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/lit/ - Literature

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18696207 No.18696207 [Reply] [Original]

Why is he a writer that attracts many teenage pseuds? Road, No Country, and Blood Meridian are good but now it seems that its just the favorite book of every teen trying to prove themselves as an intellectual

>> No.18696214

>>18696207
>to prove themselves as an intellectual
start with the greeks

>> No.18696215

IDK man I just like the way he writes
’ate pseuds
’ate philosophy fags
’ate arthoes
’ate booktubers
simpl’ as dat my nizzle

>> No.18696225

>>18696207
>prove themselves as an intellectual
I genuinely love blood meridian man

>> No.18696240

>>18696207
>Why is he a writer that attracts many teenage pseuds?
Why care
>it seems that its just the favorite book of every teen trying to prove themselves as an intellectual
probably just in usa

>> No.18696242

>>18696225
It's a good book don't get me wrong but it's the book version of like beatles for those guys that act like they're into way more obscure and better media than you and also have 50 higher IQ points than you

>> No.18696317
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18696317

>>18696242
>act like they're into way more obscure and better media than you and also have 50 higher IQ points than you
We all had that phase

>> No.18697017

Why are you so fucking obsessed? Why is it so hard for you to cope with the fact that he is loved?
>its just the favorite book of every teen trying to prove themselves as an intellectual
Now you are even inventing narratives in your head. Every teenager who had to read The Road in high school hated it. You literally have zero evidence.

>> No.18697024

>>18697017
I did hate it. What kind of asshole doesn't use commas???

>> No.18697031

>>18696207
>gatekeeping

>> No.18697034

>>18697017
this

>> No.18697039
File: 3.45 MB, 346x312, 1626473420901.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18697039

Pseud is a pseud term used by pseuds to feel better about their pseudom.

>> No.18697045

>>18696207
immature men are attracted to the mindless violence he portrays

>> No.18697059

>>18696207
I don't understand why people describe McCarthy as an intellectual. Same shit with Bob Dylan. He seems like an average dude with an average take on things who uses a thesaurus and avoids punctuation marks. There is nothing challenging about his work. I finished The Road and NCFOM, and never thought about them again. Also, the fact he waited until 2006 to publish the Road is hacky. Roadside Picnic, I am Legend, Mad Max 2, Zombies movies, etc. had already popularized the dystopian wastelands.

>> No.18697063

>>18697059
>muh popularity
why are burgers like this, lads?

>> No.18697069
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18697069

>>18697024
Filtered

>> No.18697072

>>18697063
He didn't even mention Fist of the North Star

>> No.18697078

>>18697059
>he waited until 2006 to publish the Road
He wrote the book in 6 weeks around the same time. He did not wait for anything
>McCarthy an intellectual
Most of his work is thematically significant. Those two minor minor McCarthy might not give the right impression.

>> No.18697087

>>18697063
Tarantino is constantly called a hack, but when McCarthy puts characters from a Beckett play in the world from A Canticle of Liebowitz, he gets praised.

>> No.18697096

>>18697059
>Zombies movies
McCarthy was born in 1933, one year after the first zombie movie was released, so I'm not sure what you mean.

>> No.18697107

>>18697087
When Tarantino writes something like Blood Meridian or Suttree or the Border trilogy he can sit with the big guys.

>> No.18697132

>>18697017
>Every teenager who had to read The Road in high school hated it.
no high school curriculum ever had the fucking road in it

>> No.18697142

>>18697132
t.non-American

>> No.18697147

>>18697132
I had to read it in American Lit 101 at uni, which is basically high school.

>> No.18697150

>>18697087
Besides Tarantino you are just dropping names of authors and books, yeah.

>> No.18697178

>>18697017
>Why is it so hard for you to cope with the fact that he is loved?
Yeah, lots of genre fiction authors are loved. That doesn't mean they are overly talented. He is an average contemporary writer that got filtered when he was younger and turned to a genre he could write safely in to make a living.

>> No.18697187

>>18697150
It's called using examples. Please don't respond to me if you have a double digit IQ.

>> No.18697188

>>18697178
He's canon now and even Bloom made a case for him. You're just salty because he doesn't like James and Proust, at least be honest.

>> No.18697195

>>18697178
>headcanon
>headcanon
>headcanon
>headcanon
This is bait, right? You can't be this retarded.

>> No.18697201

>>18697188
>Bloom
As OP said, it is just teens trying to prove themselves as intellectuals. The truth is if McCarthy wasn't an American no one would know his name.

>> No.18697220

>>18697201
Wrong and filtered. See: https://lithub.com/harold-bloom-on-cormac-mccarthy-true-heir-to-melville-and-faulkner/

>> No.18697227

>>18697187
Of things you have no idea about. Works of art don't work like that; what works for one doesn't work for the other. Divine Comedy may very well be fantasy literature but that is dumb. It has merits that fantasy lit doesn't have. Just throwing things together doesn't make an argument, retard. God you are fucking dumb!
>please don't respond to me if you have double digit IQ
Why? Too smart for you. That is still one digit more than what you have it seems. I should probably not waste my time with you.

>> No.18697236

>>18697220
Are you a big Dostoevsky fan as well?

>> No.18697237

>>18697236
I'm not a "fan" of anything.

>> No.18697244

>>18697237
For not being a fan, you sure are seething about some genre fiction and a critic who used every breath to try and lie about how fast he could read. I would guess Doestevsky is a favorite.

>> No.18697263

>>18697244
All you have is your shitty opinion, which means nothing since you've only read his two books from the 00s. Bloom is an actual crititc who has an aesthetic sense and can see things beyond the surface and I'm not sure why you insist on pejorative labels like an NPC.

>> No.18697270

>>18697017
>Every teenager who had to read The Road in high school hated it.

Now you are even inventing narratives in your head.

>> No.18697273

>>18697270
Only the retards hated it, then.

>> No.18697288

>>18697263
>you've only read his two books from the 00s
I think you are confusing me with someone else.
>Bloom is an actual crititc who has an aesthetic sense and can see things beyond the surface
Yes, I am the NPC.

>> No.18697305

>>18697288
>GENRE FICTION GENRE FICTION GENRE FICTION
>Yes, I am the NPC.
Yes.

>> No.18697354

>>18697270
You loved it?

>> No.18697358

>>18697288
Atleast Bloom wasn't lying about other persons that could be factually verified.
Unlike you>>18697178

>> No.18697359

The only author who attracts more pseuds is Pynchon.

>> No.18697364

>>18697359
>Filtered by both Pynch and CmaC
Sad existence

>> No.18697368

>>18696207
Holy shit, I just realized that the dude in OP's pic is McCarthy...
For some reason; I've always registered him as old in my mind.

>> No.18697369

>>18697368
well that photo is from 1973

>> No.18697374

>>18697364
It is what it is. Sorry, anon.

>> No.18697458

>>18697059
>average dude with an average take on things
filtered beyond belief

>> No.18697492

>>18697059
He has never called himself an intellectual. His writing is interesting, but it doesn't challenge like Pynchon or Joyce.

>> No.18697502

>>18697492
Pynchon doesn't challenge. It's like one or two steps above Vonnegut in terms of difficulty.

>> No.18698021

>>18697502
McCarthy doesn't challenge either. His worldview is same old 20th century bullshit.

>> No.18698129

>>18696207
except McCarthy is an enjoyable and easy to read author. Who the fuck thinks something like blood meridian is pretentious? It’s literally
>muh Wild West
>muh scalp Indians
>muh scary big man
>muh more killing Indians
>muh scary big man stories of people killing people
it’s written simply. The plot is simple. It’s just a well executed novel. Same with no country for old men

>> No.18698170

>>18696207
You just listed his worst books as his best, you shithead. You also sound like an insecure little faggot so I suggest you commit suicide.

>> No.18698239

>>18697492
Just because something is challenging does not make it good

>> No.18699148

>>18696207
Because his books continue to get shilled in high schools.
Just read Pynchon or DeLilio

>> No.18699201

>>18699148
>recommends shit for actual teen pseuds
You aren't very smart

>> No.18699228

>>18697178
And Herman Melville?

>> No.18699232

>>18697236
> McCarthy sucks
> Dostoevsky sucks
Just take your “muh literary fiction” hot takes somewhere else.

>> No.18699243

>>18699228
Don't bother anon. These people are retarded enough to not see that /lit/'s favourite novel is literally a reworking of shitty nautical fiction popular during mid 19th century. Hypocrisy at its finest.

>> No.18699253

What triggers people so much about him is that half the critique is true. His being American is essential to his writing and he very much does write what is essentially genre fiction, but so did Melville and Milton, who also inserted themselves firmly into their national literary canon. The stories that McCarthy writes are closer to the great epics of the Western literary canon than anything the authors who are celebrated by those who denigrate him ever wrote. The best part? It’s perfectly post-modern. The guy elevated what is essentially dime store fiction to the level of something deserving of a place among the great works of Western literature. Blood Meridian is THE singular contemporary epic of the English language and it was written by an American, for Americans, and that makes people seethe with rage and envy. They could not write the book if their life depended on it and that is a fact.

>> No.18699265

>>18699243
I’m suggesting the person I’m responding to is a retard, you retard. Perhaps you’ve not even read these books but I’m saying that if you think McCarthy is merely an author of “genre fiction”, which is supposed to be a slight but is a totally meaningless distinction parroted by pseuds, then so is Melville, an author who indisputably wrote one of the greatest works in the English language. It’s these kind of hot takes which are responsible for the wreckage of literature in our modern era, a group of pathetic and misanthropic wannabe intellectuals cloistered into circle jerk speculations of what is or isn’t “genre fiction”. They should be lined against the bookcase and shot for the sake of literature…in Minecraft.

>> No.18699291

>>18699265
What? I am literally agreeing with you. That's what I was getting at, those who denigrate Blood Meridian as genre fiction are the same people who ignore Melville's own genre influence. That is what I called hypocrisy. Retead my post

>> No.18699341

>>18696242
Have you heard of projection?

>> No.18699488

I believe Blood Meridian to be superior to Moby Dick.

>> No.18699603

>>18699488
I disagree entirely but literature would be boring if everyone agreed

>> No.18699622

>>18696242
>it's the book version of like beatles
I do enjoy all the grim, dark, depressing songs by this classic British band

>> No.18700672

>>18699253
>than anything the authors who are celebrated by those who denigrate him ever wrote.

Who are those authors?

>>18699253
>The guy elevated what is essentially dime store fiction to the level of something deserving of a place among the great works of Western literature.

How high a place?

>> No.18701042

>>18699243
>These people are retarded enough to not see that /lit/'s favourite novel is literally a reworking of shitty nautical fiction popular during mid 19th century. Hypocrisy at its finest.

Melville is not my favorite author. As a matter of fact I think he hit the target only once with Moby Dick.

However, apart from literary genre issues (which is no valid criticism: you can write in genre and still be a great writer), there is no way to compare Blood Meridian and Moby Dick. The latter has a poetic and metaphorical grandeur that is beyond anything you find in all of McCarthy's books. Furthermore, Melville's characters, although they are of that larger-than-life kind of characters (like Shakespeare's) are still human beings, with individuality, thoughts of their own, with the feeling that there is a mind inside their skulls.

In Blood Meridian you only have symbols and shreds of individuality. There's the great symbol of war-the-demon-the-demiurge-bla-bla-bla and all the other pseudo-characters orbiting it like flies.

A certain Anon once said here that in McCarthy's books characters are revealed not by their dialogue or descriptions of their thought process, but rather by their actions, by what is reported about them. If so, then why would a book like One Hundred Years of Solitude, which relies mostly on narrative alone (A did this and that, B did that and used to talk about this and that, C did this and that) to flesh out it's characters (instead of monologues, dialogues, descriptions of thought processes) is something so much greater and so much more human and mature than Blood Meridian?

>> No.18701234

>>18701042
I don't share your reverence for One hundred years of Solitude, which is a book with only a great first half and GGM's vision is squat fly in comparison with McCarthy's in BM.
To answer your question, In BM McCarthy's insistence is not on characters. The characters that show up have a historical constraint on them and even though McCarthy does take certain liberties with them, they don't deviate much from their historical counterparts. Judge is a great villain and The Kid is a reflection of the questions that come up in the book. Your comparison of them with De soledad is nonsensical, because BM is about savages, and moreover he doesn't try to relate these characters like he does in in his other books (even somebody as repulsive as Lester ballard is more sympathetic than them). I am beginning to doubt you read the book if something so obvious escaped you. GGM's characters, even with their flaws, are meant to be empathetic, McCarthy's aren't by design. Ironically, it is Mccarthy who writes closer to reality in BM, his characters included. Your "criticism" ("mature" lol) is a criticism of how people were, not of McCarthy's ability with characters.
Not being condescending, but it seems to me that your reading of it was very superficial (if there was one in the first place).
>The latter has a poetic and metaphorical grandeur that is beyond anything you find in all of McCarthy's books.
These are just string of words with absolutely no objective reality. Take this:
"McCarthy's imagery and use of English to achieve what he did in BM overpowers whatever Melville did in Moby Dick without hiding behind the Shakespearean aesthetic to deliver completely unrealistic speeches by entirely unassuming people"
This is as true as your "assertion".
I am also pretty sure you have not read "all of his books" so I would hold my horses before delivering a verdict.
>Melville's characters, although they are of that larger-than-life kind of characters (like Shakespeare's) are still human beings, with individuality, thoughts of their own, with the feeling that there is a mind inside their skulls.
They are more devices to put what Melville wants to on the page. No 19th century mariner is as eloquent a talker as Ishmael: the narrator apparent. That's an unrealistic premise to begin with.
>Blood Meridian you only have symbols and shreds of individuality. There's the great symbol of war-the-demon-the-demiurge-bla-bla-bla and all the other pseudo-characters orbiting it like flies.
Very reductive. Ironically these characters are closer to historical reality than any of Melville's. I could easily do the same "bla bla" for Melville who actually does use them as devices more than Mccarthy does.
Once again, you said nothing.

>> No.18701356

>>18701042
One more thing, forgot to add in the original reply.
>certain Anon once said here that in McCarthy's books characters are revealed not by their dialogue or descriptions of their thought process, but rather by their actions, by what is reported about them.
This is only partially true. McCarthy uses both action and dialogue to characterize. In Border trilogy there are many characters that rely entirely on dialogue for characterizations, probably because they don't have a long life in the narrative. (<dozen pages or so)
Reread his post or disregard whatever he said.

>> No.18701367

>>18696242
Really? Are you 18 or younger? I haven't ever heard of a single person mention BM outside of this place. Who gives a shit about being an intellectual nowadays? Who tf even reads but a small subset of /lit/?

>> No.18701465

>>18701234
>and GGM's vision is squat fly in comparison with McCarthy's in BM.

For me even if we count only the episodes of Prudencio Aguilar, who dies at the hand of José Arcadio Buendía, but ends up learning to love him in the long twilights in the country of death, in such a way that he has to search for him throughout the world, just to end up becoming the one who bathes and feeds his executor like a baby:

"Prudencio," he exclaimed. "You've come from a long way off!” After many years of death the yearning for the living was so intense, the need for company so pressing, so terrifying the nearness of that other death which exists within death, that Prudencio Aguilar had ended up loving his worst enemy. He had spent a great deal of time looking for him. He asked the dead from Riohacha about him, the dead who came from the Upar Valley, those who came from the swamp, and no one could tell him because Macondo was a town that was unknown to the dead until Melquíades arrived and marked it with a small black dot on the motley maps of death.
(...)
But actually, the only person with whom he was able to have contact for a long time was Prudencio Aguilar. Almost pulverized at that time by the decrepitude of death, Prudencio Aguilar would come twice a day to chat with him. They talked about fighting cocks. They promised each other to set up a breeding farm for magnificent birds, not so much to enjoy their victories, which they would not need then, as to have something to do on the tedious Sundays of death. It was Prudencio Aguilar who cleared him, fed him, and brought him splendid news of and unknown person called Aureliano who was a Colonel in the war.-

This alone, for me, is more significant than anything in BM. It's a sensitivity that's harder to envision. It is much easier to create a work of extreme nihilism and cosmic chaos than to understand the most painful and tender subtleties that exist in the entrails of humanity.

But this is my view. Nothing against other opinions.

>> No.18701497

>>18701465
I understand even though I disagree strongly, especially on this:
>It is much easier to create a work of extreme nihilism and cosmic chaos than to understand the most painful and tender subtleties that exist in the entrails of humanity
If you have a passing fascination for McCarthy then Suttree will be right up your alley given your leanings. Which is also where I base my disagreement; there is a reason why Blood Meridian is his opus.

>> No.18701862

>>18701497
Yes, Suttree is McCarthy's exception. The rest is nothing remarkable. Perhaps in that way, he really is Melville's successor.

>> No.18702726

>>18701862
4chan really is just populated by contrarians

>> No.18702759

>>18696207
Teens like dark themes.

>> No.18702866

>>18702726
>You can't think a single author is overrated
Yes, surely I am the NPC here.

>> No.18702892

Is BM actually only 280 pages long? I found a PDF but I thought it would be longer

>> No.18702915

>>18702892
It'll feel a lot longer. There's a lot to parse. It benefits from rereads, there's a lot of "long term alliteration" where scenes and themes are repeated in differing contexts to illustrate different facets of the same thing.

>> No.18702977

>>18696242
My favorite book is The Crossing, and my taste in media is in fact better and more obscure than yours. I'm also way smarter and better looking. Gonna cry about it?

>> No.18702981

>>18702866
Not just that, you purposely decided to pick his second best work and said it was his only remarkable one to show that not only are you smarter than McCarthy fans for knowing he's shit, you're also smarter than them for know what his best work actually is!

>> No.18703002

>>18702981
>You can't disagree with the popular opinion of what an Author's greatest work is

>> No.18703011
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18703011

>>18703002

>> No.18704218

>>18696207
Suttree is the true comac kino.