/lit/ - Literature

Pick a book.

Summarise it in five words.

"Don't lose your head lol"

With NPCs aplenty slurping up Red Dead Redemption, what's your favorite story in the genre?

Hi /lit/. I'm about halfway through Blood Meridian, and overall I'm enjoying it, but what am I supposed to get out of it? Judge Holden is an interesting evil character, and the prose is beautiful and the violence is pretty hardcore, but it's kind of just slogging on with not a lot of direct point in terms of narrative. Is that the point? Am I just a massive retard? Is the ending going to tie it together?

How do I get a vocabulary as good as Cormac McCarthy's?

ITT Books that incels will never understand
I'll start

Ok, this is epic

It has always been my impression that you have to be an American to really appreciate iconic novels like Moby Dick. This also seems to be the case with this novel. I notice this book is appreciated very much in the US (and even is compared with Moby Dick), whilst most Europeans turn away in disgust.
Of course this disgust has much to do with the relentless violence in it,and the almost esthetic glorification of this violence. Admittedly, there is a list of violent novels in Europe too that are valued as extraordinary literary documents (Storm of Steel, by Ernst Jünger, to name just one). So why not this one?
I agree you can "enjoy" this novel very much: the language McCormack uses is brilliantly horrific when it comes to the description of landscapes (especially deserts) and even the scenes of violence have a literary quality. The setting, the American-Mexican frontier around 1850, full of rabble of indians, fortuneseekers and scalphunters, complete the picture of the rough western outback. But what is missing, is a story.
Of course there is the 'kid', and we see most of the action through his eyes, registrating, without emotion. And then there is the 'judge', a bold giant, wandering around as the personification of evil, a kind of dr Kurtz from Heart of Darkness; an icon, but to what end?
McCormack has given his novel an epical undertone, and that can be quite impressive, especially in combination with the archaic, biblical language, but then you have a story to tell, and up until now, I did not detect it.

>>11675733

What the fuck was the Judge's problem

I love this book so much, but /lit/ told me it was normie tier now.

Wypipo... smdh

Should I read this or Songs of a Dead Dreamer & Grimscribe next

t. Degenerate Brainlet

Post the greatest western work of literature

I am about 3/4 the way through it, and I am not feeling as entertained as I usually am with his work.
On purpose I saved this book for last, with All The Pretty Horses being read last week.
Am I drawing all the context out that I should?
Hands down some of the best prose concerning environmental capturing though, splendid work in that regard.
However, his run on conjunctions are starting to irritate me to a point of wanting to close the pages before completion.

What are other great western novels?

I've always been an avid horor reader. Everything from Kafka to Hodgson to Lovecraft to Ligotti. None of them have anything in their catalogues that resembles the pure brutality, desolation & hopelessness this novel conjures. Truly lives up to it's reputation. Are there any other 'non-horror' books/stories that are as emotionally horrific & philosophically dark as this?

>>11383103
Rape and kill them.

Was this McCarthy's best work?

How do i get into this book, /lit/?

Why exactly is this considered "unfilmable"?

What books/authors have the best dialogue?

Well /lit/, was it theory-fiction? Proto-theory-fiction?

>>11013857
War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.