/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16968887]

Did anyone read this? I just finished it this morning and was kind of blown away by how good this book was. It's got good writing, a hell of a story and it's one of Pynchon's favorite books.

It doesn't compete too well with one of Pynchon's books because it's not as complicated or colorfully written but by the time the book was done I felt like I had seen this stuff for myself. It's full of kino ol' West imagery and phrases. It's essentially a retelling of the OK Corral but it ends a little more complicated than that.

So, if you read it, what did you think?

[Anonymous No.16968907]

learn2TLDR faggot

probably a terrible book judging by your blogpost

[Anonymous No.16968924]

>>16968907
Do you really think I wrote too much?

You didn't read the book, why are you in the thread?

[Anonymous No.16968940]

I read it this year along with all the other major literary westerns and I can confirm that it is indeed one of them.
It would be hard to praise it too much. I will definitely be re-reading it some day, probably more than once. Along with Lonesome Dove it has the rare quality where every character is a fully rendered and distinct human being. Very different from e.g. Blood Meridian where many characters fade in and out of the background and some exist purely as symbols or instruments. Not a dig on McCarthy just a different kind of thing.
Maybe too much hay made of Pynchon liking it.
Tom Morgan best character

[Anonymous No.16968953]

Does anyone else think people like this guy need to leave?
>>16968907

[Anonymous No.16968959]

>>16968940
Tom Morgan confirmed for the fastest hand in Warlock. It's a shame about the ending for all this though considering The town itself doesn't even survive in the long run so the new deputy and Morgan died for nothing.

[Anonymous No.16968971]

>>16968953
It doesn't really matter, it is possible to just ignore them.

[Anonymous No.16969123]

>>16968959
A little melancholy in the course of events always makes a western shine

[Anonymous No.16969140]

>>16968887
excellent book. i recently bought the second in the "trilogy" though they aren't related

my fav was curley burne

[Anonymous No.16969160]

>>16969140
based mouth organist

[Anonymous No.16969164]

>>16968907
>on /lit/
>can't be bothered to read 7 sentences
I find myself saying this in jest for the most part, but I really think that you're never going to make it.

also
>joins thread asking about a book that you haven't even read or even heard of
fag

I haven't read it, but I hear it's good and it's on my list so I wanted to see some opinions

[Anonymous No.16969170]

>>16968887
>one of Pynchons favorite books
What? How do you know?

[Anonymous No.16969174]

I liked Butcher's Crossing better

[Anonymous No.16969198]

>>16969174
I found Warlock to be a better story, with better characters but Butcher's Crossing was vivid. Images and scenes from that book have been burned in my brain...my hair raises just to think about the mustang bleeding from his mouth piece as miller rides him to death burning everything he can

[Anonymous No.16969202]

>>16969140
When he comes into town after posting and shows everyone his belly to prove it isn't yellow I legit had emotions.

[Anonymous No.16969212]

>>16969170
Pynchon wrote a review online:

Tombstone, Arizona, during the 1880’s is, in ways, our national Camelot; a never-never land where American virtues are embodied in the Earps, and the opposite evils in the Clanton gang; where the confrontation at the OK Corral takes on some of the dry purity of the Arthurian joust. Oakley Hall, in his very fine novel Warlock has restored to the myth of Tombstone its full, mortal, blooded humanity. Earp is transmogrified into a gunfighter named Blaisdell who, partly because of his blown-up image in the Wild West magazines of the day, believes he is a hero. He is summoned to the embattled town of Warlock by a committee of nervous citizens expressly to be a hero, but finds that he cannot, at last, live up to his image; that there is a flaw not only in him but also, we feel, in the entire set of assumptions that have allowed the image to exist. It is Blaisdell’s private abyss, and not too different from the town’s public one. Before the agonized epic of Warlock is over with—the rebellion of the proto-Wobblies working in the mines, the struggling for political control of the area, the gunfighting, mob violence, the personal crises of those in power—the collective awareness that is Warlock must face its own inescapable Horror: that what is called society, with its law and order, is as frail, as precarious, as flesh and can be snuffed out and assimilated back into the desert a easily as a corpse can. It is the deep sensitivity to abysses that makes Warlock, I think, one of our best American novels. For we are a nation that can, many of us, toss with all aplomb our candy wrapper into the Grand Canyon itself, snap a color shot and drive away; and we need voices like Oakley Hall’s to remind us how far that piece of paper, still fluttering brightly behind us, has to fall.

[Anonymous No.16969217]

OP, I recommend watching Tombstone after reading this book, it almost feels like an adaptation in some enjoyable ways. I know the OK corral was a real historical event but just trust me. Pretty sure they read the book before they wrote that film

[Anonymous No.16969261]

>>16969217
My Darling Clementine is a better film

[Anonymous No.16969276]

>>16969212
>"Also in ’59 we simultaneously picked up on...Warlock, by Oakley Hall. We set about getting others to read it too, and for a while had a micro—cult going. Soon a number of us were talking in Warlock dialogue, a kind of thoughtful, stylized, Victorian Wild West diction."
Imagine 20-something Pynchon and his Cornell friends LARPing as cowboys.

[Anonymous No.16969296]

>>16969276
god i wish my friends were literate

[Anonymous No.16969304]

>>16969170
The back cover of the NYRB edition is a long rant by Pynchon about how great it is. Which surprised me because it didn't strike me as Pynchonesque.

[Anonymous No.16969313]

>>16969304
Funny enough I only read Pynchon because he liked this book as much as I did.

[Anonymous No.16969344]

Do you think Pynchon has read Blood Meridian? Looks like he loves westerns.

[Anonymous No.16969370]

>>16969344
I would be shocked if not, but I dont think either reclusive genius has ever commented on the other.

[Anonymous No.16969459]

>>16969370
McCarthy isn't reclusive.

[Anonymous No.16969477]

>>16969459
Persist in your doomed opinion.

[Anonymous No.16969482]

>>16968907
Leave you fucking redditor

Learn to fucking read, this isn't even a slightly obscure book

[Anonymous No.16969503]

What are some other westerns as good as Warlock? I know of Lonesome Dove but it's too big and I'm busy. Need something sub-500pgs.
Is the Assassination of Jesse James as good as the film was? The Shootist?

[Anonymous No.16969510]

>>16969503
The Shootist is great, also Ox-Bow Incident

[Anonymous No.16969622]

>>16968887
Just bought this yesterday, hopefully it'll be good

[Anonymous No.16969640]

>>16968907
Anons like this are the reason I don't come here that much anymore. I'll bet hard cash you're from /pol/

[Anonymous No.16969743]

>>16969296
thats why u go to college

[Anonymous No.16969745]

>>16969503
Blood Meridian and Butcher's Crossing are it's contemporaries but the writing style is different in all three. John Williams has a great flowery language and decent historical representation. Blood Meridian is magical-realist and probably the most vivid out of all of them. Warlock does "world building" the best because all of the characters have lots of depth and the town and it's politics feel the most "real."

[Anonymous No.16969747]

>>16969503
Comanche moon

[Anonymous No.16969756]

>>16969745
Blood Meridian isn't a western

[Anonymous No.16969779]

>>16969304
It's not Pynchonesque at all but that's probably why he likes it so much.
>>16969276
Fuck bro why couldn't that have been my life

[Anonymous No.16969787]

>>16969756
What is it then?

[Anonymous No.16969927]

>>16969477
>reclusive
>linked oprah interview

[Anonymous No.16970361]

>>16969640
get out and take your cash with you
i seriously doubt you pay your rent

[Anonymous No.16970382]

>>16968887
>likes Pynchon
opinion discarded
into the trash you go

[Anonymous No.16970408]

>>16969477
reclusive is a word used by the media that translates to "doesn't like to talk to reporters"

[Anonymous No.16970817]

>>16970382
Read properly idiot.

[Anonymous No.16970837]

>>16969927
>>16970408
>coping this hard
just take the L boys
>>16969743
i did, they're even more ignorant in college than out

[Anonymous No.16972019]

>>16970837
Have you considered joining a reading group? Adding a social aspect to reading really does improve relationships and understanding of the literature.

[Anonymous No.16972596]

>>16968887
I am currently reading it, around page 100. I like it a lot.