--- product_id: 11829025 title: "Outer Dark (Vintage International)" price: "314 kr" currency: NOK in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.no/products/11829025-outer-dark-vintage-international store_origin: NO region: Norway --- # Outer Dark (Vintage International) **Price:** 314 kr **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Outer Dark (Vintage International) - **How much does it cost?** 314 kr with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.no](https://www.desertcart.no/products/11829025-outer-dark-vintage-international) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road • A novel at once fabular and starkly evocative, set is an unspecified place in Appalachia, sometime around the turn of the century. A woman bears her brother's child, a boy; he leaves the baby in the woods and tells her he died of natural causes. Discovering her brother's lie, she sets forth alone to find her son. Both brother and sister wander separately through a countryside being scourged by three terrifying and elusive strangers, headlong toward an eerie, apocalyptic resolution. Review: This 1968 novel written by Cormac McCarthy is brilliant... - This 1968 novel written by Cormac McCarthy is brilliant, but also one of the most disheartening stories that I've ever read. Warning: If you are suffering from depression, don't even think about reading this somber book. Cormac is truly the gloom and doom master. A quote from 'All the Pretty Horses' sums up Mr. McCarthy's thoughts on life:" It was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all." One of Cormac's Outer Dark quotes is:"Ive seen the meanness of humans till I dont know why God aint put out the sun and gone away." One of the two main characters, Culla states bleakness best when talking to the mysterious bearded man and says:" I never give nobody nothin, I never had nothin. Never figured nothin, never had nothin, never was nothin, the man said. He was looking at nothin at all." I added the quote marks, but Cormac doesn't use them, or any other basic elements of prose in his novels. If you have read any of my reviews, you know that I'm not a fan of his famous novel 'The Road', however I am an admirer of this novel. He has stated in the past that if the story is good enough, the author doesn't have to be grammatically correct. I hear you loud and clear! This story will stay with me for awhile. Even though Cormac doesn't mention a time, or place, I did some basic research and it seems that this story takes place in the Appalachia mountains of east Tennessee. I can't find a time period, but it felt like I was reading a novel set in the early 1900s. It's the story of a brother and sister, Culla and Rinthy, who have an incestious relationship resulting in a baby. Both of these people are destitute mountain people of low education living in a rural cabin. As Rinthy recovers from the birth, she hears a tinker ( a travelling seller of pots and pans ) outside talking to her brother. The tinker leaves, and while Rinthy sleeps, Culla goes in the woods and leaves the baby in the glade to die. When Culla goes home, he chops a fake grave with his axe. The tinker, in his travels, finds the baby. When Rinthy wakes, Culla says the baby died. She discovers that the grave is fake and thinking that her brother sold her baby to the tinker, she leaves on foot pursuing the tinker. Culla also leaves on foot seemingly looking for his sister, but more likely because he is fleeing from his sins and just wants to get away. To complicate matters for Culla, three mysterious men apparently follow Culla causing death and mayhem in his wake. Rinthy, in her travels, finds people mostly accommodating to her plight. Culla, Rinthy, the baby, the tinker, and the three mysterious men are heading for a collision of monumental and unguessable fruition. You must read this precocious second novel by Cormac McCarthy, it is stunning. I find this story full of symbolism and metaphors. For instance, Culla and the three mysterious men seem to have nothing in common. But why do the three men appear to follow Culla from town to town, causing Culla many troubles. The leader of the men wears black, which is a symbol of evil and death. Culla seems to be running from his sins and the three men are in pursuit to mete out punishment. Evil looms all around Culla. Are the three men emissaries of the devil? Rinthy, on the other hand, receives food and shelter from most of the people she meets on her quest to find her baby. Are these people representing the Archangels of God? I don't know, but I do know when I'm reading a book full of symbolism. And what about the mean tinker? Who does he portray? And finally, who is the blind man Culla meets at the end of the novel who says:"But I knowed I'd seen ye afore." Culla wants to know if the blind man is a preacher, and the blind man says:"No. No preacher. What is they to preach? It's all plain enough. Word and flesh. I don't hold much with preachin."Is this the Grim Reaper, now hot on Culla's trail? I don't know, but it's fun conjecturing on a Cormac McCarthy novel. Review: Sparse, brutal, strangely incomplete - Cormac likes his gothic blood-letting. This book is no exception. An earlier work, it has little of the grandiosity of Blood Meridian (though there are some incredibly lyrical passages IE similes comparing the characters to a cast of alien vaudevillians pirouetting through a menacing landscape as though through a dream lens, those never get old). The story is simple. Brother knocks up Sister, hides baby in the woods, Tinker finds baby, takes off. Sister goes to look for Tinker. Brother goes to look for Sister. Meanwhile, band a three oddball killers are striking through the forest, gutting folks at random. The novel sort of meanders with the brother constantly looking for work from people he meets, or getting into trouble sleeping in what he believes are un-owned houses. The Sister spends most of her time asking about her "chap", witnessing other couples' states of disarray. Cormac's prose captures beautifully the sinful sweep of the world in what we assume to be the early 1900s. There is a sense of perfectly rendered desolation, like the Road but with trees and plant life! The details however are pretty vague. We don't know the time period, the motivation for the killers (we assume it is only a kind of insatiable anarchic glee that drives them) and so on. Also the fates of a couple characters are sort of left hanging, as the book just ends ALA No Country For Old Men, though not as abrupt. All-in-all, the book is short, dark, enthralling, but it is not quite as deep and amusing as Blood Meridian, nor as sparse and electric as The Road. I like it more than No Country, I think. It reads sort of like a gothic fairy tale, where there aren't many likable characters, some bizarre allegorical scenarios, lots of murders (though not compared to Blood Meridian--though most books cannot compare) etc. If you are a fan of old Cormac, give this one a shot. It is wry, poetic, nightmarish. Don't expect a happy ending. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #23,607 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #176 in Multigenerational Fiction (Books) #338 in Westerns (Books) #489 in Family Saga Fiction | | Customer Reviews | 4.2 out of 5 stars 1,989 Reviews | ## Images ![Outer Dark (Vintage International) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/7138z-wOT4L.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This 1968 novel written by Cormac McCarthy is brilliant... *by R***O on March 2, 2013* This 1968 novel written by Cormac McCarthy is brilliant, but also one of the most disheartening stories that I've ever read. Warning: If you are suffering from depression, don't even think about reading this somber book. Cormac is truly the gloom and doom master. A quote from 'All the Pretty Horses' sums up Mr. McCarthy's thoughts on life:" It was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all." One of Cormac's Outer Dark quotes is:"Ive seen the meanness of humans till I dont know why God aint put out the sun and gone away." One of the two main characters, Culla states bleakness best when talking to the mysterious bearded man and says:" I never give nobody nothin, I never had nothin. Never figured nothin, never had nothin, never was nothin, the man said. He was looking at nothin at all." I added the quote marks, but Cormac doesn't use them, or any other basic elements of prose in his novels. If you have read any of my reviews, you know that I'm not a fan of his famous novel 'The Road', however I am an admirer of this novel. He has stated in the past that if the story is good enough, the author doesn't have to be grammatically correct. I hear you loud and clear! This story will stay with me for awhile. Even though Cormac doesn't mention a time, or place, I did some basic research and it seems that this story takes place in the Appalachia mountains of east Tennessee. I can't find a time period, but it felt like I was reading a novel set in the early 1900s. It's the story of a brother and sister, Culla and Rinthy, who have an incestious relationship resulting in a baby. Both of these people are destitute mountain people of low education living in a rural cabin. As Rinthy recovers from the birth, she hears a tinker ( a travelling seller of pots and pans ) outside talking to her brother. The tinker leaves, and while Rinthy sleeps, Culla goes in the woods and leaves the baby in the glade to die. When Culla goes home, he chops a fake grave with his axe. The tinker, in his travels, finds the baby. When Rinthy wakes, Culla says the baby died. She discovers that the grave is fake and thinking that her brother sold her baby to the tinker, she leaves on foot pursuing the tinker. Culla also leaves on foot seemingly looking for his sister, but more likely because he is fleeing from his sins and just wants to get away. To complicate matters for Culla, three mysterious men apparently follow Culla causing death and mayhem in his wake. Rinthy, in her travels, finds people mostly accommodating to her plight. Culla, Rinthy, the baby, the tinker, and the three mysterious men are heading for a collision of monumental and unguessable fruition. You must read this precocious second novel by Cormac McCarthy, it is stunning. I find this story full of symbolism and metaphors. For instance, Culla and the three mysterious men seem to have nothing in common. But why do the three men appear to follow Culla from town to town, causing Culla many troubles. The leader of the men wears black, which is a symbol of evil and death. Culla seems to be running from his sins and the three men are in pursuit to mete out punishment. Evil looms all around Culla. Are the three men emissaries of the devil? Rinthy, on the other hand, receives food and shelter from most of the people she meets on her quest to find her baby. Are these people representing the Archangels of God? I don't know, but I do know when I'm reading a book full of symbolism. And what about the mean tinker? Who does he portray? And finally, who is the blind man Culla meets at the end of the novel who says:"But I knowed I'd seen ye afore." Culla wants to know if the blind man is a preacher, and the blind man says:"No. No preacher. What is they to preach? It's all plain enough. Word and flesh. I don't hold much with preachin."Is this the Grim Reaper, now hot on Culla's trail? I don't know, but it's fun conjecturing on a Cormac McCarthy novel. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Sparse, brutal, strangely incomplete *by K***R on April 27, 2010* Cormac likes his gothic blood-letting. This book is no exception. An earlier work, it has little of the grandiosity of Blood Meridian (though there are some incredibly lyrical passages IE similes comparing the characters to a cast of alien vaudevillians pirouetting through a menacing landscape as though through a dream lens, those never get old). The story is simple. Brother knocks up Sister, hides baby in the woods, Tinker finds baby, takes off. Sister goes to look for Tinker. Brother goes to look for Sister. Meanwhile, band a three oddball killers are striking through the forest, gutting folks at random. The novel sort of meanders with the brother constantly looking for work from people he meets, or getting into trouble sleeping in what he believes are un-owned houses. The Sister spends most of her time asking about her "chap", witnessing other couples' states of disarray. Cormac's prose captures beautifully the sinful sweep of the world in what we assume to be the early 1900s. There is a sense of perfectly rendered desolation, like the Road but with trees and plant life! The details however are pretty vague. We don't know the time period, the motivation for the killers (we assume it is only a kind of insatiable anarchic glee that drives them) and so on. Also the fates of a couple characters are sort of left hanging, as the book just ends ALA No Country For Old Men, though not as abrupt. All-in-all, the book is short, dark, enthralling, but it is not quite as deep and amusing as Blood Meridian, nor as sparse and electric as The Road. I like it more than No Country, I think. It reads sort of like a gothic fairy tale, where there aren't many likable characters, some bizarre allegorical scenarios, lots of murders (though not compared to Blood Meridian--though most books cannot compare) etc. If you are a fan of old Cormac, give this one a shot. It is wry, poetic, nightmarish. Don't expect a happy ending. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A dark but gripping Cormac McCarthy novel *by E***R on June 18, 2023* Another exceptional book by Cormac McCarthy. It is admittedly gloomy and rather violent. In some ways it seems like a precursor to Blood Meridian. As usual with Cormac, one must think hard and delve deep to answer "What is the meaning?" It is highly allegorical, with many allusions to Biblical and other literary sources. It is in the form of a quest journey. A brother and sister, Culla and Rinthy, conceive a child. After its birth, Culla tries to get rid of the child by leaving him in the wilderness, but he is rescued by an itinerant tinker. When Rinthy discovers this she goes in search of the child. Culla, full of guilt for his incest and attempted infanticide, goes on his own quest whose purpose is unclear. It may be to find the child or to find Rinthy or just to assuage his guilt. An image that comes to mind is the Garden of Eden and the expulsion of Adam and Eve due to their original sin. Along the way, both Culla and Rinthy experience a variety of encounters with strangers. Rinthy is mainly treated with kindness by those she meets. Culla, on the other hand, keeps getting into trouble, is falsely accused of a variety of crimes, and is pursued by a mob trying to kill him. The culmination of his troubles is when he runs into an evil trio of killers. They are a murderous lot, terrorizing the countryside, and seem bent on extracting retribution for Culla's sins. Some critics think the novel has a distinct Gnostic overtone, where humans are entraped in an evil world ruled by malevolent demigods or archons. The true, benevolent, God is hidden, but tries to keep a spark of knowledge about him alive in the hearts of men. In this respect, the evil trio may represents archons who persecute Culla. In terms of responding to the proffered interior light, the hapless Culla seems to miss the invitation completely, while Rinthy is responsive to it and maintains her hope and optimism throughout her ordeal. The dramatic culmination of the novel will be left for the reader to discover. The meaning or moral point of this story is somewhat obscure and Cormac leaves it to the reader to figure out. However, as is usual with Cormac, the writing is brilliant with many graphic and penetrating scenes that grip the reader. This is a very significant work. It begs for a re-reading, which I hope to do in the future. ## Frequently Bought Together - Outer Dark - The Orchard Keeper - Child of God --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.no/products/11829025-outer-dark-vintage-international](https://www.desertcart.no/products/11829025-outer-dark-vintage-international) --- *Product available on Desertcart Norway* *Store origin: NO* *Last updated: 2026-10-04*