Cormac McCarthy's The Road: A deserved Pulitzer winner?

[Raven Falcon.]

I've come across few articles that lament about Cormac McCharthy untotal adherence to the English grammar.
But there is this one article that goes further than the other pretentious "criticism" by stating that McCharthy's prose is similiar to that of a high school student.

It is unfortunate that I cannot exactly remember the link. For that I apologize.

Let me just say that "The Road" prose style hearkens to both Faulkner's dense prose and Hemmingway's stylistic sparseness.
The writing is balanced.

The dialog is realistic: Do you speak much when you got nothing to speak about?

The grammar Nazis that exist these days are too arrogant.

[Austin Butler]

I'm glad McCarthy is getting his due. He's a dying breed of novelist and he's been at it as long as anyone else I can think of. The Road was better than McDermott or Powers' books that were up for nomination. In response to the grammar zealots, McCarthy writes novels, not essays or research papers. He has exhibited in the past that he is fully aware of how to use english grammar. He simply chooses not to.

Those unwilling to read or enjoy McCarthy's novels because some lack commas are doing a disservice to themselves (and frankly, to McCarthy. To judge a novel solely based on its grammatical content is both unprofessional and unfair.)

As for the dialogue, I'd say they speak about a lot, but they don't speak much.

[fb0252]

I can only comment on McCarthy's "All The Pretty Horses", and note that I'd be unpersuaded after that book to waste another min. on C. McCarthy. My evaluation was--clumsy, lacking first rate intelligence. but, i know nothing, obviously.

[ChicagoReader]

McCarthy is probably my favorite living author, I hear he's in consideration for the nobel but I could be wrong. Also, in my opinion, Blood Meridian is noticeably his best novel. I don't get bothered by his lack of proper grammar, if anything, I enjoy it.

[dfloyd]

Hemingway had Across the River and into the Trees, Fitzgerald had The Beautiful and the Damned, Faulkner had several novels not up to his readers' expectations. Cormac McCarthy has The Road. I don't look at grammar so much as I do story line and characters, and my criticisms of The Road are concerning its repetitivenes and maudlin sentimentality. Cormac has written some good stuff, but The Road is not one of them.

[Big Dante]

Just finished The Road. (About 2 minutes before I'm typing this) I read the first 100 pages a month ago and tried my best too get into it but I couldn't and ended up leaving it for a while. 2 days ago I decided to go back and read it and loved it. Everything in the novel is deliberate, the simplistic writing and all. While at first I struggled with it I now admire him for using such a unique aproach to writing.

[WyattGwyon]

[QUOTE=Raven Falcon.;1073066]I've come across few articles that lament about Cormac McCharthy untotal adherence to the English grammar.
But there is this one article that goes further than the other pretentious "criticism" by stating that McCharthy's prose is similiar to that of a high school student.

Whoever wrote this is a moron. McCarthy writes some of the cleanest, leanest, most precise, most original and beautiful prose of any recent novelist. His style is quite varied, however. Suttree, arguably his best, is often extravagantly lush. Giving the award for The Road is simply an acknowledgment that they failed (egregiously) to recognize at least five of the best novels written in the late 20thc.

fb0252: I agree completely with your final conclusion!

Chicago: There are a few I like better than Blood Meridian but that one too is award worthy.

[Raven Falcon.]

[QUOTE=Raven Falcon.;1073066]I've come across few articles that lament about Cormac McCharthy untotal adherence to the English grammar.
But there is this one article that goes further than the other pretentious "criticism" by stating that McCharthy's prose is similiar to that of a high school student.

Whoever wrote this is a moron. McCarthy writes some of the cleanest, leanest, most precise, most original and beautiful prose of any recent novelist. His style is quite varied, however. Suttree, arguably his best, is often extravagantly lush. Giving the award for The Road is simply an acknowledgment that they failed (egregiously) to recognize at least five of the best novels written in the late 20thc.

fb0252: I agree completely with your final conclusion!

Chicago: There are a few I like better than Blood Meridian but that one too is award worthy. I agree. Even some scientists are impressed by the authenticity of McCarthy's version of post-apocalyptic setting.

[ChicagoReader]

Hemingway had Across the River and into the Trees, Fitzgerald had The Beautiful and the Damned, Faulkner had several novels not up to his readers' expectations. Cormac McCarthy has The Road. I don't look at grammar so much as I do story line and characters, and my criticisms of The Road are concerning its repetitivenes and maudlin sentimentality. Cormac has written some good stuff, but The Road is not one of them.

I don't know how many McCarthy books you have read but surely The Road is not his worst. If anything I would think, and most others as well, that No Country for Old Men is his "worst" novel because he wrote it in order to become a movie. Like Dante said, everything in The Road is deliberate. There are many religious allusions which expand the novel to far more than an apocalyptic survival story. Also, the relationship between the father and son alone should give this book some appreciation, considering especially the fact that he dedicated the book to his own son.

[varnish7]

Personally, I didn't like The Road. I had no problem with the writing style, but I just couldn't suspend my disbelief while reading the story. It was like the author was basically saying, "this world is completely awful and without hope.", and expecting the reader to take that at face value. There are hardly any concrete details about who these people are and why the world is like this. Plus, whatever information was given seemed contradictory to me.

[country doctor]

the doc's opinion?

no country for old men > the road

ROAR!

[wee_ragamuffin]

McCarthy is probably my favorite living author, I hear he's in consideration for the nobel but I could be wrong. Also, in my opinion, Blood Meridian is noticeably his best novel. I don't get bothered by his lack of proper grammar, if anything, I enjoy it.

Couldn't agree more. Blood Meridian is one of the finest pieces of prose written in the last 30 years, and The Road was more than deserving of the Pulitzer Prize.

Here's to hoping he gets the Nobel!

[MrSchmiggles]

Oh my god. I can't believe that intelligent people can read Cormac McCarthy and seriously believe he deserves the Nobel Prize... it is absolutely astonishing.

He doesn't deserve a Nobel Prize. He doesn't deserve a Pulitzer, either. The only thing he deserves is a hearty congratulations for fooling so many people into believing that his sophomoric work as a writer is actually literature.

He might be the most overrated writer of all time.

The OP compares McCarthy to Faulkner and Hemingway... First of all, Faulkner and Hemingway were innovators. Back then, it wasn't "cool" to write stream-of-consciousness prose. It wasn't in style with the local high school crowd, like it is today. In addition, particularly with Faulkner, the stream-of-consciousness actually served a purpose: his characters, such as in Light in August, aren't normal people and don't think the way that normal people do.

On top of that, McCarthy's execution is amateurish. Yes, I would describe the following excerpt from The Road as high-school quality:


When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world.
"Nights dark beyond...." (wait for it) "....darkness." Seriously? This is "literature" I'm reading?

"The days more gray than the what had gone before..."
Total cliche. I'm fine with a few cliches in a literary novel, but McCarthy's are absolutely full of them. I was the editor of my high school literary magazine, and I can say with full honesty that if you hadn't told me differently, I'd believe that a high schooler had written the quoted passage--because I've read the same melodramatic, stream of conciousness BS dozens upon dozens of times.

Now let's compare McCarthy to Faulkner, from Light in August:

That night they talked. They lay in the bed, in the dark, talking. Or he talked, that is. All the time he was thinking 'Jesus. Jesus. So this is it.' He lay naked too, beside her, touching her with his hand and talking about her. Not about where she had come from and what she had even done, but about her body as if no one had ever done this before, with her or with anyone else. It was as if with speech he were learning about women's bodies, with the curiosity of a child.
Now that's what I call literary writing. I have never read anything in all of McCarthy's work that I could claim made me stop and think for a few minutes about something. He is incapable of this level of intelligent writing, and that's why I don't consider him to be a literary writer.

His novels are centered almost entirely around scenes, even themes of melodrama. It's like he picked them out of a hat--"Hmm, what can I write about next? I know! The relationship between a boy and a father figure! Yeah, that's so original and I'm really a genius!" :rolleyes:

He doesn't develop original themes; he recycles them.

As for the person who said his modeling of a post-apocalyptic world was spot on--who cares? It's been done a million times, and it's been just as well--if not better. Go read other post-apocalyptic books; Alas, Babylon is a great example.

There are literally hundreds of books about life in a post-apocalyptic world. McCarthy does not deserve a Pulitzer Prize for "creating" something that has been done for a hundred years, ever since H.G. Wells penned "War of the Worlds."

McCarthy is borderline literature at best, and it's ridiculous to suggest that he should even be considered for a Nobel Prize. History will not remember as a great writer.... mark my words. He is pure hype.

[fb0252]

i'd say u about nailed it.

[Stewed]

I didn't like The Road. Not 'cause of grammar.

[WyattGwyon]

McCarthy is borderline literature at best, and it's ridiculous to suggest that he should even be considered for a Nobel Prize. History will not remember as a great writer.... mark my words. He is pure hype.

Mr. Schmiggles,

Given your scathing critique of McCarthy's work—of his whole oeuvre, no less—it would perhaps be appropriate to let us know which of his novels you have read. You only cite The Road, which most McCarthy fans consider to be a minor work—and only a single passage at that. A comprehensive evaluation of an author's work such as you have given ought to address the novels widely recognized to be his best, don't you think? With this in mind, perhaps you could give us your opinion of Suttree and Blood Meridian, the two novels most consistently praised by those who like his work.

I am also curious about what you might think of a more famous passage, like the following:

"Peering down into the water where the morning sun fashioned wheels of light, coronets fanwise in which lay trapped each twig, each grain of sediment, long flakes and blades of light in the dusty water sliding away like optic strobes where motes sifted and spun. A hand trails over the gunwale and he lies athwart the skiff, the toe of one sneaker plucking periodic dimples in the river with the boat's slight cradling, drifting down beneath the bridge and slowly past the mud-stained stanchions. Under the high cool arches and dark keeps of the span's undercarriage where pigeons babble and the hollow flap of their wings echo in stark applause. Glancing up at these cathedraled vaultings with their fossil woodknots and pseudomorphic nailheads in gray concrete, drifting, the bridge's slant shadow leaning the width of the river with that headlong illusion postulate in old cupracers frozen on photoplates, their wheels elliptic with speed. These shadows form over the skiff, accommodate his prone figure and pass on."

Anyone who feels qualified to critique the whole of McCarthy's work has to know this passage, of course!

Thanks in advance for your considered response.

[ChicagoReader]

Mr. Schmiggles,

Given your scathing critique of McCarthy's work—of his whole oeuvre, no less—it would perhaps be appropriate to let us know which of his novels you have read. You only cite The Road, which most McCarthy fans consider to be a minor work—and only a single passage at that. A comprehensive evaluation of an author's work such as you have given ought to address the novels widely recognized to be his best, don't you think? With this in mind, perhaps you could give us your opinion of Suttree and Blood Meridian, the two novels most consistently praised by those who like his work.

I am also curious about what you might think of a more famous passage, like the following:

"Peering down into the water where the morning sun fashioned wheels of light, coronets fanwise in which lay trapped each twig, each grain of sediment, long flakes and blades of light in the dusty water sliding away like optic strobes where motes sifted and spun. A hand trails over the gunwale and he lies athwart the skiff, the toe of one sneaker plucking periodic dimples in the river with the boat's slight cradling, drifting down beneath the bridge and slowly past the mud-stained stanchions. Under the high cool arches and dark keeps of the span's undercarriage where pigeons babble and the hollow flap of their wings echo in stark applause. Glancing up at these cathedraled vaultings with their fossil woodknots and pseudomorphic nailheads in gray concrete, drifting, the bridge's slant shadow leaning the width of the river with that headlong illusion postulate in old cupracers frozen on photoplates, their wheels elliptic with speed. These shadows form over the skiff, accommodate his prone figure and pass on."

Anyone who feels qualified to critique the whole of McCarthy's work has to know this passage, of course!

Thanks in advance for your considered response.

Thank you, to equate McCarthy's prose to that of an average high school student is blasphemy. And I also agree that Blood Meridian and Suttree are his best, any high school student who can write as well as McCarthy deserves all the respect in the world.

[Stewed]

I don't get the impression he's no good at all, but I do suspect he's over-rated. I've only read The Road, and Outer Dark years and years ago. Would someone who disliked The Road be likely to find Blood Meridian worthwhile?

[stlukesguild]

Oh my god. I can't believe that intelligent people can read Cormac McCarthy and seriously believe he deserves the Nobel Prize... it is absolutely astonishing.

He doesn't deserve a Nobel Prize. He doesn't deserve a Pulitzer, either. The only thing he deserves is a hearty congratulations for fooling so many people into believing that his sophomoric work as a writer is actually literature.

He might be the most overrated writer of all time.

Well that pretty much seals it. We all must defer to Mr. Jing-a-ling who in his first post dismisses to opinions of any and all readers who find McCarthy to be an exemplary author including the literary judges of the Pulitzer, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Award, and Harold Bloom. But Mr. Jing-a-ling has spoken.

I was the editor of my high school literary magazine, and I can say with full honesty that if you hadn't told me differently, I'd believe that a high schooler had written the quoted passage--because I've read the same melodramatic, stream of conciousness BS dozens upon dozens of times.

Ah! Well that surely wraps things up. How can I even dare to think of questioning someone with such credentials. Harold Bloom and those idiots at the Pulitzer must have been mad!

Originally Posted by Cormac McCarthy
When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world.

"Nights dark beyond...." (wait for it) "....darkness." Seriously? This is "literature" I'm reading?

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

Indeed! The use of repetition in literature is so amateurish! Surely these writers could afford a thesaurus.

Would someone who disliked The Road be likely to find Blood Meridian worthwhile?

Personally I found Blood Meridian to be one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) novels I have read from the last 30 or 40 years. It was an absolutely eye-opening experience... at once harrowing and beautiful... poetic even. But what do I know? I was never the editor of my high school literary magazine.


(Grovels with envy)

[Ragnar Freund]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]
We all must defer to Mr. Jing-a-ling who in his first post dismisses to opinions of any and all readers who find McCarthy to be an exemplary author including the literary judges of the Pulitzer, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Award, and Harold Bloom. But Mr. Jing-a-ling has spoken.


Nothing is easier than pointing to experts' opinions and saying, They're on my side, so there! Harold Bloom vehemently opposes some Nobel Literature Prize choices, so who's right there? What committee of experts wins? Your argument runs itself into a wall. With some work, surely McCarthy's detractors can find experts who agree that McCarthy is over-rated, and then the argument becomes a juvenile My expert is better than your expert nonsense. Neither McCarthy's detractors nor his supporters have made any substantive arguments here.

[Rores28]

I don't get the impression he's no good at all, but I do suspect he's over-rated. I've only read The Road, and Outer Dark years and years ago. Would someone who disliked The Road be likely to find Blood Meridian worthwhile?

Blood Meridian makes The Road look like it was written by a high school student perhaps. It is leagues better, though if you disliked The Road because of its persistent baroque descriptions of landscape Blood Meridian may not be for you. I'm no literature student or professor or anything but I've read a fair amount, and this is in the upper echelon of my favorite novels. It was so good at times that I was incredulous.

As a fan of literature I think you at least need to give it a shot.

[Austin Butler]

My advice to those who found The Road boring or amateurish is to read Blood Meridian, Suttree, Child of God (which I think is often overlooked), and/or All the Pretty Horses. All the Pretty Horses is perhaps the most accesible and celebrated by the public. There are those who dislike McCarthy, for his (lack of) grammar, themes, (lack of) portrayal of women, ecstatic violence, etc. but those claims come from having read several works. I think McCarthy has made an incredible journey through the course of his work. While his novels focus on similar issues, to see how his writing has changed and the breadth of capturing the continent's geography from the Appalachians to the Devil's Highway is as exciting to see him go from eating tins of beans to winning the Pulitzer.

[jake21221]

I struggle with McCarthy. I read The Road and I honestly didn't like it very much. It wasn't the grammar it was just the narration it got on my nerves and I finished it and I wasn't impressed. Now it's been awhile since I read it and I don't want to go on about it because I may get some facts wrong but lets just leave it at I didn't care for the book.

Now with writers like McCarthy where lots of people say he's amazing and love his work, I try not to judge them by one book. So I decided to read All The Pretty Horses. That might of been one of the most torturous reading experiences in my entire life. Just dull. I never finished the thing, I felt no love for the characters, I had no interest in the plot and I just found it hard to keep flipping the pages. However I bought it from a used bookstore and I happened to have a little extra dough in my pocket and picked up another McCarthy book when I bought All The Pretty Horses. The book was Child of God.

I decided since the book was very short and McCarthy was very respected this will be his final shot. If I don't like this I can say I gave him a chance and I just don't like him. Well the book was the most disturbing thing I've ever read. (and I've read some disturbing crap) The book can't be more than 200 pages long and it took me about say 3 weeks to read. Entering that world was a scary, lonesome experience and Lester was simply repulsive. Now I didn't hate the book. I found the story interesting it was just very hard to read. Lester was an inhuman, sick, twisted, evil, evil, evil man. But I wanted to know what happened to him.When I finished it I felt relieved, I could finally move on from this dark book. I realized though that any book than can evoke that kind of response from me is a special thing and McCarthy obviously has talent. Since then I still haven't read anything by him because that book was so...traumatic. I will return to him eventually but for now I want to stay away.