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/lit/ - Literature

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18466321 No.18466321 [Reply] [Original]

>2021
>Still pretending Cormac McCarthy is good
Why don't you read writers with discernible talent instead?

>> No.18466327

>>18466321
Fuck you

>> No.18466332

>>18466321
that was dfw he said that about

>> No.18466336

>>18466332
And I'm saying it about Cormac McCarthy

>> No.18466338

>>18466321
Suttree is amazing, everything else I have read by him is ok but nothing special. Looking forward to The Boarder Trilogy, don't really have any expectations of it approaching Suttree but Suttree is enough a reason to keep me exploring Cormac's work.

>> No.18466346

every once in a while i wish /lit/ had flags

>> No.18466351

>>18466336
McCarthy is canon already, bro. Don't fight it, just deal with it.

>> No.18466482

>>18466321
He's a gimmick exponent, but he has two or three reliable gimmicks to choose from. Not fully rounded, but clearly a talent.

>> No.18466520

He is a competent writer, but it seems to me that there is something like a lack of knowledge about what human beings really are in his work. There is something almost caricaturesque about his men and women; his books are almost superhero stories written for adults. It's something that someone who admires the mentality of "hard men" and manual workers would write, trying to be such a man himself. If you think of Tolstoy's and Checkhov's human beings and compare them to McCarthy's you feel that whoever is writing ithe latter is a kind of old teenager, a teenager who has had plenty of time to perfect his style but who has failed to see people notin a superficial way. It's always the same thing: duty, silence, hard life, brutish minds, brutish souls, men of few words, women grown up among farms of brutish men, surrounded by rocks and grass.

It seems like all the time he writes with the same color palette: something gray, with a taste of bones and ash. Men and women in his work always have dry leather souls, or they are almost incarnations of chaos, the desert, war, a wild west, but never people.

If you want to know how people who experience deprivation, poverty and lack of any access to culture really are, Checkhov's "Peasants" and "In the Ravine" will show, with a far more cruel and a cold and mercilessly true vision what poverty really does to the soul. Spiritual deformation is far more repulsive than McCarthy's "wolf-men".

But even in McCarthy's tragedies you won't find anything like the language of Shakespeare or Melville. There is almost an ability to obtain great metaphors and constant imagery, but the material is always more diffuse: you feel the lungs filling with breath, but the singing never appears. It seems like an attempt to write in a language that evokes a well-crafted translation of biblical writing, but it's never the biblical poetry of a Job.

>> No.18466540

>>18466520
t. soft man

>> No.18466556

>>18466520
I don't think McCarthy ever meant to be a realist, nor should every writer strive for that. McCarthy is closer to Dickens, in terms of characterization: condensed over-the-top personages with a certain shakespearean flavour at times. Comparing him to Tolstoy and Chekhov is a senseless exercise because he's part of a different tradition.

>> No.18466563

>>18466520
You write well, but you are wrong unfortunately. Although slightly elaborated for effect, the characters of McCarthy's stories are mostly accurate portrayals of the people in the time and place hes writing about. Im not sure where you get the idea that men of the periods he focuses on wouldnt be harsh and brutal.

>> No.18466812

>>18466563
>Im not sure where you get the idea that men of the periods he focuses on wouldnt be harsh and brutal.

I think they would be, but not in the way McCarthy creates them. It may seem paradoxical, but the way he writes about these people is almost glamorous. It's Hollywood-style poverty. Poverty, deprivation, animalistic creation, people who eat bread that sprouts in the muddy suburbs, the deserts of penury and the pigsties of society, people like that are much more unpleasant, mentally repulsive and degraded than McCarthy's hard-men.

When he explores minds you feel as if he opens the the door to the basement of a black slave ship and fixes his attention on the musculature of the slaves, the violence of their revolt, the hatred burning in their eyes, the anger mired in their lungs and throat, however without showing us the smell of feces and urine and sweat and blood. The almost beastly rage he will capture, but not the weakness, the fear, the submission, all the pus of human weaknesses that shame us so much. There is a lack of slime, a lack of armpit smell, of the smell of human tallow in his darkness. He cleans his wolves of ticks, fleas, tooth decay and the buzz of flies.

The rough life, which feeds almost on rocks, has something falsely virtuous in its books.
He sees men as wolves, elegant in their ferocity, never as chimpanzees, who make a far more repulsive mess in their violence.

>>18466556
>McCarthy is closer to Dickens, in terms of characterization: condensed over-the-top personages with a certain shakespearean flavour at times.

Yes, I realize that's what he's aiming for, but it seems to me that his range is much shorter. You would never see in McCarthy Shakespeare's girls talking about sex between themselves, for example. In fact one of his biggest limitations is the ability to create female characters. His themes and characters and concerns are repeated over and over again. Furthermore, McCarthy's language never achieves what Shakespeare has achieved, although he clearly aims for something similar. He has the poetic ambition, but not the same verbal genius.

He has some of Melville's simple human knowledge, but without the same poetic gifts as Melville.

But I believe he is a very talented writer and that he will go down in history. I like him, although I don't believe he's really a great master of the knowledge of the human soul. I still think he looks like a guy who likes Dungeons & Dragons, but who knows how to use language very well.

>> No.18466885

>>18466812
>There is a lack of slime, a lack of armpit smell, of the smell of human tallow in his darkness.
They spit in every other page, bro. The fuck you're talking about. There is dirt and mud as well. You might want to check your senses.

>> No.18466903

>>18466885

I mean he doesn't show the secretions and shames of the mind, of the spirit.

>> No.18466933

>>18466903
That's part of his style and his aesthetic. He doesn't do introspection like most novelists. He paints a world and lets the characters' actions speak for themselves. It's a feature, not a bug.

>> No.18466944

>>18466812
You know how to write, I love McCarthy and somewhat disagree with some of your sentiments here, but you presented them very well and I enjoyed reading it.

>> No.18466949

>>18466933

Ok, fair enough.

>> No.18466955
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18466955

>>18466812
>When he explores minds you feel as if he opens the the door to the basement of a black slave ship and fixes his attention on the musculature of the slaves
Buck breaker detected

>> No.18466960

>>18466321
Is it because he said nigger?

>> No.18466967

>>18466944
>You know how to write
He knows how to put a lot of effort into articulating something wrong

>> No.18466998

>>18466944
>I love McCarthy and somewhat disagree with some of your sentiments here

You might as well be right. I just said what I think about him, but these are just my opinions. His fame among audiences and critics speaks a lot more than I would be able to. I may be criticizing aspects of his work that he wished not to highlight simply because he thought it better not to.

What I especially admire was his courage in using a poetic prose inspired by models from the past, even though many would accuse him of doing pastiche. Nothing worse than critics trying to step on writers who are not afraid to emulate the great poets of the past. McCarthy wasn't afraid to try to do what Melville and the Elizabethans did, even though they accused him of using a style that was "from long dead times."

He will certainly continue to be read and respected, and I think he deserves that fame.

>> No.18467046

>>18466998
Thanks for your respectful critiques here, its always nice to have someone not be a huge asshole when pointing out flaws or whatever in a writers work. Thanks.

>> No.18467056

>>18466321
I don't even see why people are taking this as a serious comment. Utter waste of pixels.

>> No.18467063
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18467063

>>18466998
>>18467046

>> No.18467093

>>18467056
Almost no one does, just newfags and eternal newfags who never learn forum culture. It is just a way to get the ball rolling on a topic.

>> No.18467158

>>18466812
You’re missing something, your connection of him to Melville is closer to truth than the Shakespeare connection, the other anons are correct, it is true he is DnD-esque, it is true the characters are incarnations of forces, but these are precisely the style and methodology he is using intentionally, you do not complain of Shakespeare that Oberon is inhuman and nor do you complain the virtue of Spenser’s redcrosse and lady una, these characters fundamentally are aesthetic harmonies and not humans; they are meant to reflect pure ideals, concepts, forces, and I do not mean in just some moral sense I am talking about the harmonization of atoms of beauty. Sure there isn’t the filth and piss of Rabelais nor the filthy humor of some of the inferno, but if it was, it would be far more Dionysian than his intent. McCarthy without a doubt IS Apollonian, your complaint is that his illusions are too excellently crafted, can we really say Ahab is a human and not a force of undying Will? Yet you praise Melville all the same.

The tradition of McCarthy is that of beautiful illusions, not the depth of person and living Breathing humans of a Shakespeare or a goethe, nabokov calls this tradition “enchanters” and I am inclined to agree. I also see a weakness in McCarty, not in his lack of humanity, but in the fact that his work is relatively safe in that it isn’t his view of these things, he’s showing the aesthetic harmony that people already fantasize about but isn’t giving it a new essential to him aspect. There is no McCarthy-esque, the ultimate mark of genius in literature is the production of such a tightly knit and harmonious bunch of ideas in an aesthetic that if it shows up elsewhere, people can point to you as the synthesizer. McCarthy has not done this, but he is still excellent at what he strived to do, if his next novel changes this I cannot say, but certainly it’ll be much more human. I say this as a negative.

>> No.18467196

>>18467158
>There is no McCarthy-esque
There definitely is such a thing. I've seen it particularly in some foreign literature.

>> No.18468101

>>18467158
McCarthy-esque is like Faulkner-esque. Both are more related to prose than character depth, although McCarthy-esque is certainly under the umbrella of Faulkner’s legacy.

>McCarthy’s next novel
From lurking his forum for a couple years and attending some related lectures, there are a few heads (R. Wallach specifically) that have seen early drafts of what will likely be the last novel he publishes. I hope it’s finished and released soon but can wait. Supposedly is set in New Orleans and relates somehow to scuba divers who maintain offshore oil rigs in the gulf. Would be interesting to see cm take on the ocean and a new biome as opposed to appalachia/desert

>> No.18468104

Where is The Passenger anyway?
How do you spend 17 years writing a book that will no doubt be less than 300 pages?

>> No.18468110

>>18466520
perfect post

>> No.18468116

>>18468101
>Supposedly is set in New Orleans and relates somehow to scuba divers who maintain offshore oil rigs in the gulf.
What? That's not what I've heard.

>> No.18468177

He has four books completed and ready to release the day he dies. The Passenger and a new trilogy

>> No.18468195

>>18466332
what?

>> No.18468201

>>18468177
How do you know?

>> No.18468320

>>18468201
He’s my dad

>> No.18468349

>>18468320
Come on now, John. What's the trilogy about?

>> No.18468352

>>18468320
what did you think about The Road, a bit dramatic, no?

>> No.18468406

>>18468320
How’s the music going?

>> No.18468719

>>18466520
I think you missed his characterization hard. I am reading the border trilogy right now and the protagonists are anything but caricatures. He doesn't share the oversentimentality or moral basis of Tolstoy so it can come as detached and his characters are characterized entirely by what they do and say which is easy to miss for inattentive readers.

>> No.18468757

>>18467158
>There is no McCarthy-esque
Too early to judge that, no? He is still alive after all.
There are quite a few works that have tried to capture the apocalyptic feel of his work and certainly his influence on contemporary prose can be labelled as McCarthy-esque.

>> No.18468787

>>18468757
Yes, there is McCarthy-esque. Just like there is Pynchon-esque. Shit, DFW is discount Pynchon. I'm sure loads of people are trying to be discount McCarthy. A complement imo.

>> No.18468823

>>18468757
Furthermore, he's wrong. I think McCarthy's influence can already be seen in modern Mexican (or also Mexican-related) literature. Bolaño's 2666 (he mentioned reading Blood Meridian; Klaus is similar to The Judge), Enrigue's Ahora me rindo y eso es todo (about Jerónimo and the Apache), Monge's Among the Lost (critics mentioned the McCarthy-esque vibe), Guillermo Arriaga (who cited him as an influence, and also was offered a McCarthy manuscript to direct as a film back in the mid 2000s). McCarthy is having a similar influence on Latin American (particularly Mexican) literature that Faulkner had in his day.

>> No.18468834

>>18468823
I am a Mexican. I read McCarthy's stuff religiously. It's the violence that attracts us. I also like, the down to earth dialogue mixed with the prose. Although, I do not try and emulate the prose.

>> No.18468837

>>18468116
That’s just the rumor that’s been circulating for about 10 years after someone found the drafts in the texas collection

>> No.18468840

>>18468834
Do you think McCarthey's prose bears a Spanish language influence?

>> No.18468857

>>18468840
Probably. I know he lived in Spain (Ibiza) for a while when he was younger. Also, he read Mexican books from the 19th century as research for Blood Meridian. He obviously knows some Spanish.

>> No.18468864

>>18468837
The Passenger will be about a young Jewish woman who's schizophrenic and in a mental institution.

>> No.18468875

>>18468840
I'd say so. Moreso in the prose than in his dialogue. Spanish is flowery. Even regular day to day Spanish. Things have changed and now there is more slang but older Mexicans I've been around, even though they were poor, their Spanish is still rhythmic and flowery. Though, I feel he's always been a prose writer, his learning of Spanish probably did add to that. Especially during BM, which was written over a period of ten years. Some of which he spent in Spain and Mexico.

>> No.18468884

>>18468857
He's fluent man. I think he moved to Ibiza for a bit when the MacArthur foundation gave him $250k.

>> No.18468896

>>18468857
>>18468875
Gracias mi amigos. Es un hermosa idioma.

>> No.18468902

>>18468787
Hell The Last of Us was blatantly McCarthyesque (albeit more hollywoodized), as Druckmann himself admitted.

>> No.18468915

>>18468840
Probably, he is fluent and bilinguals usually have quirks that bleed into either language. See Nabokov for example.

>> No.18468963

>>18468875
>Things have changed and now there is more slang but older Mexicans I've been around, even though they were poor, their Spanish is still rhythmic and flowery.
I noticed this in The Crossing, although most of them characters had a history to justify it. Thanks anon, I didn't know that.

>> No.18468975

>>18468896
Si lo es. No la hablo tanto. Onions Chicano pero trato de usarla cuando puedo. Don McCarthy nos ha hecho un servicio con sus libros.

>> No.18468986

>>18468902
Yeah, I can see that. I think I saw a show that drew from Bloodborne. Which is another of my favorite pieces of media. Blood Meridian, Bloodborne and Neon Genesis Evangelion, are things I have tried to incorporate into my writing.

>> No.18468992

>>18468986
>I think I saw a show that drew from Bloodborne.
Which show? Penny Dreadful?

>> No.18468996

>>18468963
I just started All The Pretty Horses after mainly just rereading BM and the Road. I kept getting hung up on an earlier section where a bunch of Texans in Texas, say, "you all", instead of "ya'll". I'm from Texas, It's nit picky. It kept bothering me though. Finally got past it. Forty pages in and I'm hooked.

>> No.18468999

>>18468864
interesting ive heard that. the off-shore drilling story may be related or its own draft. like i said im unsure about details but am positive that those who had access to the tx collection talked about it at a utk conference and on the forum

>> No.18469005

>>18468992
Nah bro, surprisingly, American Horror story. The season called Roanoke. The references are the Blood Moon, the daughter named Flora, the sort of Xenophobic hunt that occurs during said Blood Moon, and the attachment to a higher deity. I know the show is garbage. Someone recommended to me that season and I've seen it at least twice. Which is more than I can say for most things. Shit, usually I'll quit halfway through shows or movies if I feel they are a waste of time.

>> No.18469014

>>18468999
Hope the man can pour his heart out. I know he doesn't have much respect for writing or reading. Hope he can see how none of it matters, not science or the "truth" and deliver us a masterwork.

>> No.18469026

>>18468975
Creo que el espanol se volvera mas popular con el tiempo, sientete orgulloso de ello.

>> No.18469032

>>18468975
>Onions
El filtro S O Y es anti-español

>> No.18469041

>>18469026
No quiero perder la habilidad de hablarla. Es muy hermosa, ojala puede encontrar la fuerza de hablar con mis hijos en Espanol embez de Engles.

>> No.18469048

>>18469032
Si, es cierto. Pinches Americanos. Cuando venieron a esta pais mis Padres. No los dejaban hablar Espanol en la escuela. El modo de control en estos dias es mas subrepticio.

>> No.18469053

>>18468999
>the off-shore drilling story
Interesting. When I hear about oil drilling I instantly think of There Will Be Blood, which was the big rival film to No Country for Old Men back in that year's awards season.

>> No.18469058

>>18467158
Have you met alot of humans? Alot of American bugmen today lack depth. I'm sure it's been this way for a while.

>> No.18469066

Cormac fan here but…His writing is clearly derivative of William Faulkner. To me he took Faulkner’s stream of consciousness style and condensed it and made it more readable. Suttree? 8 out of ten for character development. His true masterpieces are Blood Meridian and No Country For Old Men. Child of God? Ok but not the greatest. The Road? Won’t rate. That being said, I’m not going to rate each and every book but I think he is a genius really. And most writers will admit deep down that almost all writers work is derivative from another writers. Would I put him with Steinbeck, Hemingway and many other famous (focusing on American writers) writers absolutely. Writing is an incredibly hard thing to do (when it’s done right) and it’s easy to criticize til you try to do it.

>> No.18469068

>>18469041
>hablar con mis hijos en Espanol
Si, eso seria genial.

>> No.18469075

>>18469066
>His writing is clearly derivative of William Faulkner. To me he took Faulkner’s stream of consciousness style and condensed it and made it more readable
Good point, I'd have to say that I agree; while McCarthy is very distinctly Faulknerian, he also manages to be original in some aspects; I actually like his prose better than Faulkner's (a sin, I know)

>> No.18469092

>>18469048
Es tragico. Onions Ingles, pero mi Abuelo es Espanol. Onions aprendo Espanol para el.

>> No.18469099

>>18469092
Mmmm Que buenas las cebollas.

>> No.18469102

>>18469075
>I actually like his prose better than Faulkner's (a sin, I know)
Me too. I think McCarthy's prose is more tight and evocative. Faulkner's prose is more sparse and sort of meandering.

>> No.18469103

>>18469092
Mi encanta que hay tantos Hispanos aqui. Aveses se parece que nomas hay gringos.

>> No.18469110

>>18469066
McCarthy doesn't really use Stream of Consciousness. His style has distinct heritage that comes from Faulkner, like Faulkner himself had from Conrad and Joyce. His passages are easy to tell apart from any other which I think is as high a praise as any stylist can get, because everybody is under somebody's influence. Melville also wrote under the Shakespearean aesthetic (more than McCarthy does under Faulkner's) but can any other writer in 500 years since Shakespeare say as much? That is Melville's genius.

>> No.18469139

Anyone here know about Red Dog? A South African writer plagiarized McCarthy. McCarthyesque, definitely a thing.

>> No.18469145
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18469145

>>18469139

>> No.18469178

The Road is overrated by the general public, but underrated by this community

>> No.18469415

>>18469066
Agreed. I found Faulkner through McCarthy but I think there's something more humanizing about Faulkner that McCarthy's work doesn't quite reach. McCarthy is the superior imagist but Faulkner takes the reading experience further in my opinion through emotional interiority.

>> No.18469466

I like him. The only thing I'm not fond of his weird opinions on punctuation and sentence structure. His reasoning makes no sense to me.