/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1606228]

Let's talk about Cormac McCarthy, /lit/. It seems he always get referenced in other threads, but hardly ever gets one to himself.

It seems to me that /lit/'s favourite McCarthy is Blood Meridian, a book I love, but I think he's written better.

I think it's impossible to choose a favourite, but one work of his I really admire is Child of God. I think the way he makes Lester an almost sympathetic character, and the way he makes you see how he came to be how he is is tremendous. He also does this with such an economy of words that it's incredible for such an early novel. I get the feeling that Cormac hoards words and polishes them obsessively like someone collecting bird's eggs in a cellar - it's like he daren't show them to anyone because they all belong to an endangered species.

I think he's the best writer working in English at the moment - McCarthy seems to be hitting the height of his powers at the moment.

[Anonymous No.1606234]

I read The Road a while back and really liked it. What should I read next?

[Anonymous No.1606242]

Never read anything by him, where do I start?

[Anonymous No.1606253]

>McCarthy seems to be hitting the height of his powers at the moment.

Good thing, too, because the fucker is like, 80 and very, very close to death.

[Anonymous No.1606255]

>the man smiled
>the man kicked the dirt

[Anonymous No.1606258]

I feel that Suttree really showed how much genius McCarthy possessed. It seemed like his farewell and best homage to the shadow of William Faulkner that had been dogging him.

[Anonymous No.1606260]

>>1606255

"unfailingly beautiful and exact" - tom wolfe

[Anonymous No.1606268]

>>1606260

my bad that's tobias wolff.

now who the fuck is tobias wolff?

it was funnier when i thought it was tom wolfe

[Anonymous No.1606304]

>>1606268

Wrote "A Bullet in the Brain." Awesome short story. But other than that, he hasn't done much that's great.

[Anonymous No.1606309]

>>1606234
>>1606242

pic related - you almost certainly know it anyway, and you'll enjoy the film even more after you've read the book.

[Classic_American_Liberal !8RGETRUjdI No.1606312]

Child of God is probably my favorite after Blood Meridian. I don't think he's a the height of his powers atm, he is at the height of his popularity. I use to hate how The Road and No Country were written, but lately I have grown more and more fond of the style he uses in them.

[Anonymous No.1606327]

>>1606312

The Road was actually why I say he's at the height of his powers. I think it's an utterly incredible book, and it's united so many disparate people, that it has to be regarded as an important work, I think. George Monbiot said something along the lines that it's "the most important ecological novel ever written" or something similar. In this instance, I honestly believe that popularity in this case is well deserved, and to be encouraged. The fact that a writer like Cormac McCarthy can still be popular in a time when most people are saying that society is becoming dumber is pretty reassuring, to be honest. It means that all those commentators who say that you teenagers are getting stupider by the day are just plain fucking wrong. Well done, the young, for supporting an old man in his literary career. Now go out and buy Suttree, you little shits, or I'll shoot you.

[Anonymous No.1606331]

>>1606312

Good call. I don't think anyone seriously believes that McCarthy will ever top "Blood Meridian."

[Anonymous No.1606332]

What I've read in order of preference:

1. All the Pretty Horses
2. The Crossing
3. Cities of the Plain
4. Blood Meridian
5. No Country for Old Men
6. The Road

[Anonymous No.1606334]

>>1606327

I think that The Road's popularity is evidence that the society is becoming dumber.

His weakest work by far, and look how the general public lapped it up.

[Anonymous No.1606335]

>>1606327

facepalm.jpg

[Anonymous No.1606336]

>>1606334

I'm applauding you right now.

[Anonymous No.1606337]

What did everyone think of the Jackson/Lee Jones adaptation of Sunset Limited? I thought it was good stripped down McCarthy dialogue, but found myself missing his prose style immensely.

[Anonymous No.1606344]

Outer Dark

Brother and sister living in a shack out in the middle of the Appalachians sometime around the turn of the century.

They fuck.

The brother takes the baby in the woods and leaves it for dead. Sister finds out and leaves, too. All the while three murderers are roaming the countryside.

The ending will fuck you up.

[Anonymous No.1606356]

>>1606334

>His weakest work by far, and look how the general public lapped it up.

This isn't any kind of criticism, it's just a soundbite - how do you justify this being his "weakest work"?

[Anonymous No.1606362]

>>1606344

that sounds fucking boss

[Anonymous No.1606366]

>>1606356
Not the anon you're replying to, but here's my take on The Road:

McCarthy's stripped down prose style works so well because he offsets it with such beautiful run on sentences, and archaic vocabulary once in awhile. I missed that in The Road. It was an exercise in minimalism, which I dug, but it doesn't hold a candle to All the Pretty Horses

[Classic_American_Liberal !8RGETRUjdI No.1606368]

>>1606362
It is a great novel.

[Anonymous No.1606373]

>>1606356

I justify it by having read all of his novels, and then accepting that he mailed this one in at his old age.

His work in The Road is comparable to Pete Rose returning to baseball in 2011.

[Anonymous No.1606381]

>>1606356
For a comparison, take a listen to Van Morrison's latest effort and then go back and listen to Astral Weeks.

Compare the two, and this is how I would view The Road and No Country For Old Men with McCarthy's early work prior to Blood Meridian.

[Anonymous No.1606384]

>>1606366
>All the Pretty Horses
Fuck yes. Definitely my favorite by him.

And they butchered the movie so bad.

[Anonymous No.1606385]

>>1606366
I was entirely bored by "The Road." None of it was unique or even unpredictable.

You gotta yawn at a book where the highlight is that they find a can of pears.

[Anonymous No.1606387]

>>1606384
Fucking Matt Damon, man. Fucking Matt Damon

[Anonymous No.1606406]

>>1606366
>doesn't hold a candle to All the Pretty Horses

"The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door. . . He looked down at the guttered candlestub. He pressed his thumbprint in the warm wax pooled on the oak veneer. Lastly he looked at the face so caved and drawn among the folds of funeral cloth, the yellowed moustache, the eyelids paper thin. That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping."

[Anonymous No.1606409]

Howdy, /lit/ OP here again. Nice to see some healthy debate going on, but I've no idea about Pete Rose.

I must confess to some minor trolling in order to be controversial - I actually think that McCarthy was at his abolute best at the Border Trilogy.

>>1606344 has reminded me that Outer Dark is as another Anon speculated "fucking boss". I intend to re-read that bad boy soonest, and I recommend anyone who hasn't to do the same, but if you haven't read it, don't google - spoilers everywhere.

I think that to say The Road was phoned in in old age is utter garbage - my personal feeling is that as he gets older, he gets more elegaic, perhaps a little bit more aware of his own legacy, and maybe a bit more inward looking. The way that No Country for Old Men and The Road work together is intriguing I think. No Country ends with the dreams of the father, then The Road becomes almost an epitomisation of fatherhood. McCarthy said he conceived the idea years earlier when he had his first son, and I can see it fitting into his own thoughts about his father, death, and what he's leaving behind him.

I think they're still both beautiful novels, and he's streets ahead of his competition, but to say that he's "at the height of his powers" is stretching it a bit. That's why I deliberately tried to foreground Child of God.

[Anonymous No.1606422]

>>1606409

McCarthy actually said he got the idea for The Road when looking at his second son, John. Not Cullen.

[Anonymous No.1606430]

>>1606422
I believe he got this idea for one reason.

$$$$$$$$$$$$

Can't blame him at all.

[Anonymous No.1606432]

McCarthy is one of the fucking worst writers; I do not understand why so many people obsess over his garbage. A retarded monkey could write a better book than he could. The Road was especially terrible. I felt like I was reading something a 15-year old kid wrote the night before his assignment was due, it was so God damn awful.

[Anonymous No.1606437]

>>1606432

Oh my lord. Even if this wasn't trolling, it would still be trolling.

1/10...I was generous because it made me post in response to it.

[Anonymous No.1606442]

>>1606437
The world really is going to shit then.

Great. Just great. There is no hope AT ALL.

[Anonymous No.1606445]

>>1606432

a thoughtful contribution.

[Anonymous No.1606452]

>>1606422

Fair enough. That must still have been quite a qhile ago though if the guys nearly eighty now. No?

[Anonymous No.1606453]

>>1606442

oh you