself anymore, the exact opposite one might say, but I felt the point was to illustrate the effect Hannibal Lecter has on other people. It definitely felt like it was supposed to be the last novel. I never saw Hannibal as a good guy whilst reading it, I read it more as a gross guy amongst other gross guys (+ Margot + Clarice). I have never seen any of the movies though.

8 minutes in and the most relevant remark you made was "an old man that shoots stuff, there's an exclamation point and i dont like this genre" ...thats no review at all...this book is beautifully written and reflects life as it is, not all black and white and squared up...there's always Agatha Christie.

Great list. I like that you include the ten worst as well.

Checked this out from the library since I really like Greg Bear's, "Hull Zero Three." But after watching your review, I'm going to pass on the book. Like you, I had a really hard time figuring out what was happened at the end of Neuromancer, so this book is probably not for me. I really enjoyed how you summarized the book. Thanks for sharing.

Fantastic review this was a hidden gem in TH-cam.

I love your review. Glad I just discovered your channel.

I remember reading this late in high school. A couple of friends and I read the book and saw the film at about the same time-- we all immediately tried to memorize and use the Nadsat slang. We felt very edgy. Never got into droog mischief, though. (Really liked the soundtrack to the film)

I haven't read this in a LONG LONG time, but if I recall, the book was divided into 21 chapters with 3 divisions (or segments) of 7 chapters each (boyhood, teen/youth, adult). The last chapter is important, as you note the difference between the American and British version, because the number 21 represents / implies the age of maturity, and that is Alex's redemptive chapter (I chose the word "redemptive," in the Christian sense, as you also allude to). In the American version, AND in the movie, it ends in chapter 20... gotta love the "American freedom" endorsement

Excellent Review! I think you captured all the salient points, and especially the pertinent philosophic questions... which I think most miss if they watch the film (specifically the moral (Christian free will) question of "free evil vs forced good"). From my college days, I found most who loved this (I would say "cult") classic, love it for the violence and anti-societal aspects, rather than any underlying theme.

I read this book in high school and loved it. It took a bit to grasp the slang, but after that, good stuff. The movie is great too.

Step outside at night, view the sky, cast the ladder of your mind across the heaven tree. You know them personally, celestial celebrities, telling you time, giving you directions, plant now, harvest now. You can see more than one thousand of them, hanging with humid nightblue fruit, pulled over Ireland. The perfect regularity of the cycles in the sky, white illustrations, pure carbon, flawless diamonds, bling bling, the only guaranteed aspect of your worthless zirconium life. The Gods and Heroes look down, messages from their comets. Ancient tools and goals, my remarkable wristwatch, built by watching the sky, drinking from the Big Dipper, walking with the Great Bear, he is thousands of years old. Settlers carried that ferocious, furry fella through the dark, cold night 14,000 years ago. Egyptian pyramids, north, south, east, west, Giza, high accuracy and high difficulty, the helping professor in the sky. Starstruck Babylonians, juicy dayglow orange, orbitals of orange orchards garnished with slices of lunar lemon. These ignorant, smelly Neanderthals discovering the area under a curve, the infinite, numerical methods long before Isaac was in his kitchen. Apple pies with a black eye, the accurate calculation, the proof is in the pudding, integral to Thanksgiving, derivatives of fruit. The star of Bethlehem, lunar phases, I am the man on the moon, creamy ricotta, fresh mozzarella, open your eyes, point your telescope. Spinning gears, flywheels flying through time and space to Stonehenge with its astronomical key to midsummer sunrise. Can you taste the summer, that freshly squeezed, grovestand juice? Dripping down your sticky fingers, white as the new moon on Saturday, that lonely satellite.

Youve never seen the movie. Do you have the experience of a five year old?

Wonderful! Subscribed :)

It's a fantastic book! And it's predicting what's soon to come. Disgusting how you people never say anything about books pushing anto-white rhetoric or homosexuality and pornography. They teach that filth in schools but yet you all defend it.

I'd love to hear your reviews of "Ubik" and "Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch".

I've liked a lot of PKD, and I love "Horse-lover Fats" as a pseudonym. But I do agree with you on "VALIS".

Great review

The Monk is an absolute banger. Zofloya I also like quite a lot. Old school gothic novels are a treasure trove.

Oh, rags to riches to rags. Look at Jeffrey Epstein, who ended up, and died, in prison. Look at Diddy, sitting in prison. Look at Donald Trump, who lost the 2020 election, decided to steal as many classified documents as he could as he left the White House, clearly obstructed justice by refusing to return the documents (even Bill Barr agrees that he obstructed justice), and ended up in prison.

boethius and his book feature prominently in a confederacy of dunces, which i'd love to hear you review .......i like to imagine our guy had a sense of humor

This is a brilliant book. I remember that when I was first in grad school, the professor I worked for as a T.A. always assigned it to his Western Civ 101 classes.

A word of warning to those that may be offended. I think some may criticize and rate the book low because of racial and gender issues. One must always consider two ideas before doing so: 1) when was it written? and 2) what time frame does it try to represent? Well, it is Jim Crow south (you will see words that most folks no longer use). And from everything I've read or heard about, this is how people talked, and how people were treated. The book doesn't espouse this as an ideology, but more as a matter-of-fact as to how it was in this time period. You should not fault the author for attempting to document the social norms (however abnormal as judged by the current societal norms) and language of a region in history.

For two examples of the prose / colloquial descriptions that truly capture that Southern flavor: "The ground must have been swampy down there, for the grass and the weeds at the edge of the trees were lush and tropical green. Against the bare ground beyond it looked too green to be natural. I could see a couple of hogs lounging down there on their sides, like big gray blisters popped up out of the ground." “The season was like a fine big-breasted daughter of some poor spavined share-cropper, a girl popping her calico but still having a waist, with pink cheeks and bright eyes and just a little perspiration at the edge of her tow hair (which would be platinum blond in some circles), but you see her and know before long she will be a bag of bone and gristle with a hag face like a rusted brush hook.” Lovely writing throughout, not just the first and last pages ...

Another excellent review Falcon... keep 'em coming. I liked this book as well. I think it is underappreciated. I also think people are turned off because of the word "politics" and they are expecting something akin to Ayn Rand, which this is not. I label this as a historical fiction / drama set in the south, between the world wars, where the main character happens to be a political figure. It is more about the American political machinery that any sort of platform, stances or platitudes. If stances are mentioned, it is not trying to convince the reader they are right or wrong, but merely a cog in the novel's narrative of drama. I liked the statement about Faulkner. The words I would have used would have been "Southern Gothic." While, yes, I think there is a bit of rambling about the book, I took that as intentional, or perhaps a sign of the times, where one tends to think of the stereotype of the slow, long-winded dissertations expounded by educated elite southern men during that era. Faulknerian? Sure, but was it just Faulkner, or a regional way of speaking? (since I didn't live back then, I couldn't say with certainty, but it feels correct). Was Warren influenced by Faulkner? Hard to say, but _The Sound and Fury_ came out in 1929, enough time to influence this book I'd recommend this , too.

Dude, yes. Stephen King is overrated. The definition of an author who's only popular because people like the adaptions. I recently acquired a 35mm rip of "Silence of the Lambs" and forgot how great it is, probably due to my lack of interest in the thriller/true crime genre. Then I watched the sequels, and they're egregious. I've always liked Manhunter and Michael Mann in general so I started looking in to reading the books. The first two look great, and I love William Blake, but I had a feeling about this Hannibal book and you just confirmed my suspicions. I know reading a wikipedia article and watching a few youtube reviews is kind of a lazy excuse not to read a certain book, but hey: my book list is long and my time is limited. Thank you for not being an agreeable wimp like Chris Stuckman. Please continue stating your opinion frankly! It's pretty entertaining and insightful

I couldn’t find your page for the longest time! I hit the bell so that won’t happen again!

That Ol' beer bong zeitgeist. Ya dam. Let's paint! 🎨 That's a whole nother barrel of Monkeys . 🐒

Sounds like a happy ending at least.

It’s just a novel. Get over yourselves.

Agree, people choose to pick up and read a book. It's not being spoken out loud and forcing people to hear it.

It's been months since I've seen a book you review that I have read. I agree that Lovecraft is all about the atmosphere. Especially if you read his entire works (I think Abdul Alhazred and/or Necronomicon appears in 14+ of his stories). As for aliens - I agree - most of the earliest sci-fi writers thought of bi-pedal humanoid aliens (Star Trek-ish). I think Lovecraft is good, but Stanislaw Lem's _Solaris_ as the most alien I've read - even more alien than even Lovecraft. However, Lovecraft is more unsettling and uneasy, trending more to horror than sci-fi. One could easily see Solaris in the Lovecraft universe and it wouldn't take much to twist Solaris into an Old One, and verge into horror. This is one of Lovecraft's longest works, and it seems to drag at times... boredom replaces the dread that was previously built-up. It was written in only 2 months - Feb/Mar 1931... and serialized in 1936, so characterization was probably not a concern. Lovecraft seems to be better in shorter form, but some of the ideas of his universe stand on what comes out of this book. Trivia: Al-Hazrad roughly translates as "The Banned" or "The Ban", although whether this is intentional is up for speculation. Trivia 2: "Abdul Alhazred" was a pseudonym used by Lovecraft from when he was a child. You mention the impacts on culture, how could one forget the Necronomicon, especially the Evil Dead movies. A quick net search shows that Alhazred even appears in the Marvel universe, Tarzan? and South Park (The Mad Arab).

As a film buff who loves Halloween 1978. I love the subtle style of the film in first act. It did not take anything from the movie in my opinion. Personally, I like Rob Zombie Halloween remake but I don't love it at all because I preferred the mystery of Michael Myers, instead of making him a poor, trauma centered kid. I love when the villain have no reason behind what they do they're just simply evil and psychotic. A sad backstory is not always needed. Great analysis though! :) I still prefer the original and always will haha. I really enjoy some of Rob Zombies films! I would really like to hear your take on The Lords of Salem. Which I enjoyed! Also fortunately you're right about Halloween 2018, even though it had some parts I enjoyed. When I first heard they erased everything, I said oh god🤦🏿‍♀️. Also I was confused about why he's still after Laurie! She's not his sister anymore according to the writers so what the hell?!

I have a hard copy and a digital audiobook version. Both are identical, but are 2 different experiences. Love Greg Bears hard science. Each of the characters carry part of a Bable, the seed of all remains knowledge and history. When the parts combine, it becomes the only source of knowledge left in the chaos. It wakes up the sleeping.... uh..yeah, OK. 😅.. okay there were a few loose ends and redundant plots. The witches were confusing, they had no place in the story, other to make snippy comments about ...every other character. Bidewell was linked to Pollibibulus, how? Neither of them actually could have met, considering that they were both at opposite ends of time. Daniel Ironmonk... hoo boy, he is a walking plot hole. He is Sangmer, (excuse my spelling), but supposedly loose his memory every time he jumps. But, his stone stary on the person he jumps to. However, he jumps in to the beggar, then finds 2 stones, identical. ...omg wall of text. Sorry.

New fan with only Blood Meridian and The Road under the bridge. Looking for my next smack to the head. Thanks for the list.

WhT! I swear this was one of my favorites as soon as i read it lol, and the main science fictuon point i believe is its exploring how the death of the universe will happen in the far far future, science today doesnt know how the universe will end when all the stars burn out and the universe has expanded so much that gravity loses it grip and fails to exist, we dont know but we have a couple theories and this book explores them. In the book its using the ripping theory i believe, the universe is always expanding, but if u wonder why then does the earth not get further from the sun? Or why the milky way doesnt grow further from andromeda is because pockets of matter such as galaxies create gravity and that is what stops expansion from just spreadinf everything away constantly. Evenrually when the mass in those pockets (the black holes, stars and planets) start to get smaller and smaller from regular processes, well eventually the mass gets so low that it cant hold its own against rhe force of expansion and at that point the individual bodies will start to drift. Well fast forward from there, whatbhappened when it stretched and expands and theres so much space between one atom of matter and nother, this is the death of the universe. The theories i was talking about comeninto play here, will the entropy be so low that it will freeze itself, will the fabric rip? Will it become a new big bang? This book is using the rip theory and once it rips and

I don't think you mentioned if the quality of writing in this also means the descriptions are detailed...

You could have at least told us about the book

Something tells me that Lucien would be well-advised to avoid attending journaling workshops. 👻

I liked the film-- and I'll admit that I liked the musical numbers.

Since Frankenstein is one of my favourite books ever, I really wanted to read a few more gothic books, so I read both Zofloya and The Monk. I preferred the latter, however, I did find Zofloya entertaining. The writing style is ridiculously bad, but it was a wild ride.

Howdy, Falcon, is there a way to support the channel further??? Donation...membership

Thank you for the review! It’s definitely relatable I truly enjoyed this as well.. I think I have more of an issue with the set and setting than you do. 😂 Why 9/11? It felt to me like the end was really abrupt and cheapened by the random 911 thing. It took me out of the world-building forcibly instead of enhancing the Story that has been babied this whole book. Also, on a personal note there’s no way someone who does that many drugs for a whole ass year doesn’t leave the experience an addict! I’m happy for her, but it’s just not realistic. Then again, maybe she was just crazy and delusional and she thinks that it worked.♥ Anyway, thanks again for the review! I’ve recently stumbled across your channel and really like it.

I think anyone who hasn't been molested calling this book fake is living in a world where they don't WANT to believe it could be real. As a survivor of molestation and SA, most people would be surprised how much a community/family covers up what they don't want to be public knowledge. No one wants to talk about child molestation or incest, so people ignore it at all costs. No one knows how they would react unless you've actually been through it. I would also say it's unfair to call this book child porn. Using flowery metaphors wouldn't change what happened, and I actually describe my SA history in similar terms because there's no sugar-coating it. I also think the result of the 'date rape' confused me slightly because it wasn't a date, as you said. But the reaction of the author in downplaying it and not prosecuting after is very real- most survivors of SA don't get justice.