/lit/ - Literature

>>19641675
English is a serial killer that hides in alleyways and mugs other languages for spare grammar

>>19641675
Same reason as most other languages: different people have different prose styles. I don't think any language has consistently lyrical prose no matter what the subject, what words are used, or who's writing

>>19641675
Your lack of Latin and Greek, the trivium and quadrivium, the absence of a traditional BA, BDiv/BTheo or BSc, your ignorance and lack of reading, your totalisation of your own ignorance, and your public declaration of your own little England fascism. Cormac was a Tory not a fa by the way, and admits through Stephen that England needs Ireland, France and Spain to be England; that there is no hunter without a Whig. As a penance read EP Thompson’s bourgeois (which aren’t haha) works about the bourgeoisie.

>>19641946
schizo

Why, my dear anon, because you're a retard faggot with no discernible taste!

you know what? i'm going to throw you a bone.
you might consider that there's something wrong with you if you can't enjoy both. your lack of mutability might explain all of this, that you must have it *your* way, else it's trash and you'd rather blow it all up rather than engage with it at all. in the end, you are perfectly entitled to have an opinion, which you've expressed, at length, across this board. most likely, you're of a more modern bent if you want a more gentle assessment of your tastes. McCormac appeals to one of the droogish sort, hyperviolence mingled with dark philosophies. Henry James appeals likewise to those who enjoy dark philosophies (which i doubt you've gleaned, as James is quite a subtle author, but almost all of his works are safely in the horror category, or at the very least works of deep psychological tragedy) but is of the classical flavor. You don't like James' style because it's not meant to be a simple fluffy prose, nor necessarily a beautiful one, but rather a complex, dense, and impressionistic one. one that hides its mysteries, and can be read (and arguably is meant to be) in a superficial way, as well as a probing way. You might think of James' style as a sort of puzzle, each sentence housing some unexpected riddle, some consideration of the author that can be halting as well as haunting. McCarthy has a density that is enjoyable, but it is more brutish, more direct, colorful, visual, dare I say it, superficial. He does much of the work *for* the reader. I will not suggest that he does not himself contain mysteries, but it is perhaps not his desire to create them. They're different authors, and as voices in my mind, they serve entirely different purposes, again, that you can't accept this, and embrace it, is a mark of your immaturity of mind. I hope you have a new year, maybe as a new year's resolution, you might seek to broaden your horizons. Or don't! You have every right to enjoy exactly what you enjoy. Good evening.

>>19642070
happy new year* hohoho, me and my little failures

>>19641946
What the actual fuck

>>19642070
>He does much of the work *for* the reader
I don't agree with OP's dismissal of James but you are wrong here. McCarthy relegates meaning and communication, more than most authors, entirely to the realm of suggestion and impression. His narrators, when focusing on his characters, are taken entirely to record their movements and actions in stoic, unstylized prose. When he allows flourishes as he breaks away from the men, it is turned entirely to the anatomy of the landscape. But the work is about neither of these. This makes his work highly interpretable, as if the writing is circling some weighty unsaid centre which is never directly evoked but its impressions can be gleaned from the text.

>>19641946
this really got the brainlets working overtime

>>19642845
There are a few occasions where he treats on the inner psychology of his characters, like with Billy in the Crossing, but for the most part I agree with you.
However, when you say anatomy of a landscape, do you refer to the physical or emotional anatomy of the landscape as it relates to the character's personal view?

>>19641675
mcarthys prose is trash and absolutely does not "flow" whatsoever.

>>19641675
McCarthy and James are two of my favourite writers. James' style suits his work and it draws me in deep and in a way that's unique to his writing. It's captivating like being inside a maze might be

But Hemingway is best

>>19642944
>when you say anatomy of a landscape, do you refer to the physical or emotional anatomy of the landscape as it relates to the character's personal view
The first one. McCarthy doesn't do perspective writing. Most of his characters are illiterates or average poor folks incapable of such reflections on the landscape (which is maybe why he doesn't do internality either). His visual style is strongly reminiscent of painters, that the tone and register of the prose compliments the metaphors and similes and all of this should be sufficient to convey the intended meaning to the reader not unlike interpretations involving paintings. But just like paintings, the meaning becomes subjective even if we get close to his intention.

>>19643167
>But Hemingway is best
kys

>>19643169
What other writers do this? I think you really put into words how I feel about McCarthy, although I always compared him to cinema. McCarthy write stories that have the same texture as Kubrick films, or films like Apocalypse Now, very sublime, like music, touching on feelings and mystery rather than declaring anything. It's a quality I really admire, and while people say Hemmingway does this, and I do think he was the pioneer, McCarthy really brought it to the next level.

>>19641946
BASED
A
S
E
D

>>19641946
Truly based

>>19643394
I don't think this is Hemingway territory. The big two hearted river avoids saying but it is quite explicitly about the trauma of war. That is discernible from the manner of repetition in the prose. Hemingway's iceberg style also explicitly deals with something, as in, there is an explicit centre it is circling around. There is definitely an argument that McCarthy's approach is sort of a postmodern leap in the idea that came to attention with Hemingway. I guess McCarthy separates the suggestion from its source. We are left with the effect. The striking imagery and the lyrical writing is weighty and powerful but the centre is either obscured or entirely absent. I guess it's why he really works the imagination. His writing has that religious awe and profundity but without explicit or with much reduced Subjects. He is attempting to induce the sensation of an experience but without working it through narratives or characters. It is a great effect. Btw Hemingway's iceberg style was also borne of paintings.
Writers with similar effects? Idk. Eliot's wasteland is similar in its striking imagery, but he has a poet's sensitivity to all the carnage. I wouldn't say it is like McCarthy but Eliot's ability with language is definitely of similar caliber. I would like to recommend Goya's 'disasters of war' paintings and Bruegel's 'Triumph of death', McCarthy was undoubtedly inspired by both for his work in Blood meridian and both get to the manner of McCarthy's communication with the reader better than other writers do.
Pic related. Does it not bear likenesses with The Kid and Toadvine's fight in muddy nacogdoches?

>>19643538
It very much does. How do you think McCarthy manages to pull something like that off? Writing about the effects of something rather than the something itself, it seems difficult to imagine. Blood Meridian is said to be about war, but I would agree that McCarthy manages to separate the IDEA of war from the act of war itself, if such an act can even exist outside of the definitions of men. Certainly, the war presented in Blood Meridian isn't what comes to mind when most people think of war, though is probably one of the most accurate depictions of war in any media.
Strangely enough, I found a lot of commonality of feeling between McCarthy's stories and fairy tales, particularly of the kind seen in the Brother's Grimm. Neither really try to justify themselves to the reader, and the lessons of the story are obscure, strange, or not even directly stated. Makes me wonder if he doesn't touch on an older form of story telling, the kind people might have told before there were things like organized nation, religions, of cultures.

>>19643715
You are getting to it. Read about his ideas on conception of language. He sees language "as a standing in for something else", to relate it better let's take Molly's soliloquy; The events related or the narrative constituents of the soliloquy would fail miserably if it was not for Joyce's ability in capturing the voice of her thoughts. Her soliloquy is a masterful construction precisely because it is able to convey those emotions to the reader. That is what literature aspires to, the aesthetic. The words on the page are a standing in for sensations. The task McCarthy sets himself in a post-Hamlet (which roughly started the trend of extreme internality and character-focus in literature) and post-Ulysses (which brought the expression of human experience closest to the real experience itself) was to reject their method. To pick the right image with the tone (prose) that induces in the reader the feeling the writer wishes to. It doesn't then matter whether the images fall within an unfolding narrative or the musicality and tone has its basis in streams of human thought. It is definitely difficult as is visible from an almost complete lack of alternatives besides McCarthy's work. If all language is a standing in for sensations, it must be possible to get to that sensation in myriads of ways. Case in point: paintings and music.
Furthermore, McCarthy writes in his only non-fiction work that language is a recent phenomena, speculating that is likely that human consciousness was almost entirely visual before its conception. If he is inspired by the older narratives, it is by these: the oldest ones in our civilization.

bump

>>19641675
>Anglo-Saxon
>Latinate
I often see people compare the two, with Latinate meaning bad and Anglo-Saxon meaning good. Can someone give me an example of both?

>>19643871
It's a view commonly expressed by writing teachers in America, for example in William Zinsser's book On Writing Well. Latinate words tend to be longer, lighter, polysyllabic while Anglo-Saxon words tend to be short, dense, meaty. I know in England the educated class always liked to distinguish themselves from the plebs by choosing the long Latinate words over the shorter Anglo words. But I confess I side with the American writing teachers for the most part.

>>19643783
In your opinion, would you say this makes the written word a lesser art? I think I recall a similar idea expressed in the Idiot, or some other book, with everyone having some genius or incredible idea/conception in their head that they will never be able to put to words, no matter what, and that the ultimate expression of their existence will inevitably die with them.

>>19641675
>flow
What are you, a nigger? Do you oscillate your body to da beat when you read dem verses too my nigguh? Shiiiet dat boi McCardi B be bussin dey lines bout death

>>19643997
I am not sure on this. Faulkner and Beckett were also bothered by the inability of language to express everything. McCarthy's The Crossing is also primarily about, among other things, the inability to communicate the experience of the self through language. Dreams are very interesting in this regard. Our deepest dreams are all very visual and the manner of communication in them is still not understood very well, but we still feel the effects of them after waking up, even if they are not understood to us. Hence all the psychoanalysis and Jung. Maybe that is why many artists turn to dreams for creative drive because our imagination is limited by what we can articulate in our heads.
I am very ambivalent about this. I think our consumption of art is a conscious phenomena, and in that medium the word conveys more than paintings and music, both of which require a greater sensitivity from its audience, but great music or a great painting is likely to leave a deeper, more inexplicable effect on our consciousness than great books do. Remember, all the most experimental forms of writing had their origin in paintings, tying artistic drive to visual articulation more concretely.

>>19644032
KEK

>>19644032
seething jamesfag

>>19643893
Victorian writers seen to be in love with Latinate words. It's a fucking chore to read them.

>>19641946
I mean, he has a point.

>What makes McCarthy's prose so good but James' prose so bad?
Your personal taste

>>19645901
Sort of why Nabokov hates Dostoyevkst?

>>19641675
Just do what I did and learn Latin and Old English. Now you can read and appreciate both you fucking retard.

>>19641946
basado

>>19645918
It's not about that. James' prose just sucks.

>>19645941
See
>>19645901

>>19646001
Yes, it's my taste and my opinion, why are some people like this? 'Oh it's jast yer opeeneeon'. Of course it's my opinion, it's me saying it, you want me to post your opinion?

>>19646020
Most smart people are aware of their own subjectivity so avoid that kind of sophomore dogmatism

>>19646032
Subjectivity is already implied in every comment. If you don't agree with my opinion, just say it. If you agree with it, just say it as well. But saying "it's just your opinion" leads us nowhere. Yes, it's my opinion, thank you for noticing.

>>19645941
It is about that. James' prose is wonderful. But if you're looking for paratactic (what you hilariously call Anglo Saxon) dog food go and enjoy your McCarthy. Janes writes in a hypotactic style which is greatly influenced by Latin prose style.

>>19646493
>James' prose is wonderful.
Your definition of wonderful must be entirely different to my own. Wonderful prose is supposed to be good, and James' prose isn't good.

>>19646514
Alright you've confirmed you're a teenager. I'll see myself out.

>>19646543
>Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not--some people of course never do,--the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth, dense turf. They lengthened slowly, however, and the scene expressed that sense of leisure still to come which is perhaps the chief source of one's enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o'clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure. The persons concerned in it were taking their pleasure quietly, and they were not of the sex which is supposed to furnish the regular votaries of the ceremony I have mentioned. The shadows on the perfect lawn were straight and angular; they were the shadows of an old man sitting in a deep wicker-chair near the low table on which the tea had been served, and of two younger men strolling to and fro, in desultory talk, in front of him. The old man had his cup in his hand; it was an unusually large cup, of a different pattern from the rest of the set and painted in brilliant colours. He disposed of its contents with much circumspection, holding it for a long time close to his chin, with his face turned to the house. His companions had either finished their tea or were indifferent to their privilege; they smoked cigarettes as they continued to stroll. One of them, from time to time, as he passed, looked with a certain attention at the elder man, who, unconscious of observation, rested his eyes upon the rich red front of his dwelling. The house that rose beyond the lawn was a structure to repay such consideration and was the most characteristic object in the peculiarly English picture I have attempted to sketch.
This is not good prose by any stretch of the imagination. It's autistic, nervous, meandering, awkward, ugly, mediocre. It has that rushed, first-draft energy. There's nothing 'wonderful' here. Please explain what is go 'wonderful' about his prose.

>>19646572
When you start reading that it feels detached and awkward, and as you keep reading it slowly wraps you up like a boa constrictor. Pro-James anons are right. It's great

>>19646572
Here's why it's good: good use of copia verborum, clause structure is varied and keeps the reader interested, excellent use of suspension, balanced use of circumlocution, repetitions always add to the scene, the narratio follows the prescriptions of Quintilian while maintaining good English grammar and idiom, the reader's eye is directed over the scene so it seems like the image is really unfolding before you. This is masterful prose and you haven't even picked an exemplary passage. You're either esl or just haven't read much prose at a level above Stephen King and J K Rowling.

>>19641946
Meds

>>19648321
>Stephen King
Pretty much works at the same level as Henry James. Literally all you mention was good in James also applies to King's prose. Both are also genre writers, anyway lmao

>>19646572
>Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.
I sleep

>>19648375
>discover I have insomnia
>doctor tells me to read Henry James
>I am cured alright

>>19648358
Not true in the least. But I'm glad you've confirmed you are a Stephen King fan. Why not just read his latest installment and leave other authors alone?

>>19648393
I am not a SK 'fan' (you were the one who brought him up in the first place) but really, most of the generic shit you mention also applies to SK's prose.

>Why not just read his latest installment and leave other authors alone?
t.

>>19641946
i had to read this so many times my god im retarded

>>19648413
It really doesn't.

>>19646493
James' hypotactic style is autistic and not in a good way. Good hypotactic style is like Nabokov's or Faulkner's. Enjoy eating shit and thinking it's a delicacy.

>>19643538
The English Patient does this extremely well.

>>19646572
It's obviously good at what it was intended to do.

>>19648883
I have seen McCarthy praise Ondaatje. Will pick up.

>>19648887
>>19648883
>I have seen McCarthy praise Ondaatje.
Do you fellas think he liked Ondaatje's poetry collection "The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left-Handed Poems"?

>>19644032
Audibly kek'd