i loved loved loved Warlock
― Mr. Que, Saturday, 20 September 2008 13:37 (fifteen years ago) link
the "cookie cutter cowboys'n'indians" of a men's adventure novel probably have more resemblance to actual people living or dead than most of cormac mccarthy's characters.
― moonship journey to baja, Sunday, 21 September 2008 18:42 (fifteen years ago) link
yes, but i don't agree with the implied value judgment that realist characters are necessarily better.
― ian, Sunday, 21 September 2008 21:02 (fifteen years ago) link
"a men's adventure novel" = should be a movie title.
or a book by michael chabon
― remy bean, Sunday, 21 September 2008 21:07 (fifteen years ago) link
yes, but i don't agree with the implied value judgment that realist characters are necessarily better
that's an interesting line of argument
― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 22 September 2008 00:38 (fifteen years ago) link
really
Pound's statement “fundamental accuracy of statement is the one sole morality of writing”
stolen from the raymond carver thread on ILE, for reference
― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 22 September 2008 00:39 (fifteen years ago) link
whoops somehow the word statement got doubled up there
― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 22 September 2008 00:40 (fifteen years ago) link
In response to Pound (I assume we're talking Unc Ez here?) All this realism hokum is overrated. That 'accuracy of statement' phooey doesn't really mean anything, does it, at least not for fiction? I mean, the great advantage of fiction over factual writing is the problem of selection doesn't really come up - you're not leaving anything out, what is written is part of that fictional reality, what isn't written, doesn't exist. No, the problem in fiction is one of emphasis.
Certainly an overemphasis on exploration of character can be extremely disruptive to tone in some genres - science fiction and horror spring immediately to mind. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that thin two-dimensional, rather everyman, possibly even cliched characters can be an advantage in those forms.
― GamalielRatsey, Monday, 22 September 2008 03:28 (fifteen years ago) link
what is written is part of that fictional reality, what isn't written, doesn't exist
that sounds more like the attitude of a particularly decadent 21st century reader than that of a writer
― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 22 September 2008 05:09 (fifteen years ago) link
Hmmm, not sure about that. It maybe came across as more abstract than I intended. It's just a way of saying that, say, in writing a biography, part of the problem is knowing what to leave out as much as what to put in, it's to do with selection (although bloody try telling that to modern biographers, everything bar the kitchen bloody sink), in fiction that's not an issue. Although in terms of writing you inevitably edit and leave vast chunks that you've written out, the finished product is just that, it is sufficient unto itself.
I'm not sure I feel particularly decadent saying that. I don't know really, because I'm lying in bed dreadfully tired after a curry induced sleepless night.
Anyway, I don't really think it affects the central premise that characters and fiction need not be realistic, that's a relatively recent thing isn't it? Is Jeeves realistic? Is Sherlock Holmes? They're just very well drawn characters.
― GamalielRatsey, Monday, 22 September 2008 06:42 (fifteen years ago) link
Christ, listen to me. What a boring git. I've woken up now and want not to have written these things on this thread in the way that I writ em.
― GamalielRatsey, Monday, 22 September 2008 09:20 (fifteen years ago) link
"the "cookie cutter cowboys'n'indians" of a men's adventure novel probably have more resemblance to actual people living or dead than most of cormac mccarthy's characters.
― moonship journey to baja, 21 September 2008 18:42 (1 week ago) Bookmark "
totally. the campfire philosophical debates between the judge and the priest seemed forced and out of place, even if the characters (especially the judge) were entertaining.
― darraghmac, Tuesday, 30 September 2008 10:39 (fifteen years ago) link
suttree is fantastic
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 30 September 2008 23:34 (fifteen years ago) link
outer dark was teh only book i was able to finish. it was good, like climbing a mountain is good. child of god is the one i want to read.
suttree appears to be a very high mountain.
― goofus vs. gallant (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, 30 October 2008 15:34 (fifteen years ago) link
child of god is the one i want to read next
getting through blood meridian felt more like digging a hole
― Jordan, Thursday, 30 October 2008 15:39 (fifteen years ago) link
digging a hole to bury someone in
― darraghmac, Thursday, 30 October 2008 15:40 (fifteen years ago) link
i tried to get through blood meridian three times
\;_;/
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 30 October 2008 15:40 (fifteen years ago) link
Should've stuck with reading it once first.
― Øystein, Thursday, 30 October 2008 15:55 (fifteen years ago) link
it took you fifteen minutes to come up with that??
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 30 October 2008 15:56 (fifteen years ago) link
Yup
― Øystein, Thursday, 30 October 2008 16:23 (fifteen years ago) link
cormac could've written a chapter killing off an entire village in that space of time.
― darraghmac, Thursday, 30 October 2008 16:40 (fifteen years ago) link
I'm a fan. Enjoyed reading "Blood Meridian". But I wonder if his allusions to Melville, Milton, and Wordsworth add more weight to the novel than it deserves. Some parts are overwritten, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do with all that blood.
― silence dogood, Thursday, 30 October 2008 17:28 (fifteen years ago) link
michael chabon on mccarthy & apocalyptic fiction: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19856
― Jordan, Thursday, 30 October 2008 18:13 (fifteen years ago) link
wow, great article
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 30 October 2008 18:21 (fifteen years ago) link
agreed.
― goofus vs. gallant (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, 30 October 2008 22:55 (fifteen years ago) link
Great stylist, good on campy (not that he sees it so no sir) Southern Gothic crap, takes himself way too seriously.
― Niles Caulder, Friday, 31 October 2008 07:13 (fifteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 30 September 2008 23:34 (4 months ago) Permalink
read this since christmas- it felt in some strange way (thematically, maybe) to me like the type of book you were made to read aged 11 in english class and report on, but obviously a lot more adult in the terms and details.
Kind of like a gritty version ofI am David or The Silver Sword, maybe.
― Redknapp out (darraghmac), Friday, 6 February 2009 16:26 (fifteen years ago) link
it's definitely "first novelish" in that he's basically revisiting his youth, and the knoxville of his youth, and the feelings he had as a young man (specifically the rejection of his parents), and i can see how that comes across as a youth novel but the language itself is so forbidding and ornate and even the plot itself is so opaque i don't really see it that way
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 16 February 2009 13:14 (fifteen years ago) link
okay so i am currently reading blood meridian and finding it one of the best things ever. the language can be obscure, but it's so glaringly visual! which he somehow obtains without even describing much. i would never have imagined something so bad ass, violent and macho could be so beautiful.
― samosa gibreel, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 03:25 (fourteen years ago) link
what u ain't never watched profeshnal boxin buhfer?
― ian, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 23:30 (fourteen years ago) link
― Mr. Que, Thursday, October 30, 2008 10:40 AM (5 months ago) Bookmark
― i like to fart and i am crazy (gbx), Thursday, 16 April 2009 00:00 (fourteen years ago) link
blood meridian is great and only a slog for the first 80-100 pages or so and thereafter becomes absolutely gripping in my experience reading it (once.)
― ian, Thursday, 16 April 2009 18:24 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah i think i've stalled around page 100 all three times ;__;
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 16 April 2009 18:29 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm still only around page 90 and it hasn't shown any sign of sloggin'.
― samosa gibreel, Saturday, 18 April 2009 06:59 (fourteen years ago) link
hey has anyone read suttree? i've just picked it up at the bookstore. and flipping through it it looks as if there's alot of dialogue in it, which i think should be a good thing since all the dialogue in blood meridian was pure gold. also, the back cover has the most lovely description ever. "the funniest and most unendurably sad of his novels" or something.
― samosa gibreel, Thursday, 25 June 2009 20:54 (fourteen years ago) link
Itill have the same reservations about Suttree as I had above, but I've just re-read Blood Meridian, and I might just re-read it again. I still don't have a clue what (if anything) is moving the story, but it gripped me a lot tighter this time round.
― Bobkate Goldtwat (darraghmac), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 01:20 (fourteen years ago) link
suttree is beautiful, alot less exhausting than blood meridian but equally less gorgeous as a result. makes up for relative blandness with wonderful dialogue, happiness, and great sometimes extremely likeable characters. harrigate is so endearing, it's like the more naive and stupid and wrong he is the more i like him, honesty oh man.
― samosa gibreel, Thursday, 30 July 2009 23:12 (fourteen years ago) link
goes a long way.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a6a4629e970c-800wi
― Action Orientation (Eazy), Thursday, 5 November 2009 17:05 (fourteen years ago) link
http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/ap/8c07a303-b9f7-45e8-ba36-5e2fb0be4eef.hmedium.jpg
― kshighway1, Thursday, 5 November 2009 17:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Here you go, stans
― can it compete with the wagon wheel (Eazy), Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:23 (fourteen years ago) link
Pic 9 - "Chicago" cast shot
― DarraghmacKwacz (darraghmac), Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:41 (fourteen years ago) link
http://media.knoxnews.com/media/img/photos/2007/12/07/1209cormac9_t607.jpg
Love it!
― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Thursday, 18 March 2010 21:42 (fourteen years ago) link
Child of God
^ skipped through this the past few nights before bed. I don't really have any thoughts on it, other than it's like an anecdote from a longer McCarthy, just fleshed out (poor choice of words there maybe). Enjoyed it- again, dialogue and associated quirks of language are so vital.
― i dont love everything, i love football (darraghmac), Tuesday, 5 October 2010 12:20 (thirteen years ago) link
HBO doing a film of his two-character play The Sunset Limited (which I loved and was surprised it didn't get more attention), starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson.
― would like a calmer set (Eazy), Wednesday, 5 January 2011 08:16 (thirteen years ago) link
finished The Orchard Keeper but it took awhile for such a short book.
― the right to beef at (darraghmac), Saturday, 9 February 2013 01:05 (eleven years ago) link
I read No Country for Old Men - loved it. Read The Road, it was amazing. Bought a ton of his other books - never feel like opening them.
― Ismael Klata, Tuesday, 12 February 2013 11:34 (eleven years ago) link
Suttree had a nice yuppie Vintage Contemporaries edition in the mid/late 1980s.
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Monday, 19 June 2023 22:51 (nine months ago) link
Thanks! The ones I had were Vintage Internationals of a later, um, vintage, do u see? They had kind of a mostly black and white layout with some Guy Maddin smeared blur of a few other colors in the background overlaid by a kind of gold paint lettering design.
― Holly Godarkbloom (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 20 June 2023 04:50 (nine months ago) link
Which vintage did indeed seem to be early 1992.
― Holly Godarkbloom (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 20 June 2023 05:10 (nine months ago) link
The punctuation in Blood Meridian versus the punctuation in Absalom, Absalom! pic.twitter.com/bv0MjfwKNu— Claudia Durastanti (@CDurastanti) June 14, 2023
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 5 October 2023 08:29 (five months ago) link