I’ve loved other McCarthy books, but this book lacks a serious narrative question. Instead of wondering what will happen next, I just find myself wondering IF anything will happen next. The book is Beckettian not only in the dry language (which I don’t mind), but in the fact that nothing really happens and the characters just mill about from place to place. But in Beckett’s work, that’s the whole point. Here, it’s earnestly trying to show a lack of interesting plot for the sake of it. I really wanted to finish it today, but when the last quarter of the book began with the protagonist pursuing a fling character that was never developed, I knew this wasn’t ending well for me. I really struggled to find any serious theme that the book grapples with, like other McCarthy books do so well.