Cormac McCarthy

[jake21221]

OK I need help on this one. I've read numerous Cormac books and I like them but I don't get why people adore him so much. I find his characters so incredibly one dimensional and I NEVER feel anything for them (except for Lester Ballad but those were VERY bad feelings.) I read Blood Meridian recently and his use of language is great but his characters are so exceptionally bland mere vehicles for him to get his message out nothing more nothing less.

I also don't feel like theres much to his books. They always feel very shallow to me and I end up taking away very little if anything from them.

I realize this is my opinion and I'm not asking you to try to help me see why I'm an idiot and McCarthy is a genius I'm asking why YOU think he's good.

P.S The books I've read are Blood Meridian, All The Pretty Horses, Child of God and No Country For Old Men. I feel like I'm missing one but I'm not sure what.

[Jack of Hearts]

He's amazing and what's more amazing is that pop culture tracks him like it does. Particularly great if you liked reading William Faulkner. What you're experiencing may be just a matter of taste. You don't like him- you're allowed that, in the same way this reader thinks Hemingway is good and played an important role in developing writing techniques but great reading he is not. There's just no talking to people like us- we're ignorant, stupid, miss the point, etc. But maybe it's one of those things you just don't like right now. Maybe you come back to McCarthy in a couple of years and everything falls into place for you. That happens.






J

[WyattGwyon]

OK I need help on this one. I've read numerous Cormac books and I like them but I don't get why people adore him so much. I find his characters so incredibly one dimensional and I NEVER feel anything for them (except for Lester Ballad but those were VERY bad feelings.) I read Blood Meridian recently and his use of language is great but his characters are so exceptionally bland mere vehicles for him to get his message out nothing more nothing less.

I also don't feel like theres much to his books. They always feel very shallow to me and I end up taking away very little if anything from them.

I realize this is my opinion and I'm not asking you to try to help me see why I'm an idiot and McCarthy is a genius I'm asking why YOU think he's good.

P.S The books I've read are Blood Meridian, All The Pretty Horses, Child of God and No Country For Old Men. I feel like I'm missing one but I'm not sure what.

I have read all of McCarthy's major works. My favorite novels are Suttree, which is considered by many to be his best, The Crossing, The Orchard Keeper, and Outer Dark. With the exception of Blood Meridian, the ones you have read are, IMO and that of many others, not his best work. As you clearly appreciate, the beauty and cleanness of his prose is a primary reason he is so universally praised, so I won't go into that.

Your observation that his characters are bland and mere vehicles for a "message" does not resonate with me, though I think I can see how one might arrive at this conclusion. I would say they aren't bland, but rather, in the novels you mention, they are occupied with base instincts and impulses (Blood Meridian, No Country), are quite young and inexperienced (All the Pretty Horses), or are allegorical constructions (The Judge), all of which conditions obviate any need or chance for subtle nuances of characterization. More important, it is a signal feature of McCarthy's style to deny access to the internal life of his characters, except through their words and actions. The title character of Suttree, for example, we know must have a turbulent inner life, but we only know this by observing his behavior. We are forced to judge McCarthy's characters the way we would have to in real life; not given an omniscient view. So, to sum up, we generally have no direct knowledge by which to judge whether the characters are one-dimensional or not. This aspect of McCarthy's style is likely to be problematic for many, but others, like me, find the open endedness and objectivity of this external perspective intriguing and valuable in itself. McCarthy's refusal to define or finalize his characters by probing their internal lives leaves them open to multiple and sometimes wildly divergent interpretations, a quality I greatly appreciate because it gives the characters the autonomy of real individuals rather than mere fictional constructions.

Anyway, I would recommend trying Suttree if you want McCarthy at his best. It is totally different from the others you have read.

[jake21221]

I had a copy of Suttree lying around I got as a gift and hadn't got to yet but picked it up because of what you said. Only read about 20 pages or so but I already like Suttree, and like I said I usually have no feelings for his characters so this is already a dramatic improvement. The only scene that got a real emotional response in any of his writing from me is the scene where the bear is shot in Blood Meridian, but thats because I'm a total animal lover and the description of the girl sobbing over the bear was just unbelievably heart breaking.

Thanks for the reply I think I'll read Suttree next, I have a feeling I will like it. I have one question for you though should I bother with the rest of The Borders trilogy? All The Pretty Horses bored me to tears but I know The Crossing is quite different.

Anyway even if I come out of this massive reading experiment hating his writing it is nice to know there is one truly original writer out there.

[WyattGwyon]

I had a copy of Suttree lying around I got as a gift and hadn't got to yet but picked it up because of what you said. Only read about 20 pages or so but I already like Suttree, and like I said I usually have no feelings for his characters so this is already a dramatic improvement. The only scene that got a real emotional response in any of his writing from me is the scene where the bear is shot in Blood Meridian, but thats because I'm a total animal lover and the description of the girl sobbing over the bear was just unbelievably heart breaking.

Thanks for the reply I think I'll read Suttree next, I have a feeling I will like it. I have one question for you though should I bother with the rest of The Borders trilogy? All The Pretty Horses bored me to tears but I know The Crossing is quite different.

Anyway even if I come out of this massive reading experiment hating his writing it is nice to know there is one truly original writer out there.

I really liked The Crossing—much more than the other 2/3 of the trilogy.

Be advised that there are folks who like McCarthy but not Suttree. Could be that it is less plot driven in a traditional sense; could also be that, unlike most of his other writing, there are sentences one has to (well, I had to anyway) read twice to get the full impact. I found the opening paragraph of Suttree like that; beautiful, but to actually picture the scene from the exquisite details took a concerted exercise of visual imagination—there is no fluff; every word corresponds to a precise and definite visual impression. It has the density of poetry. A far cry from his usual direct expression.

The other thing I discovered about Suttree (I hinted at this in my first post), is that my assessment of what he must be thinking at certain points in the novel was sometimes 180° different from what other readers—thoughtful ones whose opinions I respect—came away with.

[My2cents]

What's the correct pronunciation of Suttree? Does anyone know? I pronounce it Soot-tray, which I'm certain is wrong.

[bengals@live]

Have you read "The Road" it's one of my favorite books from him

[Darcy88]

OK I need help on this one. I've read numerous Cormac books and I like them but I don't get why people adore him so much. I find his characters so incredibly one dimensional and I NEVER feel anything for them (except for Lester Ballad but those were VERY bad feelings.) I read Blood Meridian recently and his use of language is great but his characters are so exceptionally bland mere vehicles for him to get his message out nothing more nothing less.


The Judge is the furthest thing from bland. Bland is the last adjective I'd use to describe him and that would be like calling Bill Gates a pauper or the sun dim.

[V.Darkbloom]

I've read The Road (alright, plus a good message) and Blood Meridian (fantastic book, makes me think the old saw about there being a thin line between genius and insanity might be true in his case).

From the limited taste I've had of McCarthy, I'd say he writes books of ideas, as opposed to books of plot or character(s). Granted, the Judge will always stick with me, I don't think McCarthy is shooting at great characterization. He's trying to impart wisdom.

[Buh4Bee]

I just finished the The Road. Although it is a significant work, it leaves a less deep impression than did, Camus' The Plague. I was not emotionally invested in this book as compared to The Plague. Both deeply disturbing and depressing, little hope is offered in The Road. Even though the book ends with the boy finding a family to take him in, there is not enough hope to make this reader believe that humanity will go on in a way that will restore order or civilization. At the closing scene, I just didn't really care, nor did I cry when the father died. I was simply relieved to be done, reading the the book.

I liked McCarthy's writing style and found these characters to be dimensional, as well as likable. But the hardest part was getting past the horror in the story. You just never knew when a person was going to jump out of a cabinet with a knife and try to eat or rape the boy. It's a terrifying read and at times, this reader couldn't get past it to think about the significance of the story. It was just way to heavy and I did not enjoy reading it. However, I would be interested in reading another book by this author.

[hannah_arendt]

I have read "Child of God" and I was shocked. If it comes to "The Road" and "No Country for Old Man" I just saw films.

[ennison]

Interesting comments. When I first came across CM it was through one of the "minor" texts but it is these I enjoy most. The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark are my two favourites. I do not find his characters bland but I'd say rather he is one who shows rather than tells. I found Blood Meridian verging on the OTT as regards fine language and when I read No Country For Old Men I saw the Hollywood sign. And lo there it was a short while later. No doubt a wad of dollars came his way and why not. I like the trilogy but the central character in the first one is far too mature for his age. There are young men like that but they are a considerable rarity.

[Hal]

I'm going to give him another try, but a few years ago I picked up "The Road" and read about half of it before I threw it across the room. I didn't like the writing style and the lack of proper punctuation.

[Jack of Hearts]

"The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door. He took off his hat and came slowly forward. The floorboards creaked under his boots. In his black suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned so palely from their waisted cutglass vase. Along the cold hallway behind him hung the portraits of forebears only dimly known to him all framed in glass and dimly lit above the narrow wainscotting. He looked down at the guttered candlestub. He pressed his thumbprint in the warm wax pooled on the oak veneer. Lastly he looked at the face so caved and drawn among the folds of funeral cloth, the yellowed moustache, the eyelids paper thin. That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping."


- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses


... jus' sayin'.








J

[hannah_arendt]

I forgot to add that I enjoyed a lot his language. Maybe I wasn`t so enchated by the plot but I loved some fragments because of the way of writing.

[tonywalt]

His style is unique and sparce - it's likely that a great deal of his popularity and the buzz/publicity that his recent works enjoy(more and more, as time marches) is due to books becoming movies The Counselor, No Country for Old Men, The Road, Child of God and All the Pretty Horses.

He's a bit of a rock star in this respect.

[Snowqueen]

"The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door. He took off his hat and came slowly forward. The floorboards creaked under his boots. In his black suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned so palely from their waisted cutglass vase. Along the cold hallway behind him hung the portraits of forebears only dimly known to him all framed in glass and dimly lit above the narrow wainscotting. He looked down at the guttered candlestub. He pressed his thumbprint in the warm wax pooled on the oak veneer. Lastly he looked at the face so caved and drawn among the folds of funeral cloth, the yellowed moustache, the eyelids paper thin. That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping."


- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses





Great passage! I have only read All the Pretty Horses but I look forward to read more of his books.

[Paulclem]

I've read a few of his books, and I really like his stuff. Blood Meridian, as well as introducing me to scalping bounties and the historical figures of Joel Glanton, acted as a counter to the image of the US hero - the cowboy type image. His description of the desert, the characterisation which leads you to judge men by their actions and makes precisely the point that humans may be no more than their actions, is great. It is bleak, violent and all the more powerful forhaving a real historical context.

The Road was similarly bleak, and, as has been said, difficult to read in its savagery. Reading it did remind me of Golding's Lord of the Flies which he wrote as an antidote to the idea that children would act like rational adults when marooned on an island. (Would adults act rationally in such a situation?). It's extreme survival, and I think McCarthy is asking how far would people go to survive and what of civilisation would survive?

No Country for Old Men I found to be bleakly philosophical. The film was great too. Chigurh, the psycopath is oddly moral. No-one agrees with his system, but it wins out against our idea of the anti-hero - Moss - you get portrayed in many films. Chigurh wins and remains unfathomable to Moss and seemingly everyone else he comes across.

I also like McCarthy's own non-grammatical style. Reading it is not a chore - the sentences are perfetly understandable and resonate with the accents of the characters - such as in All The Pretty Horses. It's not as the grammarian's would have you believe - that the text is rendered confusing.

[Jack of Hearts]

He is no lightweight. You'd think he was awful, the way everybody's onto him. All of his novels get made into movies.

But nobody does it better. What Jack of Hearts would say about McCarthy's prose is that it's too stuffed and kind of unkind to its readers. It's terse, but not elegant. It's conceptually rich and precise as an expertly thrown dart but in actual execution... doesn't it just seem to kind of fall onto you and beat you up a little bit? It seems to want you to read slower. Maybe it's a generational thing. For as great it as it is (and it is great), it's kinda like, when you're in his paragraphs: "Ugh, it's too thick in here. Let me out."







J

[Dono]

Some authors just have a distinctive and overpowering voice in their works. Hemingway was one and McCarthy is another.

[DATo]

Personally, I think McCarthy's books, especially Blood Meridian , are meant to be somewhat surrealistic. If you think back to your memories of his books with this in mind you may come to the same realization that I have with regard to the stylizing of his narrative which evokes a dreamlike quality seemingly just a little bit at odds with the reality we know.

I think his novel Suttree was possibly the one exception to this, and it is interesting to note that this book was in many respects an autobiography of McCarthy. Perhaps the other books can be considered in the same light as the Impressionists painters of the late 19th century - the thrust of their work was to allow the viewer to experience art through the eyes of the artist. Perhaps McCarthy was doing the same thing by allowing us to vicariously experience his own feelings as he was writing.

[DATo]

What's the correct pronunciation of Suttree? Does anyone know? I pronounce it Soot-tray, which I'm certain is wrong.

Sooot' - tree

[DATo]

The Judge is the furthest thing from bland. Bland is the last adjective I'd use to describe him and that would be like calling Bill Gates a pauper or the sun dim.

Absolutely correct! "The Judge" is arguably the most horrific fictional character ever created by an American novelist.

[Paulclem]

Personally, I think McCarthy's books, especially Blood Meridian , are meant to be somewhat surrealistic. If you think back to your memories of his books with this in mind you may come to the same realization that I have with regard to the stylizing of his narrative which evokes a dreamlike quality seemingly just a little bit at odds with the reality we know.



I think of Blood Meridian as weird and perhaps nightmarish rather than surreal. This is heightened for me by the couching of the story in history and Joel Glanton being a historic person. Certainly the Mexican landscape seems dreamlike though dangerous, but it is the characters that cast a dark shadow over it.

[FloatingCow73]

No Country for Old Men I found to be bleakly philosophical. The film was great too. Chigurh, the psycopath is oddly moral. No-one agrees with his system, but it wins out against our idea of the anti-hero - Moss - you get portrayed in many films. Chigurh wins and remains unfathomable to Moss and seemingly everyone else he comes across.

I absolutely agree with you on this point. I had a similar idea while I was reading the book. Chigurh also reminds me of Rorschach in Alan Moore's Watchmen comic book series. The whole idea of an unremitting character who abides by a very strict, if alien, philosophy is very interesting, especially when he his presence in the story proves to be stronger than the other main characters or even the protagonist. This happened with Rorschach after Watchmen was published, his character became incredibly popular, more so than the others. I can't think of any other characters off the top of my head who match that zeal, though. Have you read any books with a character, or characters, similar to Chigurh?

[Paulclem]

I absolutely agree with you on this point. I had a similar idea while I was reading the book. Chigurh also reminds me of Rorschach in Alan Moore's Watchmen comic book series. The whole idea of an unremitting character who abides by a very strict, if alien, philosophy is very interesting, especially when he his presence in the story proves to be stronger than the other main characters or even the protagonist. This happened with Rorschach after Watchmen was published, his character became incredibly popular, more so than the others. I can't think of any other characters off the top of my head who match that zeal, though. Have you read any books with a character, or characters, similar to Chigurh?

I'm sorry I missed your post.

I saw the film before I read the book and so was influenced by Xavier Bardem's portrayal - which was excellent - and so I may have missed connections I might have read.

Dr Moreau from The Island of Dr Moreau comes to mind as being zealous to the point of cruelty. He has a more conventional character than Chigurh, but his pride blinds him to others' suffering and what he sees as his brilliance and mission. There must be zealous others, but I'll have to think more.