Sounds like an interesting read. I’ll trade you. I found a copy of “Guns of the south” by Harry Turtledove. I’ve been meaning to send it to you.

- C

The story is kept simple even down to the prose used to tell the story is all an intentional choice. I think it’s wrong to interpret that as a ‘mistake’ on the part of the author.

There are only two main charactrs (father and son) – McCarthy wanted to focus on them exclusively, and that forces a simplicity upon the plot. You couldn’t introduce many other plot threads without introducing a much larger cast of characters.

And the simplicity of the prose reflects the simplicity of the story itself, and the decline of reading & writing in the society.

I see all of it as intentional. You don’t have to like McCarthy’s choice to do that, but I think it would be a mistake to assume he did all that accidentally or out of laziness.

I think it requires a fair amount of discipline to keep things that simple. The natural urge for a writer or creative person is to evolve everything to be complex.

That’s just my take on the simplicity thing…