Are there any Cormac McCarthy fans out there?

yes, but i don't agree with the implied value judgment that realist characters are necessarily better.

"a men's adventure novel" = should be a movie title.

or a book by michael chabon

yes, but i don't agree with the implied value judgment that realist characters are necessarily better

that's an interesting line of argument

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

whoops somehow the word statement got doubled up there

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.

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

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.

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.

"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.

suttree is fantastic

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.

child of god is the one i want to read next

getting through blood meridian felt more like digging a hole

digging a hole to bury someone in

i tried to get through blood meridian three times

\;_;/

Should've stuck with reading it once first.

it took you fifteen minutes to come up with that??

Yup

cormac could've written a chapter killing off an entire village in that space of time.

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.

michael chabon on mccarthy & apocalyptic fiction: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19856

wow, great article

agreed.

Great stylist, good on campy (not that he sees it so no sir) Southern Gothic crap, takes himself way too seriously.

suttree is fantastic

― 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.

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

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.

what u ain't never watched profeshnal boxin buhfer?

i tried to get through blood meridian three times

\;_;/

― Mr. Que, Thursday, October 30, 2008 10:40 AM (5 months ago) Bookmark

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.)

yeah i think i've stalled around page 100 all three times ;__;

i'm still only around page 90 and it hasn't shown any sign of sloggin'.

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.

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.

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.

goes a long way.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a6a4629e970c-800wi

http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/ap/8c07a303-b9f7-45e8-ba36-5e2fb0be4eef.hmedium.jpg

Here you go, stans

Pic 9 - "Chicago" cast shot

http://media.knoxnews.com/media/img/photos/2007/12/07/1209cormac9_t607.jpg

Love it!

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.

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.

finished The Orchard Keeper but it took awhile for such a short book.

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.

Try the border trilogy i guess.

My ex-wife used her vagina as a goddamn holster. Whilst disputing with her current paramour the affections of space aliens. While wearing lingerie in New Mexico. From where it was placed in her womansparts, she retrieved it and then pointed at the man and asked Who is crazy you or me?

Which vintage did indeed seem to be early 1992.

The punctuation in Blood Meridian versus the punctuation in Absalom, Absalom! pic.twitter.com/bv0MjfwKNu

— Claudia Durastanti (@CDurastanti) June 14, 2023