Created at: 2026-08-08
We’re beachcombers, he said. What is that? It’s people who walk along the beach looking for things of value that might have washed up. What kind of things? Any kind of things. Anything that you might be able to use. Do you think we’ll find anything? I dont know. We’ll take a look. Take a look, the boy said.
I picked this book up because it feature in the Pulitzer Prize list, in which it won the competition in 2007 (fiction). I had already come across the name Cormac McCarthy before on a thread of book recommendations in Hacker News, and I had tried to start reading Blood Meridian before, but couldn't get into it.
This book was a little bit more approachable, I think it is because the story of a man and his son trying to survive a post-apocalyptic world was very compelling.
I liked the book and I appreciate the "washed off" written style used here. Even though it does not have many linguistic subterfuges (like the use of comas and chapters), I found that it does not use this elements because the book is so well written that it does not have to.
That said, I wouldn't say this is one of my favourite books of all time. It didn't hit me the way other people say that it did to them. Perhaps it is because I have no kids, even though I can relate to a lot of the scenes and emotions in the book. The relationship of struggle and love between the father and son is actually very beautifully encapsulated in this work, and that is the highlight of this book.