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/lit/ - Literature

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File: 12 KB, 300x300, Cormac McCarthy.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1346913 No.1346913 [Reply] [Original]

/lit/, I'm extremely skeptical any time I consider reading books by contemporary writers. So I want to know before diving into his works: what do you guys think of Cormac?

>> No.1346918

i put the saddle on the horse and i put on my boots and i put on my spurs and i got on the horse and i rode into the sunset; that node a matrix where is god have you a mouth with which to shit in
are we the good guys?
yes
yes
not the bad guys?
no
no?
no

>> No.1346921

He's a required taste. Some people (me) enjoy his minimalist style of writing. Other's think he's a bore.
Also, his books get better with each successive one in my opinion (i.e. read No Country for Old Men and The Road)

>> No.1346923

he has the same shape of head as me i don't feel so alone now

>> No.1346924

>>1346921
What's the nature of his books? Are they simply well-written and engaging thrillers, or are they more provocative?

>> No.1346941

>>1346924

I find them to be very well-written. He tends to be very sparse on dialogue (and it's usually left unpunctuated). Are they thrillers? There are hints of suspense but his novels tend to follow a more rural/western/southwestern flavor (Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men, The Crossing). He's all about drama and the relationships between people.

>> No.1346942
File: 140 KB, 949x830, dubiouscat.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1346942

>cormac mccarthy
>minimalist

he uses words that aren't even in the dictionary why do people keep saying this

>> No.1346953

>>1346942
eh. because the only book they've read by him is the road maybe. the diction in suttree is pretty incredible.

>> No.1346958
File: 86 KB, 483x338, snl.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1346958

>>1346942

Taking his works as a whole, McCarthy is a minimalist. You can't automatically deny that based on him "creating" a few words. So, if he creates words he's a surrealist?

>> No.1346965
File: 4 KB, 222x211, but.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1346965

>>1346958

>A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained weddingveil and some in headgear of cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or saber done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses’ ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse’s whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen’s faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.

>> No.1346968

>>1346958
eh suttree and blood meridian don't come off as minimalist. the border trilogy MAYBE...the road, sure.

>> No.1346977

>>1346923

This. And only this.

>> No.1346978

>shitty unpunctuated boring writing
is that what the call 'minimalism' these days?

never mind the fact the he just has to end every second paragraph with a bunch of hokey mythopoetic, metaphysical mumbo-jumbo

>> No.1346990

>>1346978

McCarthy will always polarize people. You make a weak attempt at proving your point.

>> No.1346998

I've only read the road, and I didn't like it.

>> No.1347002

>>1346990
I'm not really arguing over anything itt bro just shooting the shit. I happened to enjoy the book.

>> No.1347008

>>1347002

Haha, in that case, I apologize for jumping the shark. My bad, brosef.

>> No.1347011

>>1347008

I think you mean jumping the gun

>> No.1347012

>>1347011

Yes, you're right. I just got done with exams. Pretty brain dead at the moment.

>> No.1347018

>>1347012

I thought maybe your native language was not English, it's so cute when they mess sayings up :3

>> No.1347024
File: 50 KB, 328x480, nope.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1347024

>McCarthy
>Minimalist

>> No.1347031

If you like Hemingway you'll like Cormac. I find Cormac to be, in a sense, examining Hemmingway's sort of ideology in a contemporary context. There's that same masculinity to the main characters, that same emphasis on creature comfort, and the same judicious, matter-of-fact prose.

As far as the quality of his writing, I certainly think he's deserving of his accolades and he'll at least be a minor figure in future literary examination of this period.