/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.533227]

So, I decided to sit down and read some of McCarthy's work. People were always raving about how brilliant he was, and so I finally broke down and started reading.

I started with The Road, since it seems to be his most famous work.

My first impression? This guy is fucking pretentious. He writes 10 words when 3 would have sufficed. He intentionally over-complicates the language for some unknown reason. I'm now about half way through the book, and I still haven't decided whether I like it or not. The plot concept and imagery both help to keep it interesting, but I can't get past his style.

What are your thoughts on The Road, or McCarthy's work as a whole?

[Anonymous No.533234]

I don't care for him either, OP.

[Anonymous No.533240]

Pretentious: it does not mean what you think it means. Stop using it.

[Anonymous No.533242]

>>533227
itt: retards who didn't understand the book

[Anonymous No.533247]

>>533227

>over-complicates the language for some unknown reason

what are you, retarded? The language is very efficient and simple. Now and then he throws out a complicated sentence, but usually it's pretty hemingwayesque. Simple, direct and to the point.

You must not have a good vocabulary OP.

[Anonymous No.533250]

obvious troll is obvious

[Anonymous No.533261]

>The Road
>Overcomplicated language

Dohohohoho, good show OP

[Anonymous No.533265]

>>533240

2. Making or marked by an extravagant outward show; ostentatious.

Nope, it means exactly what I intended it to mean.

>>533247

You're misinterpreting what I mean. I can read it just fine. I just feel that he intentionally attempts to make it more difficult than it has to be. There is simply no reason for his verbosity.

[Anonymous No.533272]

>McCarthy over complicating language.

Hey OP, when you finish the Road I have another book you might like better.

[Anonymous No.533281]

>>533265

>I just feel that he intentionally attempts to make it more difficult than it has to be.

Refer to this : >>533272

[Anonymous No.533283]

I must agree. The Road was a shit book.

[Anonymous No.533288]

The reason good writers of prose and poetry alike 'over complicate the language' is to show their mastery over the language.

[Anonymous No.533295]

>>533288

no it's because it better expresses what they are trying to communicate


the bad writers do it because it makes them 'seem skilled'

[Anonymous No.533298]

If you think The Road was hard, try reading Blood Meridian, AM I RIGHT, GUYS?!?!?!?

[Anonymous No.533301]

"The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" was my first chapter book. You should try that one instead, OP.

[Anonymous No.533307]

Also the only McCarthy that I've read (well, audiobooked through...). Good, but I wouldn't say great. It certainly felt a bit too long in the end, while he does try to make all the events varied enough, it does eventually come back to the same stuff over and over again. starving, looking for food. cough cough cough. we're the good guys, everything will be alright. ash ash ash. people eat people. ash ash ash. papa I'm really scared. cough cough cough. eat canned food. fire fire fire. cough cough cough. ash ash ash. etc. etc. etc.

I hear that Blood Meridian is his Magnum Opus, so I'll hold my judgment on the man for now.

[Anonymous No.533310]

The English language comprises more words than any other language. This allows for much more nuanced meaning, if the person using the language is careful about the words he/she uses. McCarthy is really careful. Now, whether or not you have the patience to deal with unfamiliar vocab is a different issue, but he's not regurgitating thesaurus entries.

[Anonymous No.533318]

>>533247
It's simple but he has a way of trying to make everything seem more fateful, almost biblical, than it is, like each action is this huge monumental task and full of gloom and doom. Sure this works for for some scenes when things are huge and monumental but when you use it all the time it kind of undermines your work a bit.

Also when I read the Road and found the characters and story a bit thin. They wander around a lot, hide from the cannibals, and protect the 'fire' as the book puts it. Sure you see the father struggle with his humanity a bit but for it's length I felt the plot and character development didn't accomplish much.

I haven't read any of this other books but from just reading The Road I kind of got the impression that Cormac McCarthy is kind of more famous for the way he writes and his style and not what he writes, which I found a tad pretentious. To me writing is about storytelling, if I wanted to read something eloquent with a neat style without much substance I'd read poetry.

It was an okay book, I'm just not sure why the critics go nuts over it.

[Anonymous No.533317]

>>533295

You've just demonstrated that you have no idea what you're talking about. Good writers write for the same reasons good painters paint. They want to create a beautiful work of art.

Truly beautiful literature is create by those who have mastered the language and wish to show how it can be manipulated to make something special.

[Anonymous No.533316]

>>533307
Oh, and Blood Meridian is a great book, and you're right that it's often cited as his best, but I think Suttree is better.

[Anonymous No.533315]

McCarthy's writing style is very blunt and to the point. When he does go into detail it is awe inspiring. As long as we are talking about this great author I would have to suggest the book in my pic over The Road.

[Anonymous No.533314]

>>533298

blood meridian is harder than the road, it also uses a lot of obscure jargon

but it works and is pretty badass...

remember that long sentence describing the horde of crazy mexicans and indians wearing random clothing lol that shit was awesome

someone copypasta it plz

[Anonymous No.533350]

>>533317

I disagree. Anyone writing a sentence in order to show that "they've mastered language (lol" is a horrible writer with no substance, and probably doesn't have much to say.

Painters don't paint because they've mastered strokes and mixing colors, they paint because they are trying to express something meaningful.

Writing or painting in order to show-off, in order to flex your muscles, is what amateurs do.

[Anonymous No.533388]

>>533314
I was trying to be sarcastic. Blood Meridian is one of the most complexly written books I've ever read.

And I believe the section you're looking for is:

They were Chiricahuas, twenty, twenty-five of them. Even with the sun up it was not above freezing and yet they sat their horses half naked, naught but boots and breechclouts and the plumed hide helmets they wore, stoneage savages daubed in clay paints in obscure charges, greasy, stinking, the paint on the horses pale under the dust and the horses prancing and blowing cold. They carried lances and bows and a few had muskets and they had long black hair and dead black eyes that cut among the riders studying their arms, the sclera bloodshot and opaque. None spoke even to another and they shouldered their horses through the party in a sort of ritual movement as if certain points of ground must be trod in a certain sequence as in a child's game yet with some terrible forfeit at hand.

It's on page 228 in my edition.

[Anonymous No.533399]

>>533350

You've either never had a college level literature course or never had a professor that teaches it properly.

Having something to say is just a piece of a much grander scale. If you've ever studied English Literature then you've more than likely read the works of writers who put most of their focus into manipulating language. Petrarchan poets, Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Donne, etc. All of these people knew how to manipulate language and were eager to show the world just how learned they were. All of them are still studied today precisely because their language is so complex and organized even on a subliminal level.

[Anonymous No.533423]

>>533388

close but no, there is a mob of mexican/indians stampeding towards a group of soldiers, the indians are wearing mismatched clothes, one is wearing a wedding gown.

the sentence is long, like half a page long.

[Anonymous No.533450]

Found it. Amazing sentence. Holy Shit.
--

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 sabre 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.

[Anonymous No.533453]

>>533317

I really don't think that the majority of good writers write as a showcase for their skill in manipulating language.

[Anonymous No.533454]

>>533423

"The lattermost of the drovers were now coming through the dust and the captain was gesturing and shouting. The ponies had begun to veer off from the herd and the drovers were beating their way toward this armed company met with on the plain. Already you could see through the dust on the ponies? hides the painted chevrons and the hands and rising suns and birds and fish of every device like the shade of old work through sizing on a canvas and now too you could hear above the pounding of the unshod hooves the piping of the quena, flutes made from human bones, and some among the company had begun to saw back on their mounts and some to mill in confusion when .... (had to cut - field too long)

[Anonymous No.533460]

>>533454

up from the offside of those ponies there rose a fabled horde of mounted lancers and archers bearing shields bedight with bits of broken mirrorglass that cast a thousand unpieced suns against the eyes of their enemies. 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 uniforms 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 sabre 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.

"Oh my god, said the sergeant."

[Anonymous No.533470]

>>533423
>>533450
>>533460

Blood Meridian IS the great american novel of the later 20th century. Sorry. Not only does the man have something profound to say about philosophy, morality, and human nature here, but he also says it with a style that destroys the fuck out of the tired postmodern, truly pretentious, self-referential literary culture he somehow avoided getting caught up in.

[Anonymous No.533471]

>>533450

>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.

OMFG

[Anonymous No.533480]

>>533242

itt: hipsters who think they "get" things.

[Anonymous No.533487]

>>533453

Maybe not all of them do it purely to showcase their mastery, but most of them showcase it anyway. To deny this is to show your ignorance in the matter.

The stuff that's going to matter in years to come, the stuff that will be added to anthologies to be studied in college courses, is going to be the stuff that's written by people who show a profound skill in using the English language.

[Anonymous No.533490]

>>533471

I know. When I read that in a lit class at ISU, I came buckets right there in my dorm room.

on-topic, the road is also good, and it uses a pared-back version of his meridian virtuoso style that was obviously very well-calculated to be more accessible to non-literary-elite audiences.

[Anonymous No.533494]

>>533471

Holy fuck that's epic.

[Anonymous No.533500]

>>533399

Are you a troll? but anyway, yes, they were masters at manipulating language, yes they were able to use language in a way that was "complex and organized even on a subliminal level"; but their mastery of language was a tool to be employed to poignantly convey concepts, ideas, stories, etc.

[HP Lovecraft No.533511]

>>533471

>the nameless creatures' faces slimy and gibbous with daubings like a company of necrophagus elder beings, creeping, all howling in a blasphemous tongue and crawling upon them like a horde from some nameless galaxy more horrible yet than the brimstone land of christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in slime like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the the great god Azathoth dances idiotically to the insane piping of cosmic flutists at the blackened center of chaos

[Anonymous No.533517]

>>533500

And the message is entirely irrelevant to the quality of the work. Good writers understand this.

[Anonymous No.533519]

The Road is probably the most depressing thing I've ever read. I've never read any of his other books always get distracted and take something else.

[Anonymous No.533524]

>>533399

paying attention to language and structure is NOT the same as writing in-order-to-show-off-your-linguistic-muscles.

What you are talking about is what amateurs do, what insecure writers do, and what artists with no substance do.

What kind of superficial asshole sits down and thinks, "oh man how can I make people appreciate my awesome writing skills?"

the kind of superficial asshole that never amounts to anything.

[Anonymous No.533531]

>>533517


are you female or a troll?

durrrppp shiny and pretty things = art hurrrrrrrr

[Anonymous No.533532]

>>533519

[Anonymous No.533539]

Just doing a quick close reading of that infamous passage, I see that McCarthy is performing a delicate balancing act between a variety of devices:

1. Hyperbole, evident in his extreme and multitudinous description,

2. Acting in tandem with a transgressive subject matter and

3. stream of consciousness-inspired punctuation to overload the senses of the reader, making even the most jaded critic just as awed as the fictional witnesses of this native charge are supposed to be.

4. Cacophany, to further heighten the chaotic, swirling, senseless feel of the loose, long sentences.

And the remarkable thing is how his register can change from this to incredibly restrained just a few moments later in the story. He has true range.

[TractorRapeChain !c/B.ZMvzbw No.533541]

I know I'm probably beating a dead horse here, but McCarthy is always compared to one of two authors; Melville and Hemingway. Melville is usually used as a comparison to his works like Blood Meridian, where he uses anachronistic sentence structure and diction on purpose, and Hemingway is used to describe works like No Country For Old Men, where he employs the same "iceberg theory", in which the sentences are deceptively simple because the real meaning is between the lines.

[Anonymous No.533543]

>>533517

[Anonymous No.533546]

I think some people here are confusing writing with storytelling. It's pretty hard to define writing as just "writing" when there are so many levels to it.

There are great linguists, like Shakespeare, whose work you can stare at for hours on end just reading the same passage over and over because of the immense complexity and depth to it, then there are great storytellers like Stephen King that you can spend hours getting immense pleasure out of, but not necessarily be any the wiser by the end of it.

Doesn't change the fact that both are pinnacles of literature, if in very different senses of it.

[Anonymous No.533548]

>>533541
I've heard him compared to Melville, but never Hemingway. And I've heard him compared to Faulkner way more than either of those two.

[Anonymous No.533552]

>>533517

actually good writers disagree.
quality fiction lasts centuries mostly because of the message, style changes frequently but the timeless concepts and struggles keep classics alive

shakespear's plays are read because of their message is always relevant, the style isn't very impressive anymore...the language is fine, the soliloquies are well done,

but overall Substance trumps Style

[Anonymous No.533559]

>>533546

Yeah, storytelling and writing, as you put it, are both perfectly legitimate forms of literature.

It's just the writers who put forth the effort into organizing their language are going to be considered more important down the road.

[Anonymous No.533561]

>
>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.

[Anonymous No.533565]

>>533517
>>533552

Your argument is invalid in this thread b/c McCarthy has both substance and style.

I read Blood Meridian as the bravest unrecognized challenge to nihilism yet, and his stylistic virtues are already on display here.

[Anonymous No.533572]

>>533565

I'm not disagreeing that McCarthy has both substance and style. I'm actually not saying anything either way.

But I will say I personally think that McCarthy will be considered a very important recent writer.

[TractorRapeChain !c/B.ZMvzbw No.533574]

>>533548

I thought it'd be a bit odd to compare him to Faulkner considering everyone already kind of does anyways. While I think it's an apt comparison, I think the fact that their both basically Southerners that write about Southern people doing Southern things makes the comparison all the more overused.

[HP Lovecraft No.533577]

>>533511

[Anonymous No.533580]

>>533511

What the fuck? Is this real? I don't read Lovecraft.

[Anonymous No.533582]

>>533559

correction, writers who excel in style and substance will be remembered.

substance without style is tedious and boring

style without substance is pointless and impotent

[Anonymous No.533587]

>>533577
>>533580
>>533577

no he just edited a Mccarthy sentence and added some lovecraftian shit to it

[Anonymous No.533611]

>>533552

What's so hard for you to understand that mastery of the language isn't a shallow endeavor to portray in writing? It's quite the opposite. Anyone can give a great timeless message and convey ideas but to do that while organizing the language you use takes the work of a truly talented artist.

No, manipulation of language is not a shallow thing to do in language, even if it's to show off.

[Anonymous No.533620]

>>533574
Maybe you're right, but that has nothing to do with what you originally said. Your use of the passive voice in that first post makes it seem like you're talking about a bunch of reviews or something, not making up your own comparisons.

[Anonymous No.533624]

>>533582
>correction, writers who excel in style and substance will be remembered.

No correction necessary. You seem to be under the impression that I don't consider the message important. Like I posted earlier, the message is only a small piece of the larger scale. People have told the same fables for years but the people who tell it the most skillfully are the ones to be remembered.

Do you understand where I'm coming from yet?

[Anonymous No.533634]

Again, saying that good literature simply needs to have both substance and style is just as shortsighted as saying either one of those parts trumps the other.

You can have three great novels, one great because of the use of language, one great because of the narrative and characterisation, and one great because of the way it integrates both together.

Essentially what everyone is trying to do in this thread is define "good writing".
If it were that simple no one would ever bother with the extremes, that's what makes literature literature.

[CHARLIEDAVIES !!1kRbQk6QZ28 No.533639]

so pretty much everyone else really likes this book?

[Anonymous No.533651]

>>533639

Sigh. I do. I mean, I am able to see why it's not everybody's bag, too. I read his stuff at the right time in my intellectual development, and it resonated deeply with me. The man gave me hope for a deeply rich, valuable literary tradition in America well into the 21st century.

[Anonymous No.533678]

>>533634

I can actually agree with this. Trying to make literature as concrete as math or science is, imo, very misguided.

If you read critics today, you'd almost expect that they hated reading and wonder why they do it. It's because they're trying to subject literature to a standard that need not be met.

In a way, I'm trying to say that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Good writing can come from people who are masters of the language and show this through their works or from people who just want to tell a good story. As I've said both are completely legitimate methods of writing.

To me, judging whether you like a book is an internal experience. Only you can pick up a book and know for yourself when you're reading something special.

[Anonymous No.533786]

>>533227

>People were always raving about how brilliant he was
>how brilliant he was
>he

Protip: Cormac McCarthy is a woman.

Stop embarassing yourself.

[Anonymous No.533792]

>>533634

my standards are too high, there are too many books with both good substance and style

no need to settle for anything less, anything less is just obscene pornography.

[Anonymous No.533815]

>>533792
>Standards.

My, nothing's small on you. Except your ego that is.

[Anonymous No.533828]

>PRETENTIOUS