[HN Gopher] Cormac McCarthy has died
___________________________________________________________________
Cormac McCarthy has died
Author : benbreen
Score : 825 points
Date : 2023-06-13 20:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| arandomsapien wrote:
| I came across his work far too late and am catching up, having
| only read The Road Blood Meridian, and No Country for Old Men so
| far. I've never read an author who can paint such a vivid picture
| in my mind with so few words. I wasn't much of a fiction reader
| prior to picking up his work, and it's certainly reignited a love
| of reading for me.
|
| His books don't resonate with a good number of friends, and I can
| understand why. But for me it's a strange mix of dark and
| comforting, with words that make my neurons dance like they're
| listening to jazz.
| tmountain wrote:
| The Road is really good and a quick read. I read it in one
| sitting, and really loved it. Check out Sutree for something
| completely different but really well rendered. McCarthy is one
| of my favorite authors. He gave us so many gifts.
| drc500free wrote:
| The border trilogy (All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities
| of the Plain) is understated compared to many of his other
| books, but gets to something about young men becoming who they
| are that I haven't found elsewhere.
| bmitc wrote:
| Damn. I immediately got chill bumps reading this. I'm not one to
| fawn over so-called celebrity deaths, but here, we have lost a
| philosopher and a thinker who also told great stories. It feels
| like ideas and perspectives will be lost forever, referring to
| the ones he never wrote down or spoke about.
|
| I have always been in love with McCarthy's deep philosophy in his
| writing. I like the following two examples, not for any
| particular relevance of their content but just for the deepness
| that they get at.
|
| One is one of the final scenes in the _No Country for Old Men_
| film adaptation by the Coen brothers, and the dialogue is in the
| book as well. Sheriff Bell visits his cousin Ellis about feeling
| overmatched by the violence he 's seen:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdOPJKocMWg
|
| > "What you got ain't nothing new. This country's hard on people.
| You can't stop what's comin'. It ain't all waiting on you. That's
| vanity."
|
| The other is one of the final scenes in _The Counselor_ , which
| is, as far as I know, McCarthy's only screenplay, at least that
| was actually filmed and released. The Counselor is on the phone
| begging for some way to get his wife back from the cartel, the
| Jefe of which explains the impossibility of the request regarding
| situation he has created:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIn7y4ejIFM
|
| > "It is not for me to tell you what you should have done or not
| done. The world in which you seek to undo the mistakes that you
| made is different from the world where the mistakes were made.
| You are now at the crossing. And you want to choose, but there is
| no choosing there. There's only accepting. The choosing was done
| a long time ago. I don't mean to offend you, but reflective men
| often find themselves at a place removed from the realities of
| life. In any case, we should all prepare a place where we can
| accommodate all the tragedies that sooner or later will come to
| our lives. But this is an economy few people care to practice.
| ... You continue to deny the reality of the world you're in. You
| are at that crossing. At the understanding that life is not going
| to take you back. You are the world you have created. And when
| you cease to exist, this world that you have created will also
| cease to exist."
|
| This is pure brutality in the form of prose and dialogue.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| I also liked the line from the first: "All the time you spend
| tryin' ta get back what's been took from ya, more's goin' out
| the door."
|
| Haven't seen The Counselor before, but that's a tough scene to
| watch. Definitely on the queue now!
| bmitc wrote:
| Oops, it's a bit of a spoiler for sure, but it's probably
| expected from the beginning. The cast described the
| screenplay as bizarre. I think the movie could have been
| better handled, but it has some great writing. It's what you
| would expect from a novelist like McCarthy writing a
| screenplay. And it's not a feel-good movie for sure though.
| The violence is both bleak and full.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| I just finished The Road last week. It was worth reading.
|
| By sheer coincidence, the e-book version is currently on sale (at
| least I sure _hope_ it 's coincidental):
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Road-Vintage-International-Cormac-McC...
| secret-noun wrote:
| https://archive.ph/eWeoO
| neonate wrote:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20230614005318/https://www.nytime...
| ErikAugust wrote:
| https://trimread.org/articles/38980
| voisin wrote:
| Man, this is crushing news. He was uniquely capable of capturing
| the worst of the human experience in the most beautiful manner.
|
| "Once there were brook trouts in the streams in the mountains.
| You could see them standing in the amber current where the white
| edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of
| moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their
| backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in
| its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put
| back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived
| all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| RIP. One of the modern literary giants. The Road remains one of
| the most harrowing books I've ever read, and Blood Meridian, the
| most disturbingly beautiful.
| haroldp wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230613194612/https://www.nytim...
| ftxbro wrote:
| > "In "Suttree," for example, one character has carnal relations
| with the entirety of a farmer's watermelon field."
|
| if you write a novel with something like that then you know what
| will go in your obituary if you get famous
| tehnub wrote:
| One of my favorite quotes from Suttree:
|
| He looked at a world of incredible loveliness. Old distaff Celt's
| blood in some back chamber of his brain moved him to discourse
| with the birches, with the oaks. A cool green fire kept breaking
| in the woods and he could hear the footsteps of the dead.
| Everything had fallen from him. He scarce could tell where his
| being ended or the world began nor did he care. He lay on his
| back in the gravel, the earth's core sucking his bones, a
| moment's giddy vertigo with this illusion of falling outward
| through blue and windy space, over the offside of the planet,
| hurtling through the high thin cirrus.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| I always heard the "Big 4" (white guys) were John Updike,
| McCarthy, Don DeLillo, and Philip Roth. I think somebody like,
| the disgraced, Harold Bloom at one point said they were the last
| 'great', living American Authors.
|
| To my surprise, Don DeLillo is still alive.
| Rant423 wrote:
| Bloom actually lists Roth, Pynchon, McCarthy, and DeLillo
| peruvian wrote:
| Bloom considered McCarthy the best living American author and
| Blood Meridian one of the best American novels, right up there
| with Moby Dick in terms of importance.
| cgh wrote:
| Bloom isn't a fan of Pynchon? Not sure how you could exclude
| him from such a list.
| tptacek wrote:
| Interesting fact about McCarthy: he had a sort of residency, I
| think pretty recently, despite his fame! as a copyeditor for
| science papers at the Santa Fe Institute. Here's a thread about a
| Nature piece with his advice for science writers:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30611829
|
| _Edit_
|
| Meant to link the HN thread, not the original source.
| unignorant wrote:
| I spent a summer at the Santa Fe Institute in 2010 and can say
| that McCarthy certainly spent a lot of time there. I'm not sure
| he was a copyeditor, exactly, but SFI is a nice place to hang
| out for any sort of creative work -- beautiful building and
| landscape, and very open and collaborative atmosphere.
|
| The institute is on the top of a big hill and I'll always
| remember how he gave me a lift one day as I was walking up.
| javajosh wrote:
| It costs $30 to read that article. Here is a summary from
| https://kottke.org/19/09/advice-from-cormac-mccarthy-on-writ...
|
| > Use minimalism to achieve clarity. While you are writing, ask
| yourself: is it possible to preserve my original message
| without that punctuation mark, that word, that sentence, that
| paragraph or that section? Remove extra words or commas
| whenever you can.
|
| > Inject questions and less-formal language to break up tone
| and maintain a friendly feeling. Colloquial expressions can be
| good for this, but they shouldn't be too narrowly tied to a
| region. Similarly, use a personal tone because it can help to
| engage a reader. Impersonal, passive text doesn't fool anyone
| into thinking you're being objective: "Earth is the centre of
| this Solar System" isn't any more objective or factual than "We
| are at the centre of our Solar System."
|
| > Finally, try to write the best version of your paper: the one
| that you like. You can't please an anonymous reader, but you
| should be able to please yourself. Your paper -- you hope -- is
| for posterity. Remember how you first read the papers that
| inspired you while you enjoy the process of writing your own.
|
| EDIT: you posted the wrong link, I was trying to help YOU, and
| the readers of your comment. You removed the original nature
| link, and then post a condescending reply to me. It's insulting
| and makes me think less of you and I now deeply regret trying
| to help.
| tptacek wrote:
| The original is on sci-hub under its DOI, of course.
|
| _Later_
|
| (I wrote "of course" here, as a sort of clumsy
| acknowledgement that I'm not posting an actual sci-hub link,
| not as any sort of commentary on the preceding comment ---
| that comment was appreciated, as I'd originally posted the
| wrong link, to the paywalled Nature story and not the HN
| thread. Sorry if it reads any other way!)
| [deleted]
| x86hacker1010 wrote:
| So I finished reading The Road last night and sufficiently
| spooked by news of his death.
| the_af wrote:
| Everyone is praising McCarthy and in particular mentioning how
| The Road impacted them, so allow me to go against the grain here.
|
| First, I do like downbeat, apocalyptic fiction. I sometimes enjoy
| reading fiction that evokes anguish or that portrays failures.
| Kazuo Ishiguro is one of my favorite English language writers.
|
| But... I didn't like "The Road" _at all_. I think I get the
| point, but to me it was essentially "apocalypse porn". It was
| about pointlessly and joylessly describing a dying, hopeless
| world, but in a way that wasn't interesting to read. I didn't
| even like how it was written, after a while I started counting
| how many times McCarthy saw fit to write "the last of [food]".
| "They ate the last of the biscuits". "They ate the last of the
| beans". Etc, etc.
|
| I'm sorry but I cannot find better words for this, The Road felt
| like "hopelessness porn".
|
| I expect people won't agree with me. So be it.
| stubybubs wrote:
| When did you read it? I think the US went heavy on post-
| apocalyptic movies and books since the GFC. Maybe there's a bit
| of "Seinfeld isn't funny" going on?
| sh34r wrote:
| There are several doomsday movies that predate The Road, were
| better at the time, and hold up far better today, IMO.
| Children of Men (2005) would be my top suggestion. The rare
| movie I've gone back and watched multiple times. You know why
| it's good? Because the central premise didn't come true
| (humanity is infertile), but we live in that dystopia now
| anyway. It's like Black Mirror but for the police state. It
| didn't go into hyperbole like The Road or The Day After
| Tomorrow. It was a realistic, slow-motion apocalypse. Going
| out with a whimper instead of a bang.
|
| However, Children of Men is admittedly not as bleak as The
| Road, so not a fair comparison. If you really want a film
| that produces bottomless despair in the viewer, I recommend
| Threads (1984) instead. It was produced by the BBC on a
| shoestring budget, and yet it's still a better film. I can't
| say I recommend it, but if you do watch it, the ending is on
| par with Requiem for a Dream for being memorable and filled
| with doom and horror.
|
| The Road just wasn't very good IMO. No Country for Old Men,
| on the other hand? Same writer, different genre, but
| excellent.
| the_af wrote:
| Not sure. Ten years ago, maybe ?
|
| Mind you, I didn't think it was samey or cliched, I don't
| remember thinking "there are too many of these already". What
| I thought was that it was poorly written and uninteresting,
| and that it seemed like bleakness for its own sake.
| zwieback wrote:
| I couldn't get into The Road either and I know others that feel
| the same. I've always wanted to try a different McCarthy but
| haven't yet, maybe this will give me the final impetus.
| prawn wrote:
| You could try Child of God? It's shorter than Blood Meridian
| and feels a bit less serious and rollicking, even though it's
| about a necrophiliac.
|
| Suttree and Blood Meridian are the elite tier, IMO.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I preferred blood meridian. McCarthy, and especially The Road,
| is definitely a continuation of the hemingway style, it's not
| for everyone. I find that the bluntness of the prose can hide
| some very beautiful insights he has though.
| the_af wrote:
| Interesting. I actually like Hemingway! For example, I
| consider "The Killers" a masterpiece: blunt, short, well-
| written, the dialogue is mundane but interesting, and nothing
| heroic happens. I don't know if I could stand a full novel in
| this style though.
|
| To me, McCarthy in the "The Road" was the boring kind of
| depressing.
| ali_m wrote:
| I think there's a beauty in the bleakness. Some of the
| descriptions are just so vivid, like a charcoal sketch.
|
| > He came forward, holding his belt by one hand. The holes in
| it marked the progress of his emaciation and the leather at one
| side had a lacquered look to it where he was used to stropping
| the blade of his knife. He stepped down into the roadcut and he
| looked at the gun and he looked at the boy. Eyes collared in
| cups of grime and deeply sunk. Like an animal inside a skull
| looking out the eyeholes. He wore a beard that had been cut
| square across the bottom with shears and he had a tattoo of a
| bird on his neck done by someone with an illformed notion of
| their appearance. He was lean, wiry, rachitic. Dressed in a
| pair of filthy blue coveralls and a black billcap with the logo
| of some vanished enterprise embroidered across the front of it.
|
| The line about how the "holes in [his belt] marked the progress
| of his emaciation" is seared into my brain forever.
| the_af wrote:
| Well, you know what they say about tastes... I just don't
| find McCarthy's style compelling, at least not in The Road.
| sinemetu11 wrote:
| Blood Meridian.
| magpi3 wrote:
| He never explains what happens, but The Road stuck with me
| because IMO it depicted how fragile everything we have is and
| the hellscape we would be inviting if civilization were to
| collapse.
|
| Since he wrote it this has been done to death by numerous
| writers (including comic books), but at the time it felt fresh,
| and I vividly remember wanting to curl into a ball on my bed in
| horror at some of the depictions in the book, not just because
| they were horrible, but because I thought: "Yup. That's what
| would happen alright."
| tosser0001 wrote:
| I've read a bunch of his books and The Road is the only one I
| know of that actually ends with a glimmer of hope.
| retinaros wrote:
| I read all of his books and tbh the road is a minor work of
| him. a small book that is easy to enter into and tell a story
| to a lot of people.
|
| blood meridian, sutree, the border trilogy are not that. they
| are work of art where words are crafted in ways that go beyond
| the pages. it is really the work of a master like very few
| writers ever did in history. a small excerpt of blood meridian.
| with so many little words, ..
|
| << And by and by they came to a place where the road was
| darkened in a deep wood and in this place the old man killed
| the traveler. He killed him with a rock and he took his clothes
| and he took his watch and his money and he buried him in a
| shallow grave by the side of the road. Then he went home.. The
| harness maker lived until his son was grown and never did
| anyone harm again. As he lay dying he called the son to him and
| told him what he had done. And the son said that he forgave him
| if it was his to do so and the old man said that it was his to
| do so and then he died. But the boy was not sorry for he was
| jealous of the dead man and before he went away he visited that
| place and cast away the rocks and dug up the bones and
| scattered them in the forest and then he went away. He went
| away to the west and he himself became a killer of men. >>
| BMc2020 wrote:
| Ctrl F Wendigoon.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu6STuj4njw
|
| Wendigoons 5 hour review of _Blood Meridian_.
|
| 3.7M views in 4 weeks.
| krelian wrote:
| I have never connected with any artist as much as I have with
| Cormac McCarthy. His writing brings forth feelings and ideas that
| seem to have always existed inside me but were waiting for his
| words to take shape.
|
| Throughout his work runs a line of thought that is never
| explicitly explained or can be easily summarized but some of his
| sentences and paragraphs nod at it. Here's one of my favorites:
|
| "He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He
| thought that the world's heart beat at some terrible cost and
| that the world's pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of
| diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of
| multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single
| flower."
| downut wrote:
| Two short phrases seared into my brain almost 4 decades ago:
|
| "Et en Arcadia ego" and "Ruder forms survive". Different books.
| whiddershins wrote:
| Suttree
| nielsbot wrote:
| In Memoriam
|
| "Yelping With Cormac: Ritual Roasters"
| https://yelpingwithcormac.tumblr.com/post/10442344603/ritual...
|
| Always gives me a chuckle
| candlemas wrote:
| I think you're supposed to follow the unofficial Hacker News
| death announcement title format of "[name of person] has died".
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=has+died
| anjanb wrote:
| Is this McCarthy the one on whom the McCarthy Blvd in Milpitas,
| CA is named after ?
| cypherpunks01 wrote:
| "Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden."
|
| --Cormac McCarthy, The Road
| bklyn11201 wrote:
| Read The Border Trilogy first (a coming-of-age story set on the
| US-Mexico border): * All the Pretty Horses
| * The Crossing * Cities of the Plain
|
| Then Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men.
| cgh wrote:
| Calling the Border Trilogy a coming-of-age story is...one way
| to look at it for sure, given how it all ends. I love "The
| Crossing", top three McCarthy for me (the others being "Blood
| Meridian" of course and "Child of God").
| zls wrote:
| Blood Meridian is getting all the praise, and that's probably
| right, but I'd put The Crossing right up there with it. The
| last scene with the crippled dog conveys so much about the
| journey Billy has gone through, abba what it's done to him...
| I don't know if "coming of age" is so apt as "loss of
| innocence"
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| I would second that, and add Suttree towards the end. I
| personally found The Road a little awkward, it felt
| unfortunately like an experiment in the SF / post-apocalyptic
| genre that was less successful than his surreal westerns.
| tmountain wrote:
| And if you still want more westerns after that, Lonesome Dove
| and Paradise Sky. Neither are McCarthy, but they're both
| amazing and will resonate with the same audience.
| cwdegidio wrote:
| I grew up in Ohio. I moved west the year I turned 30. I always
| felt like the West never made sense to me. Through his words, I
| feel like I got some understanding. Fantastic writer and a
| definite loss to American prose.
| jebarker wrote:
| What aspects of the West didn't make sense to you?
| cwdegidio wrote:
| Just my experience with living in Texas, there is a major
| individual independence vein that runs through a lot of folks
| here. In NE Ohio, sure... there were those that didn't follow
| the norms, but for the most part attitudes were very
| collective.
|
| Texas? Don't tell them what they can do with their land.
| Don't tell them they need to ditch their truck. Not saying it
| was a 1:1 illustration in his novels, but it did give me a
| better insight into how folks west of Austin 'tick'.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Growing up in Ohio as well, I was fortunate to encounter in
| high school Ursula Le Guin's short story "Buffalo Gals, Won't
| You Come Out Tonight" which helped me feel like I understood it
| better. After spending more time in the West and Southwest,
| those feelings were confirmed.
| oli5679 wrote:
| Cormac McCarthy - The Road
|
| "Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You
| could see them standing in the amber current where the white
| edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of
| moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their
| backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in
| its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put
| back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived
| all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."
| gabaix wrote:
| The epilogue of The Road shows its purpose. Make us
| appreciative of today's nature beauty.
| gbjw wrote:
| Adding to the list of favourite passages. This is from The Road,
| when the father holds his son: "No lists of things to be done.
| The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This
| is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them
| to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in
| grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have
| you."
| rbtprograms wrote:
| McCarthy was one of my bigger introductions to what I could call
| a more "adult" form of literature. He was one of my favorite
| novelists when I was in my late teens and early 20's, and I
| believe him to be a master of setting a tone in a novel. Truly
| will never forget the first time I read Blood Meridian.
| smarri wrote:
| My favourite author, Blood Meridian was like nothing I ever had
| read before. Rest in peace.
| austinprete wrote:
| Since I haven't seen mention of it yet, let me recommend one of
| his (seemingly) lesser known works: The Sunset Limited.
|
| It's a play of 2 characters and 1 setting, and has an (IMO very
| good) HBO adaption starring Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee
| Jones.
|
| Like most of his work, it's an existential contemplation of sorts
| and perhaps raises more questions than it answers. But I find
| myself going back to it a lot, maybe as a divining rod for my own
| meaning to life and death.
|
| RIP, Cormac.
| boredumb wrote:
| Feel silly but I didn't know what Darker America was. Maybe i'm
| in the minority but The Road, No Country for Old Men and Blood
| Meridian seem to be massively more popular so it seems a bit odd
| for the title to mention what I perceive as a lesser known book.
| ethanbond wrote:
| I believe that's a descriptor of his works, not a title of one.
| boredumb wrote:
| Thank you, I just spent 5 minutes trying to find the book
| anywhere on line and was starting to feel a bit nuts.
| nostromo95 wrote:
| You might be a non-native speaker, but the title is trying to
| say his works _evoke_ a darker America rather than that being a
| work he 's written.
| boredumb wrote:
| I assumed with Darker being capitalized it was a title.
| Perhaps the NYTimes editors are no longer native english
| speakers?
| FemmeAndroid wrote:
| It's part of the title of the article, which is in
| titlecase. That's why 'Novelist,' 'is,' and 'dead' are
| capitalized.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| edit: I'm wrong, disregard.
|
| I mean, they capitalized "is" too. Sloppy work, 0/10.
| rphv wrote:
| "Is" is a verb, so it should always be capitalized in
| title case.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Huh! I've apparently been getting this wrong for _years_.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| There are 14 competing standards...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_case
| moultano wrote:
| That's how titles of news articles are typically
| capitalized. The only lowercase words are those that are
| grammatical connectors.
| AA-BA-94-2A-56 wrote:
| This is a culture shock for me because when I studied
| journalism in Australia I was taught to only capitalise
| the first letter and proper nouns.
|
| Example from ABC News AU:
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-14/missing-
| australian-hi...
|
| > Brisbane woman Julia-Mary Lane found dead in Canadian
| wilderness in 'unfortunate hiking accident'
| applepizza wrote:
| They are referring to his little known novel "Darker America,
| Is dead at 89"
| thetopher wrote:
| Here are two lectures about Blood Meridian from a Yale literature
| course.
|
| https://youtu.be/FgyZ4ia25gg
|
| https://youtu.be/7ZFmf4T5L3o
| kamranjon wrote:
| Thank you for this - after reading Blood Meridian I have been
| looking for something exactly like this to help me process it.
| AJRF wrote:
| God I will miss his writing. I finished (and adored) The
| Passenger a few weeks ago. Rest In Piece.
|
| This is a nice interview;
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrUy1Vn2KdI
| cakemedia wrote:
| One of my favourite McCarthy quotes is from The Passenger:
|
| "Every remedy for loneliness only postpones it."
| karaterobot wrote:
| Why not read _Stella Maris_? I 'm reading _The Passenger_ right
| now, and enjoying it.
| ryanfreeborn wrote:
| Some of my favorite quotes, from my favorite McCarthy book, Blood
| Meridian:
|
| War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The
| ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.
|
| --
|
| Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without
| my consent.
|
| --
|
| In the days to come they would ride up through a country where
| the rocks would cook the flesh from your hand and where other
| than rock nothing was. They rode in a narrow enfilade along a
| trail strewn with the dry round turds of goats and they rode with
| their faces averted from the rock wall and the bake-oven air
| which it rebated, the slant black shapes of the mounted men
| stenciled across the stone with a definition austere and
| implacable like shapes capable of violating their covenant with
| the flesh that authored them and continuing autonomous across the
| naked rock without reference to sun or man or god.
|
| --
|
| They rode on and the sun in the east flushed pale streaks of
| light and then a deeper run of color like blood seeping up in
| sudden reaches flaring planewise and where the earth drained up
| into the sky at the edge of creation the top of the sun rose out
| of nothing like the head of a great red phallus until it cleared
| the unseen rim and sat squat and pulsing and malevolent behind
| them. The shadows of the smallest stones lay like pencil lines
| across the sand and the shapes of the men and their mounts
| advanced elongate before them like strands of the night from
| which they'd ridden, like tentacles to bind them to the darkness
| yet to come.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| > continuing autonomous across the naked rock without reference
| to sun or man or god.
|
| It occurs to me now that this echoes a scene late in _Moby
| Dick_ in which Ahab smashes his sextant to the deck and
| declares that henceforth he will navigate by dead reckoning
| alone, without reference to the sun or stars or like works of
| God.
| ryanfreeborn wrote:
| Ya McCarthy borrows heavily from Melville and Faulkner, which
| he readily cops to. Judge Holden and Ahab have a lot in
| common.
| meigwilym wrote:
| Do you have any Faulkner recommendations?
| ryanfreeborn wrote:
| Yes, exactly what huthuthike said. As I Lay Dying. Sound
| & Fury is great but a much more challenging read.
| huthuthike wrote:
| My favorite of his is As I Lay Dying. I find it much more
| readable than The Sound and the Fury. The latter is his
| most famous, and McCarthy's favorite work by Faulkner.
| But Faulkner himself said As I Lay Dying was his magnum
| opus.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I love that he didn't shy away from prose that almost read as
| biblical even though he risked drawing comparison to it. The
| authority and confidence he wrote with.
| rdiddly wrote:
| Something something Glanton... he was complete at every hour...
| he would chase the sun to its final endarkenment in the West as
| if it had been ordained ages since...
|
| That's one of the ones I remember, if you loosen the definition
| of "remember." I liked it because here's the ostensible leader
| of a gang of homicidal mo fo's, and not because of that, not
| despite it, but _possibly quite irrelevantly to it_ , he's just
| as sure of himself and his "vision" as any other person we
| would normally think of as a leader.
| jeegsy wrote:
| Good Lord these quotes. What have I been doing in my life that
| I've never read this man? The imagery in these passages are so
| vivid, I reflexively started reading aloud after the first one.
| I gotta find his books now though with his passing, I suspect
| many will have the same idea.
| prawn wrote:
| Go read Blood Meridian. And then struggle to suffer anything
| else in the world compared against it. It is stunning.
| jaredhallen wrote:
| I have read a lot of tgese, and still felt compelled to read
| them aloud. To my 6 and 7 year old children, no less. I did
| need to skim them first, though. He's not particularly known
| as being "safe for work" as they say in the Reddit world.
| aksss wrote:
| > War as always here
|
| Brings to mind Thucydides: "Of the Gods we believe, and of man
| we know, that by a law of their nature, wherever they can rule
| they shall. This law was not made by us, and we are not the
| first to have acted on it. We did but inherit it, and shall
| bequeath it to all time. And we know that you and all mankind,
| if you were as strong as we are, would do as we do."
| ali_m wrote:
| And they are dancing, the board floor slamming under the
| jackboots and the fiddlers grinning hideously over their canted
| pieces. Towering over them all is the judge and he is naked
| dancing, his small feet lively and quick and now in doubletime
| and bowing to the ladies, huge and pale and hairless, like an
| enormous infant. He never sleeps, he says. He says he'll never
| die. He bows to the fiddlers and sashays backwards and throws
| back his head and laughs deep in his throat and he is a great
| favorite, the judge. He wafts his hat and the lunar dome of his
| skull passes palely under the lamps and he swings about and
| takes possession of one of the fiddles and he pirouettes and
| makes a pass, two passes, dancing and fiddling at once. His
| feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he
| will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a
| great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing,
| dancing. He says that he will never die.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| > ...on the inside of his lower arm was there tattooed a number
| which Toadvine would see in a Chihuahua bathhouse and again
| when he would cut down the man's torso where it hung skewered
| by its heels from a treelimb in the wastes of Pimeria Alta in
| the fall of that year.
|
| Now that's how you introduce a character!
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Here McCarthy employs again to great effect his device of a
| narrator that knows and will tell of all physical events past
| and future. The narrator however does not know, though will
| speculate upon, thoughts of the characters:
|
| ... with them now rode a boy named Sloat who had been left
| sick to die in this place by one of the gold trains bound for
| the coast weeks earlier. ... He rode near the head of the
| column and he must have counted himself well out of that
| place but if he gave thanks to any god at all it was ill-
| timed for the country was not done with him.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| The Delawares stared into the fire with eyes as black as
| gunbores.
|
| --
|
| ... they watched like the prefiguration of their own ends the
| carbonized skulls of their enemies incandescing before them
| bright as blood among the coals.
| an-allen wrote:
| My favourite CMC quote. The evil of automation.
|
| "You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God
| made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do
| anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And
| evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it."
| wageslave99 wrote:
| I read The Road like 10-15 years ago. It was the first or one of
| the first books I fully read in English (I'm not a native English
| speaker). The simplicity of the grammar and lexicon helped me to
| follow the story, and although the crude environment that happens
| in the book is daunting and somber, I loved the book.
|
| From that time, when I see some news piece about Cormac McCarthy
| I cannot thank him enough for doing a masterpiece accesible to
| ESL speakers.
|
| RIP.
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| This knowledge exists without my consent.
| losvedir wrote:
| Is he worth reading if you don't have a vivid visual imagination?
| From the glowing praise here I feel like I should finally check
| him out, but all these comments sharing people's favorite quotes
| are just falling flat with me. I don't picture things in my head
| real well, and usually skim over description. I'm generally more
| captivated by interesting ideas than interesting ways of
| expressing the ideas.
| mmierz wrote:
| For what it's worth I have nearly complete aphantasia and I
| enjoy mccarthy's descriptions very much.
|
| But if the quotes do nothing for you, his stories probably will
| not either.
| sampa wrote:
| I liked this too-simple of a quote, that hits hard, when you have
| read the book.
|
| "When the lambs is lost in the mountain, he said. They is cry.
| Sometime come the mother. Sometime the wolf."
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| As others have mentioned here, John Hillcoat (director of the
| film adaptation of "The Road") is taking a crack at filming the
| "unfilmable" "Blood Meridian".
|
| I'm stoked to see how he handles BM, especially who he casts as
| Judge Holden. I feel like Philip Seymour Hoffman would have been
| perfect for the role, but I'm confident Hillcoat will find
| someone equal to the task.
|
| My favorite Judge quote from BM:
|
| "This is an orchestration for an event. For a dance, in fact. The
| participants will be apprised of their roles at the proper time.
| For now it is enough that they have arrived. As the dance is the
| thing with which we are concerned, and contains complete within
| itself its own arrangement and history and finale, there is no
| necessity that the dancers contain these things within themselves
| as well. In any event, the history of all is not the history of
| each, nor indeed the sum of those histories, and none here can
| finally comprehend the reason for his presence, for he has no way
| of knowing even in what the event consists. In fact, were he to
| know, he might well absent himself, and you can see that that
| cannot be any part of the plan, if plan there be."
|
| RIP.
| zxexz wrote:
| A friend of mine has been saying for years now, and I fully
| agree, that Puddles Pity Party[0] would be perfect casting for
| Judge Holden. Not just his height and that he's bald. Watch the
| way he moves, listen to his voice. I can't imagine anyone else
| playing the role now.
|
| [0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=VBmCJEehYtU (Linking his
| version of Royals, as it's my favorite, but there are are
| plenty of other wonderful covers and originals)
| kjs3 wrote:
| Was not expecting a Puddles callout...am very pleased.
| nologic01 wrote:
| "he fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that
| lonely void until he fell from sight into a sink of cold blue
| space that absolved him forever of memory in the mind of any
| living thing that was"
| tehnub wrote:
| This quote is about a donkey or something falling off a cliff
| IIRC. Lol.
| voisin wrote:
| Tangential: check out "Yelping with Cormac", a tumblr that I
| think did a great job of capturing his style with humorous
| results.
| da39a3ee wrote:
| Suttree
| david_shaw wrote:
| I posted a few months ago[1] about _Suttree,_ and was surprised
| at how many people connected with the book (which I agree is
| great).
|
| I haven't read _The Road_ or _Blood Meridian,_ but when you
| consider the different styles and structures of McCarthy 's
| prose, it's easy to agree that he was a remarkable writer. RIP.
|
| 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34561915
| ageisopolis wrote:
| One of the greatest authors of the postmodern era if not the
| greatest. Blood Meridian is that "great american novel" in my
| mind. RIP
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| For me, McCarthy is among a few authors ( Sherman Alexie, Edward
| Abbey, Octavia Butler, etc) who truly broke the Northeastern
| cultural stranglehold on American literature. His voice is
| brutally and uncompromisingly continental.
| Wonnk13 wrote:
| RIP. Blood Meridian deserves a Nobel imho.
|
| "War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The
| ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner."
| sharadov wrote:
| RIP McCarthy The Road was a hard book to read - sparing with
| words but yet very effective at describing the dystopian
| landscape and the grueling journey that father and son are on. I
| could not stop thinking about it for weeks after having read it -
| had a profound effect on me.
| tehnub wrote:
| I only started reading his books within the last year, but
| McCarthy quickly became one of my favorite authors. Suttree in
| particular I think is quite wonderful. I also immensely enjoyed
| the Passenger and have been thinking about it for months. Allow
| me to quote some of the late critic Roger Ebert's remarks about
| him, which had an influence on me to pick up a McCarthy book:
|
| At first when I could not speak, I could not read easily, because
| sedation had undermined my attention span. I was depressed. I
| could turn on the TV, but why? My wife brought a wonderful DVD
| player to my hospital room, but I could not make myself watch
| movies. My life was stale and profitless. I would spend hours in
| a murky stupor. Knowing I had always been reading a book, my
| concerned wife began reading to me: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens.
|
| Curiously, my love of reading finally returned after I picked up
| Cormac McCarthy's Suttree, a book I had already read not long
| before my first surgery. Now I read it two more times. I was not
| "reading the same book." I was reentering the same experience,
| the same occult and visionary prose, the life of Suttree so
| urgently evoked. As rarely before, a book became tactile to me.
| When Suttree on his houseboat pulled a cord and brought up a
| bottle of orange soda pop from the cool river, I savored it. I
| could no longer taste. I tasted it more sharply than any soda
| I've ever really had. When Suttree stopped at the bus station for
| a grilled cheese, I ate it, and the pickle, and drank the black
| coffee. I began to live through this desperate man's sad life.
| https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/i-think-im-musing-my-...
|
| McCarthy, the heir of Faulkner, who mines the Southwest and
| Mexico for the way they can break your heart before they kill
| you. McCarthy is best known for his Border Trilogy, about men,
| horses, pain and loyalty; All the Pretty Horses was directed by
| Billy Bob Thornton. McCarthy's best book is said to be Blood
| Meridian, which Harold Bloom said he hated so much for its
| violence he threw it across the room twice, and then read it,
| declared it a masterpiece, and wrote the introduction for the
| Modern Library edition. My own favorite is Suttree, with its
| closely-woven mosaic of unusual and unknown words and its
| heartbreaking story. It's about a man fallen from grace who lives
| in a houseboat, catches catfish for a living, has hallucinatory
| alcoholic adventures and episodes of sentiment, pity and loyalty.
| https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/coen-country
|
| As McCarthy does with the Judge, the hairless exterminator in his
| "Blood Meridian", and as in his "Suttree," especially in the
| scene where [...], the movie demonstrates how pitiful ordinary
| human feelings are in the face of implacable injustice.
| https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/no-country-for-old-men-20...
| thx wrote:
| No Country is one of the best books i've ever read
| Quequau wrote:
| Cormac McCarthy was an optimist.
| cbfrench wrote:
| Being a native East Tennessean, I've always had a slight
| preference for Cormac's Appalachian novels, perhaps in part
| because the people (at least some of them...) and locations
| seemed familiar to me. What a loss.
|
| I was pleased to see that the local NBC affiliate had made the
| announcement of his passing[0] the top story, but I was
| especially gratified that it describes him as "the author of
| Suttree, The Road, Child of God and several other novels." It's
| probably the only obit that will lead the list of novels with
| Suttree and relegate Blood Meridian to "several other novels,"
| haha.
|
| [0] https://www.wbir.com/article/news/local/cormac-mccarthy-
| dies...
| whiddershins wrote:
| Suttree is a masterpiece.
| kamranjon wrote:
| It is the best book I have ever read and I didn't think I
| would feel that way so firmly about a book so late in life. I
| read it last year and it is unequivocally a masterpiece for
| me.
| turrican wrote:
| I wasn't aware he wrote books based in Appalachia! Do you have
| a recommendation?
| colinflane wrote:
| Suttree is maybe my favorite of all his novels. If, as others
| here have suggested, you regard Blood Meridian an epic.
| Suttree is a picaresque, like reading Pickwick Papers on
| salvia.
| cbfrench wrote:
| His first four novels--The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, Child
| of God, and Suttree--are all set in East TN. I'd highly
| recommend Suttree. It's superb. Child of God is also quite
| good, especially for a novel about a necrophiliac serial
| killer. ;)
| thereticent wrote:
| Rest in peace.
|
| I had a harebrained fantasy of taking a sabbatical to do a
| visiting fellowship at the Santa Fe Institute while he was there.
| I figured he would like talking brain-behavioral science and I
| would like hearing anything he had to say, plus would have gotten
| to talk with mathematicians and other technical experts with a
| visionary tinge. I never did it (too early in my career to try),
| but it was fun to imagine.
|
| My spouse got me his final novel(s), which he had the prescience
| to announce as such, and I almost started reading them a few days
| ago. Now I know it will be a memorial read, also content that he
| assumed it mostly would be.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Aw damn. I figure he'd say "Alright"
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Oh god no. What a sad sad day.
| memling wrote:
| I read _Stella Maris_ just after reading a bio of Godel and
| history of the Vienna Circle. Serendipitous to come across it,
| and would recommend it.
|
| _The Road_...I was warned, but not prepared.
| alangibson wrote:
| I read The Road a couple of months after my first kid was born.
| I don't think I ever really mentally recovered.
| cypherpunks01 wrote:
| I listened to The Road on audiobook while falling asleep,
| over a week or so. Amazing book, but not a recommended
| setting! Don't think I've recovered yet either.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Goin on ahead and fixin to make a fire. RIP.
| kalverra wrote:
| Well that's a real bummer, one of my top 3 authors, and the only
| one that was still alive.
| usehackernews wrote:
| Cormac got me back into reading as an adult.
|
| I read The Road and I was astounded. Still have yet to read
| another book I've liked as much, but at least he got me reading
| to find it!
| briga wrote:
| Wow, The Passenger really was his last. He never compromised, he
| was true to his creative vision right up until the end. Truly one
| of the greats
| dieze wrote:
| Actually Stella Maris was published after The Passenger
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| Not unexpected, and he had a long life well used, but this is
| still such a loss to the world.
|
| Personally, the Border Trilogy and The Road are among my most
| favourite novels.
|
| RIP
| ericboggs wrote:
| I read "The Road" in a single sitting one night while my wife was
| working a late shift. I laid in bed staring at the ceiling all
| night.
| celticninja wrote:
| It's a very good book that I will never read again.
| iaresee wrote:
| This is exactly how I feel about it. Once was enough. Once
| and forever haunted.
| tnorthcutt wrote:
| Same here, I think. I read it before I had a son; I'm not
| sure I could manage to finish it now that I do.
| B2B_human wrote:
| I actually just got the book last week after hearing an
| interview on the radio and the mentioned "the road" and I
| realized I'd read it in high school.
|
| Now I have a daughter and am also wondering how different
| it may seem on this reading of the book...
| doubled112 wrote:
| All I remember about The Road is that I didn't enjoy it
| in high school at all. An incredibly bleak walk, is
| really all I remember.
|
| Maybe I'd appreciate it more now.
| elevaet wrote:
| Same here but with the movie. I think I want to read the
| book but not sure if its just too crushing to read as a
| dad.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Yup, pretty much. There was this one passage about the man
| and the boy hiding and watching some guy. Can't quite
| remember what was going on, he was like struggling or
| something, gravely wounded, and then he just dropped dead.
| The way it read...I felt completely empty and dejected after
| it and put the book down for a couple days.
| jfengel wrote:
| It was, I'm told, a very good book that I noped out of about
| ten pages in.
|
| I made it that far before becoming incredibly annoyed at the
| way literature critics were praising his new invention of
| post-apocalyptic stories which nobody had ever read before
| ever.
|
| Also, if I remember correctly, he felt that the rules of
| punctuation didn't apply to him. Maybe that paid off if I'd
| read more than ten pages.
|
| I don't doubt that he was a true giant. But even setting
| aside these purely meta-textual gripes, it's just not a story
| I want to hear. If I want to be depressed and angry, I'll
| read Hacker News.
| danjoredd wrote:
| >I don't doubt that he was a true giant. But even setting
| aside these purely meta-textual gripes, it's just not a
| story I want to hear. If I want to be depressed and angry,
| I'll read Hacker News.
|
| I completely understand. For me, I see it as a story about
| clinging to hope despite impossible odds. The theming
| reminds me of the manga Berserk, but way more grounded in
| reality and somehow even more depressing. Spoilers:
|
| The main character is dying, and will leave his son to fend
| for himself when he does. The son doesn't really stand a
| chance, but it is his responsibility to teach him to "carry
| the fire." It ends a bit vague...the father dies and the
| kid refuses to leave the body.
|
| Eventually a man comes by and offers to take care of him.
| Whether or not he is actually a good guy, or yet another
| disgusting person, is not really known. But its a glimmer
| of hope, and that is what is important to the message. As
| long as there is hope, carry the fire.
|
| This article by Art of Manliness is what convinced me to
| read it despite how depressing it is. The book isn't for
| everyone, but it IS life changing in my opinion:
| https://www.artofmanliness.com/people/fatherhood/carry-
| the-f...
| lelandfe wrote:
| There are many well-respected authors who flout typical
| grammar. Robert Caro writes sentences as long as whole
| pages.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| > the rules of punctuation didn't apply to him
|
| don't ever, ever read Riddley Walker
| karaterobot wrote:
| Don't blame him for being praised by critics, I don't
| believe he's the one who claimed to have invented post-
| apocalyptic fiction.
|
| I get the punctuation issue, but I think his writing is
| proof that you don't always need to follow the rules from
| elementary school. He was so meticulous that, even without
| commas, all his sentences remained clear, and the effect it
| had was--for most readers anyway--to make the meaning
| somehow clearer, and certainly more powerful.
| jfengel wrote:
| Honestly, I should have led with the last thing. The real
| reason I didn't want to read it is that it was violent
| and unpleasant. There are many people who find value in
| such things. I'm not among them.
| tehnub wrote:
| I haven't read it myself, but I've seen many report that it
| was uplifting to them. Amid the utter horror and hopeless
| bleakness a parent does everything they can to protect
| their child.
| oilchange wrote:
| > I haven't read it myself, but I've seen many report
| that it was uplifting to them.
|
| Uplifting? There was nothing uplifting about The Road.
| It's a world without hope. From the description of the
| forests, seas, societies and families, cormac builds a
| truly hopeless apocalypse with no hope for redemption or
| salvation. A world where hope cannot exist.
|
| > Amid the utter horror and hopeless bleakness a parent
| does everything they can to protect their child.
|
| A father tries to do everything he can to save his son,
| but ultimately, he fails. It's a world without hope after
| all. The father dies and a bunch of cannibals "take in"
| the boy.
|
| It's one of the rare books that I finished in one sitting
| and then read again a few days later.
| tehnub wrote:
| But the love between the father and his son persists to
| the very end.
|
| Here are some people using the word uplift in their
| review on Amazon: [0]. There are some negations though
| ("this book is not uplifting").
|
| [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Road-Vintage-International-
| Cormac-McC...
| oilchange wrote:
| > But the love between the father and his son persists to
| the very end.
|
| So what? Of course the love between a father and son
| persists. It's only natural. But that's not the point of
| the book. The book is about finding hope. The father is
| desperately trying to save his son. To find hope for his
| son. He thinks there is hope along the coast. That's why
| they are on "the road". When they reach the coast, they
| find a leaden sea holding no life. All marine life is
| dead. They find no hope. There, cannibals that were
| hunting the father and son shoot the father with an arrow
| and the father dies. The son buries his father and the
| cannibals find the boy and "take him in".
|
| > [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Road-Vintage-International-
| Cormac-McC...
|
| This is just reviews with the word "uplifting". Many of
| the comments with "uplifting" is just saying it is not
| uplifting.
|
| "This is an unusual book. There is nothing uplifting
| here, so don't expect it."
|
| "As uplifting as a charred word void of virtually all-
| living species. As uplifting as a dead land shrouded in
| night, blanketed with ash and gray snow, legions of
| charcoaled corpses ornamenting the highways and hallways.
| As uplifting as the vicious gangs who prowl the
| countryside surviving on the last food source - other
| humans. As uplifting as the Halocaust, Idi Amin's Uganda,
| or Pol Pot's Cambodia."
|
| Read the book. There is nothing uplifting about it. The
| only thing uplifting about it is that we don't live in
| such a world. It's as hopeless a world as you can
| possibly create. It's a world where the wife and mother
| of the protagonists goes off into the woods to kill
| herself rather than face the horrors that await her and
| her husband and her son. That's how bleak and hopeless
| the world is. It's a world where the father carries a gun
| to take out his son and himself in case the cannibals get
| them. It's a world where the father fails to keep his
| promise to his son and dies, leaving him to a pack of
| cannibals. And that isn't even the worst of it. What
| exactly is uplifting here?
| danjoredd wrote:
| What is uplifting is the underlying message. I do not
| want to write all of it over again, but I wrote my
| thoughts down here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36316079#36325708
|
| I have read the book, and it is about sticking to your
| morals no matter how evil the world will become. That is
| the message of the book.
| oilchange wrote:
| > I have read the book, and it is about sticking to your
| morals no matter how evil the world will become.
|
| What morals? They stole other peoples stuff. They
| abandoned the poor people in the basement to die at the
| hands of the cannibals. They "helped" the guy they met on
| the road but that was due to childish naivety of the son.
| It was superficial and meaningless help. The book was
| entirely about amoral animalistic survival than morality.
| Notice how it was mostly the son who wanted to be
| "moral". If anything, the book is saying being moral is
| childish in an amoral world.
|
| If anything, it showed the inability to stick morals. The
| most important "moral" of the story was the father's
| promise to the son and his wife, not to let the son fall
| into the hands of the cannibals. Throughout the book the
| father promises to kill them both if it came to that. In
| the end, the father couldn't bring himself to kill the
| son and left him to the cannibals who were hunting him.
|
| In your response, you say we don't know whether the "good
| guys" got him or the "bad guys" did. It's obvious the
| "bad guys" got him. On your first reading, it isn't
| clear, but after subsequent readings, it is obvious there
| are no good guys left and the cannibals who were hunting
| ( or possibly other cannibals ) them got him.
|
| > That is the message of the book.
|
| If that was the message, the book showed how stupid and
| pointless it was. Not that it was a good thing. If there
| was a "message", it was that the mother was right and the
| father was wrong. But that isn't the message either.
|
| Rather than taking the book for it is, people are trying
| to find a positive message to make themselves feel
| better. That's a childish notion. Not everything is a
| disney movie. Not everything has to have a happy ending
| or a positive message. You don't have to be uplifted or
| find morality in a book.
| danjoredd wrote:
| > It's obvious the "bad guys" got him.
|
| It is not. The man that found the child had a shotgun. He
| was trying to convince the kid that he had his own wife
| and child. If he was one of the cannibals, he could have
| just shot him and got it over with...this is like a six
| year old we are talking about. Overpowering him,
| kidnapping him, or just shooting him would be more easy.
| It doesn't make sense for him to try and convince the kid
| to join him.
|
| >If anything, the book is saying being moral is childish
| in an amoral world.
|
| I highly disagree. the man had problems trusting others,
| for good reason. But the child was a reminder to him WHY
| it is important to stay good. It ties in with Plato's
| concept of Eudemonia. Helping others must come with a
| sense of self-preservation. To save others with abandon
| is not moral...it is recklessness. On the other side of
| the coin, having nothing BUT self preservation is
| cowardess. They represent both sides of the same
| coin...the boy tugs at the fathers heartstrings to keep
| him in touch with his morality, and the father has the
| common sense to keep them alive.
|
| >Rather than taking the book for it is, people are trying
| to find a positive message to make themselves feel
| better. That's a childish notion.
|
| Making your interpretation the "one and only
| interpretation" and dismissing others as "making
| themselves feel better" is closed minded, myopic, and
| also childish. While I disagree with your interpretation
| of the book, I respect it. However the point of art is to
| attach personal meaning to it. That is not
| childish...that is human.
|
| Your interpretation is that there is no meaning, and that
| morality is pointless. Mine is that it is important to do
| your best in a world that is evil, even if you mess up
| and don't live up to your own standards sometimes.
| "carrying the fire" seems like obvious symbolism to me
| for morality. They don't always carry it...they are
| sometimes bad themselves. When that happens, the kid gets
| upset at the dad and there are consequences. The dad
| develops as a character and decides that giving up and
| killing them both is the wrong thing to do. Is he right?
| Honestly probably not. But that is the thing about
| morality, it is not always black and white.
| oilchange wrote:
| >It is not.
|
| I think it is. I gave my reasons in another comment.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36326924
|
| > If he was one of the cannibals, he could have just shot
| him and got it over with
|
| In the book, the cannibals like to keep their "herd"
| alive in the basement. Remember? Why did they keep their
| humans alive?
|
| > Overpowering him, kidnapping him, or just shooting him
| would be more easy.
|
| No. It would be easier to convince him to follow them
| willingly. Would you rather drag a corpse 10 miles or
| have the the corpse follow you 10 miles. I can't tell if
| you are trolling or not? Throughout book, exhaustion and
| the physical toll play a prominent role - of just pushing
| a cart, father carrying the boy, etc.
|
| It's getting exhausting repeating the obvious. The
| conclusion of the book is the father dead and the
| orphaned boy ending up with cannibals. Exactly what they
| wanted to avoid and breaking the promise that the father
| made to his wife. If that is uplifting to you and you
| find moral value in that fine. I guess if you keep
| looking for something, you'll eventually find it. Even if
| it is not there.
| danjoredd wrote:
| My problem with your reasoning is that it relies on a
| literal interpretation of the words spoken in the book.
| The father says that "there are no other kids his age",
| yes, but remember...most of the book is told through the
| father's eyes. He doesn't know any more than we do. There
| is no information technology anymore...all he knows is
| that he has not seen any kids and that he hasn't heard of
| any kids. He is an unreliable narrator.
|
| >No. It would be easier to convince him to follow them
| willingly. Would you rather drag a corpse 10 miles or
| have the the corpse follow you 10 miles. I can't tell if
| you are trolling or not?
|
| I am not trolling. Have you ever picked up a six year
| old? They weigh practically nothing. The cannibals are
| not shown to be as exhausted or weak as the father so it
| would not be as much of a problem. Perhaps if he gets off
| to the idea of betrayal, or if he really does think that
| having a kid follow him for 10 miles would be easier
| convincing him would be easier, but I have a hard time
| believing that.
|
| >I guess if you keep looking for something, you'll
| eventually find it. Even if it is not there.
|
| I could say the same thing about your interpretation of
| events. I do wish you would be more open minded and less
| cynical...the way you so easily dismiss people and feel
| that your interpretation is the only correct one is
| extremely offputting. Productive conversation cannot
| happen if you keep dismissing everyone else as "missing
| the obvious."
| oilchange wrote:
| > My problem with your reasoning is that it relies on a
| literal interpretation of the words spoken in the book.
|
| What? Now you are just desperately grasping at straws.
|
| > The father says that "there are no other kids his age",
| yes, but remember...most of the book is told through the
| father's eyes.
|
| And? So what? The kid also says so, not that it matters.
|
| > There is no information technology anymore...
|
| That's right. Before the internet and IT, nobody saw any
| children. This comment is the dumbest thing I've read in
| a long while.
|
| > all he knows is that he has not seen any kids and that
| he hasn't heard of any kids. He is an unreliable
| narrator.
|
| The kid also said so. And I don't think you know what
| "unreliable narrator" is. There has to be clues within
| the story to imply that he is unreliable (
| psychologically, memorywise, etc ). Not that he doesn't
| have access to a smartphone.
|
| > Have you ever picked up a six year old? They weigh
| practically nothing.
|
| Yes. Not only that, I was six year old once. Long before
| I was 6 years old, my parents stopped carrying me around.
| And you are being intentionally sneaky here. Who said
| anything about picking up a 6 year old. I said carry a 6
| year old how many miles they had to go.
|
| > Perhaps if he gets off to the idea of betrayal, or if
| he really does think that having a kid follow him for 10
| miles would be easier convincing him would be easier, but
| I have a hard time believing that.
|
| Yes. It's easier to believe that in a starving world, a
| random kind couple is willing to take in someone else's
| child to feed. Something his own father struggled
| immensely to do. That is easier to believe.
|
| It's obvious what happened. It's why you ignored every
| one of my points except the absolutely nonsense about "no
| more information technology..."
|
| Let me guess, you are the type of person who watched the
| movie No Country for Old Men and believe that chigurh
| didn't kill the wife. Or that the girl in the red dress
| in schindler's list wasn't dead but playing dead because
| she was saved by some magical good nazis. At this point I
| hope you at pretending to be trolling to save yourself
| some embarrassment.
|
| I'm so dumb. I forgot that before information technology,
| kids were invisible. Thank you.
| danjoredd wrote:
| It is not letting me reply to your reply to my comment,
| so I am going to reply here instead.
|
| >What? Now you are just desperately grasping at straws.
|
| Explain. Am I incorrect?
|
| >And? So what? The kid also says so, not that it matters.
|
| Because he has not seen any. Just because they didn't see
| any kids doesn't mean they don't exist. The fact that the
| kid himself exists suggests that this is not entirely
| correct.
|
| >That's right. Before the internet and IT, nobody saw any
| children. This comment is the dumbest thing I've read in
| a long while.
|
| I would appreciate it if you could make a point without
| resorting to insults. For one suggesting that others are
| childish for their interpretations, you are resorting to
| childish actions.
|
| As for my point, perhaps I was not clear in my meaning. I
| meant that there was no way to verify that there are no
| kids...no newspapers saying that "all kids are dead," or
| any other way for him to verify that information. He is
| just saying what he has seen, which is no kids.
|
| >There has to be clues within the story to imply that he
| is unreliable ( psychologically, memorywise, etc ). Not
| that he doesn't have access to a smartphone.
|
| Again, you misinterpret my point. The father is not
| omniscient. He does not know for certain.
|
| >Yes. Not only that, I as six year old once. Long before
| I was 6 years old, my parents stopped carrying me around.
| And you are being intentionally sneaky here. Who said
| anything about picking up a 6 year old. I said carry a 6
| year old how many miles they had to go.
|
| At this point, I am starting to think you are not
| actually reading my comments. A well fed cannibal with a
| stomach full of people is not going to have trouble
| carrying a six year old the same way a starving father on
| the brink of death would be.
|
| >Let me guess, you are the type of person who watched the
| movie No Country for Old Men and believe that chigurh
| didn't kill the wife. Or that the girl in the red dress
| in schindler's list wasn't dead but playing dead because
| she was saved by some magical good nazis. At this point I
| hope you at pretend to be trolling to save yourself some
| embarrassment.
|
| Now you are resorting to ad hominem and assuming things
| about my character. No, I am sure Chigurh killed the
| wife. I have not seen Shindler's List so I cannot say one
| way or the other.
|
| >At this point I hope you at pretend to be trolling to
| save yourself some embarrassment
|
| The only person embarrassed here is you. You have shown
| great immaturity during this conversation, and
| immediately assume the worst in everyone. That says a lot
| more about you than me. I will not be continuing this
| conversation, because it is obvious any further
| discussion with you will be fruitless. Have a blessed
| day.
| Tronno wrote:
| From what I recall, it's not stated that the family who
| takes in the boy are cannibals. That could be one
| interpretation, I suppose, if depression is your goal.
|
| But if you take them at their word, they're "carrying the
| fire", so the story gets a hopeful ending.
|
| Perhaps that's what people find uplifting about it.
| oilchange wrote:
| > From what I recall, it's not stated that the family who
| takes in the boy are cannibals.
|
| It isn't explicitly stated, but it is heavily implied. I
| gave my reasons to another comment.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36326924
|
| > That could be one interpretation, I suppose, if
| depression is your goal.
|
| It's a work of fiction. Nobody died. Nobody starved.
| Nothing to get depressed about.
| tehnub wrote:
| >This is just reviews with the word "uplifting". Many of
| the comments with "uplifting" is just saying it is not
| uplifting.
|
| I noted that when I posted the link. But at least half
| are saying it is uplifting.
|
| I obviously can't argue further as I haven't read it. I
| will remark that different people will react to the same
| material variously uplifted or beaten-down, and neither
| reaction is less valid (unless they just misunderstood
| the plot). Personally, I tend to find depictions of
| nobility and perseverance in the face of imminent doom
| interesting and moving if not uplifting.
| oilchange wrote:
| > I obviously can't argue further as I haven't read it.
|
| You should. It's the best of its kind in my opinion.
|
| > I will remark that different people will react to the
| same material variously uplifted or beaten-down, and
| neither reaction is less valid (unless they just
| misunderstood the plot).
|
| I'm open to people having subjective feelings - like
| whether they enjoyed it, they found it too graphic, not
| graphic enough, etc. But uplifting is different. There
| has to be something concrete to back up the feeling of
| being uplifted.
|
| > Personally, I tend to find depictions of nobility and
| perseverance in the face of imminent doom interesting and
| moving if not uplifting.
|
| But that's the point. It isn't nobility and perseverance
| in the face of imminent doom. The mother thought it was
| inevitable doom. The father had hope. It's perseverance
| in false hope. Nonexistent hope. It's like you seeing a
| person jump 100 stories from the twin towers and flapping
| his arms in the hopes of flying and saving himself. Would
| you say that is uplifting? Of course not. Unless you were
| being edgy or silly.
|
| Instead of reading silly amazon reviews, go read the book
| and see for yourself.
| huthuthike wrote:
| I disagree with your interpretation of the ending. It
| felt to me that the family that takes in the boy are not
| bad people.
| oilchange wrote:
| > It felt to me that the family that takes in the boy are
| not bad people.
|
| What family? You really believe the man and woman who
| took in the boy had a "family"? A world where boy's own
| mother abandoned him and his father to kill herself
| because there was no hope. A world where there are no
| plants, animals, fish, etc left. A world where a a woman
| gives birth and then she and her friends cook the fetus
| over a campfire. You think in a world where there is no
| food, no possibility of food, where everyone is either
| starving to death or cannibalizing, that there is a happy
| family? It's a world where everyone is starving to death.
| You think "a family" is going to take in an extra mouth
| to feed?
|
| Did you miss the parts in the book where they explicitly
| mention how there is no children the boy's age left? The
| boy desperately wants a friend but there are no children
| his age left. Except for that one "imaginary" kid he ran
| into that disappeared. Why do you think that is?
|
| Also, the father and son were being hunted by a pack of
| cannibals who mortally wound the father. What are the
| odds that the cannibal hunters caught up to him. What are
| the odds that a magical good samaritan family stumbled
| upon him?
|
| When I first read the book, I thought the kid was saved.
| Then I reread it and boy cormac really made it crystal
| clear how hopeless that world was.
| huthuthike wrote:
| The boy offers to give the man his pistol but the man
| tells him to keep it. That indicates the man is not
| trying to trick him.
|
| Talking about odds in a fictional story is misguided. The
| odds are 100% whatever the writer intended.
| oilchange wrote:
| > It was, I'm told, a very good book that I noped out of
| about ten pages in.
|
| That's strange. The book grabs your attention from the get
| go. It starts strong. Stays strong. Ends strong.
|
| > I made it that far before becoming incredibly annoyed at
| the way literature critics were praising his new invention
| of post-apocalyptic stories which nobody had ever read
| before ever.
|
| This makes absolutely no sense. Were you reading the book
| and reading reviews at the same time?
|
| > Also, if I remember correctly, he felt that the rules of
| punctuation didn't apply to him. Maybe that paid off if I'd
| read more than ten pages.
|
| His punctuation was fine. The book reads well. His words
| and sentences flow. I found it easily one of the most
| accessible.
|
| > it's just not a story I want to hear. If I want to be
| depressed and angry Hacker News.
|
| Ah there it is. People with petty gripes always have an
| agenda. So your "gripes" above are just because you want
| don't like apocalytic stories and want to warn people off
| it? Why not just say so instead of making up silly
| criticisms? Also, it's a work of fiction. It isn't real.
| Really nothing to get depressed or angry about. If
| anything, it should make you happy since we don't like in
| such a hopeless world. But really, like all great
| literature, it should make you think.
| nl wrote:
| > His punctuation was fine. The book reads well. His
| words and sentences flow. I found it easily one of the
| most accessible.
|
| No, this is a fair criticism.
|
| It's true this is done for literary effect, but it does
| make it harder to read.
|
| To quote McCarthy himself:
|
| > James Joyce is a good model for punctuation. He keeps
| it to an absolute minimum. There's no reason to blot the
| page up with weird little marks. I mean, if you write
| properly you shouldn't have to punctuate.[1]
|
| Whilst this might be true, his punctuation style is non-
| conventional and that does break our expectations making
| it harder to follow.
|
| [1] https://www.openculture.com/2013/08/cormac-mccarthys-
| punctua...
| oilchange wrote:
| > It's true this is done for literary effect, but it does
| make it harder to read.
|
| What literary effect? I didn't even notice there were
| punctuation issues until I read the guy's comment. Maybe
| since it was basically a book where most of the dialogue
| is between two people? It was one of the easiest and most
| straightforward reads of my life.
|
| > > James Joyce is a good model for punctuation. He keeps
| it to an absolute minimum. There's no reason to blot the
| page up with weird little marks. I mean, if you write
| properly you shouldn't have to punctuate.[1]
|
| ..."to make it easier, not to make it harder" to decipher
| his prose. He wrote that way to make it easier to read.
| And I agree with him. His prose just flowed. Also, the
| problem with joyce isn't the punctation. Even with proper
| punctuation, joyce would be difficult.
|
| But if people have issues with it, then so be it. Are
| there any examples where his punctuation caused issues
| for readers?
| The_Colonel wrote:
| I did the same, read it in one (or maybe two) days.
|
| In retrospect, I'm conflicted. In some way, it seems too
| straightforward ("The Road" title fits well) dystopia.
| Distilled, masterfully executed, but somehow ... trivial? Maybe
| it's the "Seinfeld is unfunny" trope where it can become
| obvious only after experiencing it.
| kjs3 wrote:
| I didn't read it in one go. I had to put it down a couple of
| times. Haunting doesn't cover it.
| bena wrote:
| I've only watched the movie. But after having watched it, I
| facetiously recommend that you only watch it if you are
| currently happy. Because damn, is it just the biggest fucking
| downer. It will make you more depressed after having watched
| it. So if you watch it while already depressed, I can't imagine
| the depths it will bring you to.
|
| It's a good movie, and I'm sure a good book (consider it thrown
| on the backlog), but damn, so effectively bleak.
| bmj wrote:
| The movie does away with the ambiguity at the end of the
| book, in an effort to have a vaguely "happy ending."
|
| The best adaption of McCarthy's work to the screen is No
| Country For Old Men. The Coen brothers seem to "get" McCarthy
| better than others.
| drawkbox wrote:
| Interestingly Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men looks
| alot like Cormac McCarthy around the same age. [1][2][3]
|
| Coen brothers still make movies with real people and
| brought this world to life in an authentic way.
|
| [Anton vs the "We can't give out no information"
| lady](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WLA81q9ok0) I love
| Coen movies with regular people like this. The lady is
| hilarious and it is one of the only people that Anton
| didn't take out.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac_McCarthy#/media/Fi
| le:Co...
|
| [2] https://www.slashfilm.com/img/gallery/how-quentin-
| tarantino-...
|
| [3] https://twitter.com/mdbell79/status/1263644096385564673
| bena wrote:
| I've watched that one too. That one has a sort of resigned
| feeling to it. Situations are over, but nothing is really
| resolved. It's kind of like a serious version of Burn After
| Reading. Here are these various lives and stories and the
| situation that has intertwined them. Once the situation is
| has passed, everyone is affected in different ways, but
| nothing really ends.
| teh_klev wrote:
| I also read The Road in a single sitting but over night. It was
| also a stormy night in late November which just added to the
| atmosphere of the book. The next day felt pretty bleak and
| grey, just like the weather and my mood. I love it when a book
| can do that to you.
| leokennis wrote:
| I read this book when my second son was just born. I cannot
| recommend reading a book so bleak and soul crushing and
| unforgiving as The Road while your mind is at its softest and
| most protective. To feel so hopeless and inadequate as a
| father...I would not wish it on even the foulest villain in the
| world.
| wigster wrote:
| i started it just as my first child was born. i quickly
| stopped and never wanted to go back.
| prawn wrote:
| I'd read it multiple times previously, but recently picked it
| up after having not read a book in a year or two. Got through
| 160 pages without realising. Felt like I'd blinked and it
| happened.
|
| My son is now a bit older than the boy would be. I feel like
| the book would either build your resolve or beat it down, so
| just go in forewarned.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| Is that where the movie with Viggo Mortensen came from? I
| didn't know it was based on a book, the movie was soul
| crushing.
| ewjt wrote:
| It is the only book I wish I could forget completely.
|
| Serious advice: think twice before reading The Road if you're
| susceptible to doom and gloom about the human race.
| bamfly wrote:
| Damn. I must have exceptionally dark taste in media,
| because I've definitely got a few "well, that was good, but
| I kinda wish I hadn't read/watched it" things in my
| history, and _The Road_ wasn 't even close to qualifying.
| I'd say the film _Threads_ hit me harder, to pick something
| with similar setting and circumstances, though that 's
| still not quite in that category.
|
| ( _It Comes at Night_ is probably my #1 in that category
| for film, and I guess Watts ' _Blindsight_ in books--both
| messed me up for days after, the former with some
| depressive nihilism, the latter with days of fairly intense
| derealization that weren 't too fun--and I'm not normally
| especially prone to either of those, I don't think)
| digging wrote:
| I know this won't apply to everyone, but _Blindsight_ is
| one of the few pieces of media that noticeably changed my
| life. Here be profound ideas, although your mileage may
| vary, especially if you 're neurotypical or already very
| well read in concepts of truly alien intelligence. (The
| space probe chapter was one of the most life-changing
| passages I've ever read, so that may tell the reader
| something about my autism.)
|
| I read the entire thing in HTML on my phone on the
| author's web site over a week or so. After the first few
| days of catching bits during breaks, I found myself
| sitting at home on the porch just reading from my phone -
| not typical for me. (I did later buy a copy.)
| echelon wrote:
| _It Comes at Night_ didn 't have anything come at night.
| It was derivative of everything else in the genre to the
| point of being a snore. I was so disappointed. One of my
| least favorite A24 films.
|
| I suppose I was expecting peak Shyamalan, but A24.
| bamfly wrote:
| Yeah, it was mostly just a slow-burn misery-fest. Now
| that I think about it, I'm not sure I'd put it in the
| "good, but also horrible" category, exactly. Like, I
| don't think there's actually much to it other than the
| misery. Not like a _Funny Games_ , say, that's thoroughly
| miserable but also doing some other, interesting things
| that both justify and require the misery.
| MikeBVaughn wrote:
| I found _Echopraxia_ a disappointing follow-up to
| _Blindsight_ , because the thematic core was much harder
| to grok, and it felt diffuse and attenuated. It's very
| hard to write a novel that explores what it means for
| scientists to encounter the limits of scientific
| rationality as we understand it.
|
| Interestingly, (and apropos) McCarthy's last, _Stella
| Maris_ , I think, did a much more eloquent job of
| exploring the same themes. _Stella Maris_ is astounding,
| it 's cosmic horror without the 'supernatural.' Instead
| there's only Godel and Metzinger.
| digging wrote:
| My impression is that Watts is best at first books in a
| series. Both _Blindsight_ and _Starfish_ were (and are)
| absolutely incredible to me, but both of their sequels
| fall short of the original promise. However, from reading
| his blog, this is not unexpected. He doesn 't write
| sequels to further explore the same ideas, but to move
| background ideas into the forefront and explore those.
| This would naturally lead to disappointment if the reader
| wants more of the original premise.
|
| That said, I think _Echopraxia_ is a better sequel than
| _Maelstrom_ and a pretty good book on its own. He is
| working on a final book in the Blindopraxia trilogy and I
| expect it to move even further from the wonder of the
| original book, but now that my expectations are set I am
| looking forward to it all the same.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| _Blindsight_ is a masterpiece about intelligence without
| consciousness. De-linking those ideas can be seriously
| jarring for humans, because we usually consider them two
| sides of the same coin.
|
| Plus one of the more normal characters investigating the
| phenomenon just happens to be a vampire who--surprisingly
| enough--is neither formulaic nor boring.
| bamfly wrote:
| > Plus one of the more normal characters investigating
| the phenomenon just happens to be a vampire who--
| surprisingly enough--is neither formulaic nor boring.
|
| The writing-guide-esque "OK, now write down ten wild
| elements or characters that certainly _do not_ fit in
| your world... _flip page_ ... and now add one of them,
| finding a way to connect it to some other element you 've
| already established" was almost comically transparent,
| but also so damn effective that I've added it to the ol'
| toolbox.
|
| (I mean, I don't know that Watts literally did that sort
| of exercise, exactly, and even doubt that he did, but in
| my head that's definitely how that part got in there)
| digging wrote:
| I feel pretty certain that the vampires were included in
| quite the opposite way - especially if you read the
| sequel, which features their story more heavily. To me,
| the existence of vampires in the _Blindsight_ setting
| seems essential.
| ali_m wrote:
| No, you have to carry the fire
| prawn wrote:
| I like that you can play through both The Last of Us games
| and think "What a grim existence, scraping together things
| to cobble a defence against relentless threats. Horrific."
|
| And compare it to The Road, whose environment would have
| you _begging_ for a holiday to The Last of Us. Not just the
| lack of food, but the lack of ability to grow new food, to
| rest, to warm, to heal. The constant, dogged, thinking,
| scheming threats. And your kid isn 't pushing ladders down
| to you nearly enough.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Yes. If you enjoyed it, a film adaptation for another of
| McCarthy's novels, Blood Meridian was recently green lit.
|
| https://deadline.com/2023/04/new-regency-cormac-mccarthys-
| bl...
| runevault wrote:
| The fact Cormac was working on the screenplay himself... I
| wonder how that impacts this effort.
| suction wrote:
| [dead]
| jebarker wrote:
| I cannot imagine how this is going to work.
| sandkoan wrote:
| Something which may not be known to many, McCarthy was also quite
| interested in math, philosophy, cognition. A piece of his non-
| fiction work which made a lasting impression on me was "The
| Kekule Problem" [0], exploring the power of the _unconscious_ ,
| combative with consciousness, as an unveiler of Truth.
|
| 0: https://nautil.us/the-kekul-problem-236574/
| zls wrote:
| If you've read his final two books it's incredible clear how
| fascinated he is by math, physics, and their interaction at
| philosophy. Stella Maris is basically just a long exploration
| of the philosophical implications of math, in dialogue form.
| mahathu wrote:
| I will never remember this Yelp Review a fan of his wrote:
|
| Three stars.
|
| See that false burrito. See it swaddled in tinfoil on the desk in
| the bowels of that great tower, a bundle of meat and sauce in a
| place long ago ceded to silicone and copper. The stooped man
| eating that peasant food as if in consuming it he can escape to a
| farmfield in a verdant valley and look down and see blood running
| from his blisters and say, yes this is work. This is work.
| Instead his hands are clawlike and ruined by the keyboard and the
| mouse for he is a thing of bone and sinew in a sprawling
| contraption electric and of man's creation but not of man at all.
| And were he to saw his breast open with that plastic knife and
| soak the carpet black with his hot blood and were he to look
| ceilingward like some stigmatic enraptured and with the bellows
| of his lungs let forth a soaring wail in that subbasement his
| screams would be swallowed by the acoustic panels and repulsed by
| the good steel door as if he had made no sound and spilled no
| blood at all.
|
| https://yelpingwithcormac.tumblr.com/post/15243208646/chipot...
| pugworthy wrote:
| Hah I see I am not the only fan!
| [deleted]
| jnsie wrote:
| I was not ready for this...such a huge loss.
| bitcurious wrote:
| The Road is one of the most haunting books I've ever read. Highly
| recommend.
|
| Warning though - it broke a game my friends play "how would you
| survive X apocalypse?" My answer for many switched to "wouldn't
| want to."
| sh34r wrote:
| Threads (1984) has the same effect.
|
| On the bright side, it's a great antidote for anyone who's
| falling too deep into the prepper rabbit hole. YAGNI.
| prawn wrote:
| To recover, watch The Last Man on Earth.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| I know its bad form to speak ill of the dead but -
|
| A friend gave me a copy of "Child of God" amd frankly it was the
| most disgusting, dark, unrewarding, unethical, uninspired,
| uniteresting, poorly written books ive ever read.
|
| I was flat out offended by the book and repeatedly had to set it
| down and fume about how unnecessarily disgusting he was being. I
| never finished it. I got the impression that cormac was a
| thoroughly disturbed individual with a macabre fascination with
| the most fucked up 0.00001% of humanity. To make matters worth he
| cant write worth a damn.
|
| I will say his metaphors can be quite beautiful hut they often
| make no sense grammatically.
|
| Tldr : Cormac Mccarthy is not for me.
| serf wrote:
| >I got the impression that cormac was a thoroughly disturbed
| individual with a macabre fascination with the most fucked up
| 0.00001% of humanity.
|
| you should separate yourself from that notion.
|
| it's true that authors can be damaged individuals with little
| personal hope, but some of the most macabre things ever written
| have been conjured by perfectly normal/well-functioning/happy
| individuals who enjoy fairly well-balanced lives -- it's simply
| not a good indicator of the person behind the pen.
|
| as for the grammatic non-sense (to which I agree can be exactly
| that, non-sense) I always read it as if it were sort of styled
| similarly to the concept of 'beat poetry'. Grammar and syntax
| goes out the door for prose/beauty/imagery and style.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| 100% agree about his prose being basically beat poetry. I
| think that was why I didnt like it. I hate spoken word poetry
| 90% of the time. I can see the appeal, certainly, but it does
| really feel middle school edgelord-ish to me.
| suction wrote:
| [dead]
| tmountain wrote:
| Saying he can't write worth a damn is an objectively false
| statement. His works are studied and loved by the literary
| vanguard around the world.
|
| You didn't like the book? Fine, but attacking his capabilities
| as a writer is ridiculous. He's one of the greatest authors in
| a generation.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Im not the only person with that opinion. Its a subjective
| thing. In my opinion his writing is amatuerish. Reminds me of
| stuff I would write trying to shock people in middle school.
|
| Also Id like to clarify I am basing my opinion solely on the
| one book of his ive tried to read- child of god
| gerry_shaw wrote:
| Your review is almost spot on for me. I'm agreeing with it all
| along with the exception that I really like his writing and,
| well, I would say "enjoy" his novels, I do respect and value
| the time spent reading them.
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| Cormac and the main character was a child of God, much like you
| or I.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Actually, he doesnt even exist. He is a fantasy made by
| someone who has a very very pessimistic view of humanity.
| There are not very many Lesters out there. Sure, maybe a few,
| but he is writing about something that is not at all
| relatable. Hes singled out some fucked up abscess in the
| human race and tried to make him sympathetic.
| alangibson wrote:
| Upvoted because being turned off my McCarthy is not an
| unreasonable reaction.
|
| Do yourself a favor and read Blood Meridian. It's been said
| many times that you are not the same person when you're done
| reading it. I fully agree.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| I may give it a shot. Heard good things. I liked the movie of
| no country as well, might have to give that book a shot too.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I find his exploration of dark matters to be uniquely
| stimulating and useful in a variety of thought experiments.
|
| Take The Road, for example. The notion of assessing the
| probabilities that you'll have enough ammunition to either kill
| multiple assailants, or alternatively, need to keep the
| ammunition to kill yourself and your son _seems_ sickening and
| pointless to explore to some people. Taken seriously and with
| an open mind, it can invoke serious contemplation of your
| values, what life means to you, what compassion can really
| mean, how you take what you have for granted, and more.
|
| As awful as it is to consider, there are real people who have
| had to make these decisions. That there can be a state of
| existence in this world where these are pressing matters is
| simultaneously bewildering and disgusting, yet eye-opening in
| ways I consider important to living better even outside of that
| context.
|
| The relentless and ruthless tunnel of gloom and suffering in
| that book is a useful tool to remind yourself in a vivid way:
| It's all still here. I'm alive. The trees are green, the rain
| is clean, the grains are growing for a fall harvest I can still
| reasonably expect will arrive -- life is pretty good. And yet
| life can get so much worse. Perhaps I should value this moment
| so much more than I was prior to these thoughts.
|
| Cormac took the very real, very disgusting parts of humanity
| and wove horrifying tapestries from it. But they're not purely
| for the sake of shock and disgust. The contrast of what he
| depicts -- held up to most readers' realities -- provides a
| heightened sense of the inverse of what he describes, allowing
| you to realize much better how beautiful the good parts of
| humanity are. Left to our own imaginations, most of us are not
| only unlikely to wade into that darkness, but we also lack the
| sheer depth and breath of skill he has in bringing it to life.
| What he offers is a sort of simulation of something otherwise
| inaccessible to most of us.
|
| I'd make the case that without this exploration, our perception
| of life can be duller. I'd never want that dullness to be
| sharpened by real experience though; I'd much rather brush
| against that reality in the form of a story.
|
| Human senses are calibrated by relative experience. Whether it
| be taste, sight, smell, touch, or even emotion: you won't
| recognize what feels good or what is better without
| experiencing what's worse in some way or another. The harrowing
| experience of imagining the vulnerability and suffering of
| loved ones or yourself might actually be an excellent tool for
| recalibrating and hardening your desire to see people safe and
| thriving. It may reestablish how crucial it is not to let the
| world descend into what Cormac describes. It can open your mind
| to possibilities you hadn't considered in ways that aren't
| strictly hypothetical or for the sake of pure masochism.
| MikeBVaughn wrote:
| "I will say his metaphors can be quite beautiful hut they often
| make no sense grammatically."
|
| Question 1: Example, please?
|
| Question 1.5: In what way does the example not make sense
| grammatically?
|
| Question 2.0-2.(n): To what degree does grammar 'matter'? Is
| conformance to some prescriptive view of grammar essential to
| 'good' writing? What is the function of grammar - precision and
| disambiguation? Are there contexts in which grammar can or
| should be subservient to other linguistic effects, such as
| prosody? Are there other phenomenological effects of reading to
| which grammar may or may not be relevant?
|
| An exercise for the motivated reader: Read 'A Carafe that is a
| Blind Glass' by Gertrude Stein. What does it feel like? What
| does it evoke? What are we doing mentally when we read it? What
| exactly _are_ we doing when we read?
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| This is so hilariously pompous. I dont need to give you an
| example. Im sure you can find one in the first chapter of
| Child of God.
|
| And grammer matters to the extent that the sentance is able
| to convey its meaning clearly to the reader. In my opinion,
| McCarthy does not hit this mark in a lot of case. Maybe im
| too dense, but his mixture of invented hick language,
| completely fucked up punctuation, and flowery/poetic
| language, is often very tough to sus out. What is actually
| supposed to be happening is often not so clear.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| That's all important, if he were writing documentation or a
| technical manual.
|
| That the reader is required to make some effort to un-knot
| the language is a legitimate tool of the poet. Some are too
| impatient, used to sound-bytes from a tv personality
| perhaps, and won't open them selves to something novel or
| evocative. It has to 'make sense' grammatically and
| semantically. Poetry is often neither of those.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Okay but he is a novelist. I didnt sign up for a book
| full of confusing necrophelia poetry.
|
| Ultimately this is all a matter if taste
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Exactly. Not a matter of an incompetent writer who just
| won't say things plainly and grammatically.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Okay sure. I do not have a problem with his skill, but
| rather his style.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Tortured to be sure!
|
| Not a fan myself.
| bamfly wrote:
| > Question 2.0-2.(n): To what degree does grammar 'matter'?
| Is conformance to some prescriptive view of grammar essential
| to 'good' writing?
|
| To be fair--his writing's a _lot_ more challenging than most.
| Even most other literary writing. Even most other literary
| writing that 's widely regarded as challenging. Editing it to
| conform to language & grammatical norms would definitely make
| it a lot easier to read.
|
| > What is the function of grammar - precision and
| disambiguation? Are there contexts in which grammar can or
| should be subservient to other linguistic effects, such as
| prosody? Are there other phenomenological effects of reading
| to which grammar may or may not be relevant?
|
| And this is the "on the other hand": on the other hand--and
| most unusually--reigning in that deviation from norms, at
| all, would, nonetheless, make his writing _worse_. Some
| writing can tolerate bending even the more well-considered
| and empathetic of writing rules--his required breaking them.
| Demanded it, and demanded a whole other set of rules of his
| own making, exactly as a poem may break the rules of prose
| writing, while strictly following a whole other set of rules,
| all to good effect.
| voisin wrote:
| > I was flat out offended by the book and repeatedly had to set
| it down and fume about how unnecessarily disgusting he was
| being.
|
| Ok, but can you see any beauty in the fact that he wrote words
| that evoked such a response? How much do you read on a daily
| basis that evokes absolutely nothing and passes without memory?
| Read some of his other stuff if you didn't like this particular
| novel.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| No. I did not see any beauty in his graphic description of a
| mentally retarded hillbilly ejaculating onto the corpse of a
| young woman.
|
| I was just offended.
| justin66 wrote:
| > I know its bad form to speak ill of the dead but -
|
| In defense of an otherwise entirely useless comment, you
| weren't really speaking ill of the dead, you were speaking ill
| of his work.
|
| > To make matters worth he cant write worth a damn.
|
| OK tough guy.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site
| guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Not liking a book isn't speaking ill of the dead.
|
| But...
|
| > I was flat out offended by the book
|
| That was entirely up to you. That was a decision you made and
| blamed on someone else. I feel like that is something important
| to consider with your first sentence.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Idk man have you read it? I found his gratuitious
| descriptions of a mentally retard man ejaculating onto the
| corpse of a dead young lady to be profoundly disturbing and
| unrewarding. It read to me like the author was exploring his
| own fantasy, rather than using it as some kind of plot
| device.
|
| Im actually quite hard to offend but when a sick fuck
| publishes and makes money of his disgusting pornography, its
| upsetting. If it had some real artistic merit in my
| estimation I would not be so bothered.
|
| But clearly this is all subjective. It just crossed a line
| with me, and the work wasnt meaningful enough to justify it.
| asdasd213123 wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site
| guidelines. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules
| with.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Rapzid wrote:
| Damn, this is quite the recommendation IMO.
| stvltvs wrote:
| There's early McCarthy and then there's late McCarthy. The
| difference is stark. You should try one of his later books.
|
| I read "Suttree", and it was a mixed bag for me. I loved "All
| the Pretty Horses" and "The Road".
| scranglis wrote:
| In light of the LLM break throughs in the last couple of years,
| I've been returning his speculative essay about the source of
| symbolic thought every few months: https://nautil.us/the-kekul-
| problem-236574/
| projectileboy wrote:
| It's not often that someone passes who is legitimately a giant,
| someone whose impact will be felt generations from now. A sad
| day.
| fallinditch wrote:
| Blood Meridian is a rendering of the actual history of that
| period. McCarthy based the main characters on real people. The
| kid is Samuel Chamberlain who wrote about his time with the
| Glanton Gang in his memoir My Confessions: Recollections of a
| Rogue. Here's a fascinating article that discusses Blood Meridian
| as an important work of American history.
|
| https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/crossing-the-blood-merid...
| __abc wrote:
| Fudge, I loved that guy and his work. I still remember how fun it
| was to binge The Road in a single day. I don't think I left my
| couch from the early morning on through to the late evening. Such
| a compelling and gripping writer.
| krylon wrote:
| I read The Road while doing a lengthy daily commute via train,
| leading through a kind of lush rural area in western Germany. I
| vividly remember the stark contrast between the bleak world
| described in the novel and the vibrant, colorful abundance of
| life outside the window when I came up for air. It was a very
| unreal experience, switching back and forth between these two
| realities.
|
| Blood Meridian was another monstrosity that lured me into a very
| dark inner space. I think it expresses the USA's relationship to
| violence better than anything else I have read, fiction or non-
| fiction. But there is a lot more going on at the same time, and I
| don't think I ever fully explored that. It didn't help that for a
| relatively short novel, it's so exhausting to read, both
| intellectually and emotionally.
| SemioticStandrd wrote:
| Absolutely. His books are like slabs of lead (in the best way).
| Sitting down to read Cormac is a _decision_
| pugworthy wrote:
| One of my favorite bits of writing is "Yelping with Cormac", a
| series of short humorous pieces written by E.D.W. Lynch.
|
| An excerpt from "The Apple Store"...
|
| "... There was folks outside just standin there. Line stretchin
| round the block. Maybe a hundred people. I saw a man who'd
| brought his own chair. He had a shirt on with the same logo as
| the one on the store. I figured he worked there so I asked him
| what the line was all about. What were all these people waitin
| for. He told me it was for a apple phone or some such. I said
| dont these folks have telephones already? He told me they all had
| apple phones but it was the older one. I asked him what would
| happen to the old apple phones. He told me about a fella named
| Craig had a list and everbody sold their old telephones on it. A
| telephone sellin list."
|
| https://yelpingwithcormac.tumblr.com/best
| lordfrito wrote:
| OMG thanks for the link, funniest thing I've read in a while.
| voisin wrote:
| His famous "Legion of Horribles" quote below. I often think of
| "death hilarious":
|
| "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 horse's 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."
| prawn wrote:
| I've used this sentence as an example with my children, showing
| how with language you can demonstrate pace or frenzy. A battle
| charge is absolute chaos. There's no time for sentence
| structure, it's all wild glances from one thing to another.
| trefoiled wrote:
| As fantastical as this passage may sound, most of the details
| McCarthy provides are historically accurate, and based on a
| particular event: The Great Raid of 1840 [1]. A thousand
| Comanche warriors conducted an extremely deep raid into
| Southeast Texas, where they sacked the port of Linnville. An
| exceptionally large amount of trade goods were present in the
| port that day, including clothes bound for various settlements
| across the Texas frontier. The bits about umbrellas, stovepipe
| hats, and even the wedding veil come directly from eyewitnesses
| to the raid. The bit about a Comanche warrior wearing the armor
| of a conquistador is also real [2]. The Comanche were known for
| being exceptionally flamboyant, prizing extravagant clothing
| dyed in vibrant colors. It must have had quite a psychological
| effect on their enemies.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Raid_of_1840
|
| [2]
| https://www.google.com/books/edition/Comanches/Cqh8qSexvU4C?...
| mooreds wrote:
| If you are interested in learning more about Comanches, can't
| recommend "The Comanche Empire" highly enough:
| https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300151176/the-
| comanche-e...
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| There's also Empire of the Summer Moon which I enjoyed.
| [deleted]
| akiselev wrote:
| _> The bit about a Comanche warrior wearing the armor of a
| conquistador is also real_
|
| That was probably Iron Jacket [1] who is known for wearing
| conquistador armor that made him seem impervious to light
| arms fire.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Jacket
| klooney wrote:
| There used to be a Bay Area band that did this as a bit-
| https://open.spotify.com/track/3jluqiK6yGNGg0xwJIs6kX?si=GTq...
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I think this paragraph, from The Road, is one of the most
| beautiful I've ever read:
|
| "Once there were brook trouts in the streams in the mountains.
| You could see them standing in the amber current where the white
| edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of
| moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their
| backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in
| its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put
| back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived
| all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."
| dvt wrote:
| I read The Road years ago, but I was probably too young to fully
| understand it; more recently, I read Blood Meridian a few months
| ago for my book club. Few novels have had me think about them as
| much (Dostoevsky's Demons and Melville's Moby Dick come to mind).
| McCarthy was an absolute American treasure.
|
| Rest in peace. His poetic Blood Meridian epilogue really stuck
| with me:
|
| "In the dawn there is a man progressing over the plain by means
| of holes which he is making in the ground. He uses an implement
| with two handles and he chucks it into the hole and he enkindles
| the stone in the hole with his steel hole by hole striking the
| fire out of the rock which God has put there. On the plain behind
| him are the wanderers in search of bones and those who do not
| search and they move haltingly in the light like mechanisms whose
| movements are monitored with escapement and pallet so that they
| appear restrained by a prudence or reflectiveness which has no
| inner reality and they cross in their progress one by one that
| track of holes that runs to the rim of the visible ground and
| which seems less the pursuit of some continuance than the
| verification of a principle, a validation of sequence and
| causality as if each round and perfect hole owed its existence to
| the one before it there on that prairie upon which are the bones
| and the gatherers of bones and those who do not gather. He
| strikes fire in the hole and draws out his steel. Then they all
| move on again."
| OscarTheGrinch wrote:
| "Already gunfire was general within the tent..." That line
| encapsulates so much.
| Solvency wrote:
| Why do you suppose Blood Meridian hasn't been put to film yet?
| dmbche wrote:
| From my reading and working in editing movies:
|
| The point of the book is not at all the visual, most of it is
| very subtle. One commentary that I heard that was very astute
| pointed out that many parts of the book are specifically not
| detailed, one big example being that we rarely if ever
| witness the Kid killing or partaking in the murder/general
| viciousness of the gang.
|
| This means that a large part of the book is emulated in your
| brain while reading - did you infer that the kid is doing all
| this, and is just as bad as them? Is he an observer, like
| you, and doesn't leave because he doesn't know better? Does
| he actively try to avoid unnecessary violence?
|
| Your reading of these things will affect your reading of
| further parts - like the accusations of Holden, saying that
| the Kid was always a traitor to the spirit of the gang, which
| are not specific enough to be factual, but you absolutely
| know what he means while reading (depending on how you
| characterised the Kid).
|
| All this means that any one expression of the story would
| betray the oeuvre (in my mind), which aims to get you in the
| boots of these horrible men and understand that they are part
| of you (between other things).
|
| The stark writing and purposeful lack of factual descriptions
| of some key points make Blood Meridian a very evocative work,
| rather than descriptive. Half of it is and remains in your
| mind, and that's simply not what movies do.
|
| All this to say - you can do a movie showing what happens in
| the book, and it would be good! But it would contain very
| little of why the book is so beloved and respected.
| maherbeg wrote:
| I feel like it would do better as a limited series ideally on
| HBO.
| zerbinxx wrote:
| Idk, I feel like HBO (or any mainstream tele studio) might
| butcher it by trying to hamfistedly make it a revisionist
| Western along the lines of "White Man Bad" without catching
| the actual point about evil being inherent in everything.
| Thats undoubtedly a part of the reason as to why it hasn't
| made it to screen yet - it's not a story that fits nicely
| into the sort of Hollywood trope oriented storytelling that
| dominates mainstream TV.
| petsfed wrote:
| Agreed. Its not even that a "white man bad" reading of
| Blood Meridian is _wrong_ per se, its just woefully
| incomplete. It 'd be like if Apocalypse Now was just John
| Wick in the jungle, or Blade Runner was just a police
| procedural with flying cars. Like, yes, that is the
| skeleton on which the piece is hung, but it is not at all
| what makes the piece great.
| idlewords wrote:
| The musical numbers are notoriously hard to stage
| Tao3300 wrote:
| You just need a few fiddlers for the big dance scene.
| mrbombastic wrote:
| Can't wait until "No Country for Old Men" hits Broadway
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I bet you can hear the silenced shotgun number all the
| way up in the gods at the Albert with its acoustics.
| alpineidyll3 wrote:
| Who would you cast as the judge?
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Glenn Fleshler, the main villain from True Detective S1. As
| soon as I started reading Blood Meridian, he was the first
| guy that popped into my head. He has that surreal quasi-
| supernatural energy.
| HyperSane wrote:
| Complete CGI character like Thanos played by Vincent
| D'Onfrio.
| dmbche wrote:
| Having just seen someone mention Phillip Seymour Hoffman, I
| am drooling imagining what that would have looked like.
| akiselev wrote:
| De-aged Clancy Brown or Michael Ironside.
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| It's hard to say why, but Clancy Brown is the one person
| I can see with the physicality of The Judge. Maybe it's
| because of his role as The Kurgan in Highlander.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| Clancy Brown or Glenn Fleshler (True Detective season 1)
| probably come closest in my view. Another one, if he were
| younger and bulkier, and hairless, who I think fits best
| with the book's overall description of the Judge would be
| Sid Haig.
|
| The important aspect of an actor for the Judge wouldn't
| just be his physicality and baldness, it would also have
| to be a certain very particular type of sinister air. Few
| large actors have that.
| googlryas wrote:
| Kane - aka Glenn Thomas Jacobs.
|
| 7'0, 330 lbs, light complexion, looks good hairless, has
| acting experience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_(wres
| tler)#/media/File:Th...
| defen wrote:
| Plus he's the mayor of Knoxville, McCarthy's old
| hometown.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| While he might look right, there's a lot more to the
| judge than looks. I'm unfamiliar with his acting
| experience but i think the movie will 100% fall flat if
| the judge isn't right. I'm not sure kane has the range
| stubybubs wrote:
| I'm gonna be brave and say Dave Bautista. I haven't seen
| Knock at the Cabin yet, but it looks like he's got the
| range from the previews. He's big enough and imposing
| enough as well.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| D'Onofrio
| tehnub wrote:
| WSJ: People have said "Blood Meridian" is unfilmable because
| of the sheer darkness and violence of the story.
|
| CM: That's all crap. The fact that's it's a bleak and bloody
| story has nothing to do with whether or not you can put it on
| the screen. That's not the issue. The issue is it would be
| very difficult to do and would require someone with a
| bountiful imagination and a lot of balls. But the payoff
| could be extraordinary.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704576204574529.
| ..
| walrus01 wrote:
| If somebody managed to raise the money to make multiple
| human centipede films, or "a serbian film", anything is
| possible.
| caskstrength wrote:
| > would require someone with a bountiful imagination and a
| lot of balls
|
| So unfilmable in current Hollywood?
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Somehow don't see Hollywood making a movie about how the US
| was based on a terrible genocide.
| waihtis wrote:
| I disagree, I think it would fit perfectly over the
| zeitgeist where national pride of any kind is reviled
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| So that's why Top Gun did so well? Or any blockbuster
| movie recently, particularly action movies?
| bamfly wrote:
| Eh, I don't think you have to take a silly, fun _633
| Squadron_ remake with cool practical FX as nationalist
| propaganda. It may as well have been a Star Wars movie.
| waihtis wrote:
| stated vs revealed preferences
| dvt wrote:
| It's extremely violent, borderline-surreal in some places,
| excruciatingly slow in others (by design), occasionally has
| two or three levels of story-within-a-story. Unlike some of
| his other novels, it's more of an epic than a story, which is
| usually very hard to put on film. The closest I can think of
| is something like Ben-Hur or Apocalypse Now (which adapted
| Conrad's Heart of Darkness); both were famously plagued by
| production issues.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| You've seen Yellowstone, no? I don't think violence is an
| issue anymore for americans.
| jebarker wrote:
| I haven't seen Yellowstone but I'd be amazed if it comes
| at all close to Blood Meridian for violence. I can't
| think of any movie or TV show that would.
|
| edit: American Psycho might have if they'd stayed
| faithful to the book
| [deleted]
| poisonarena wrote:
| Because nobody could handle the judge, that, and would take
| such a particular style of photography to capture the prose.
| I think mostly because of the complex characters like the
| judge, and the violence.
| mmanfrin wrote:
| Phillip Seymour Hoffman would have, he truly would have
| been perfect.
|
| The best suggestion I've heard for someone living is Vince
| D'Onofrio but I don't know if he has the total range
| needed.
| voisin wrote:
| Marlon Brando from Apocalypse Now would have killed it as
| Judge Holden.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Too mumbly. One of the things that makes the Judge so
| terrifying is how articulate and eloquent he is.
| lordfrito wrote:
| Marlon Brando would have been amazing as the Judge.
| kgwgk wrote:
| It's coming. Or at least it was coming. The adaptation was
| probably far from finished and may be abandoned now.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36316524
| porphyra wrote:
| Is it merely a coincidence that Judge Holden was described
| as "face destitute of hair" and the director, John
| Hillcoat, is also bald and devoid of both eyebrows and
| facial hair?
| JasserInicide wrote:
| The number of directors that could do it justice is _very_
| short. Lynch, Cronenberg, Friedkin.
| subsubzero wrote:
| Looks like they are finally working on a film version as of
| April 2023:
|
| > it was announced in April 2023 that New Regency is set to
| produce a feature film based on the novel, with McCarthy and
| his son serving as executive producers and John Hillcoat
| serving as director.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian
| atombender wrote:
| Hillcoat made The Proposition, which is a very McCartyesque
| film in its bleakness and violence. It's a great movie,
| written by and scored by Nick Cave.
|
| I thought his adaptation of The Road was fine (though maybe
| a book that doesn't need an adaptation), and he hasn't done
| anything interesting since then, in my opinion. But Blood
| Meridian may be better material for him.
| johnvaluk wrote:
| Whenever someone wishes for a film adaptation of Blood
| Meridian, I recommend The Proposition. I'll be amazed if
| any Blood Meridian movie is as good.
| rurp wrote:
| I think some books just don't adapt to movies well. Cloud
| Atlas is one of my favorite books and I was shocked to learn
| it was being made into a movie, it just didn't seem like the
| right format. Despite a lot of talent and money going into
| it, the film didn't turn out that great and was probably an
| impossible task.
| HyperSane wrote:
| The hundreds of people being brutally murdered would make it
| hard to not be NC-17 rated. The Judge would be nearly
| impossible to cast.
| stubybubs wrote:
| I would hope any good director would have the sense to know
| that it probably isn't for them. I can't imagine Spielberg
| picking this up. Gangs of New York is about as close as
| Scorsese could get but still too Hollywood. The Cohens did a
| great job of No Country but don't seem like a fit for Blood
| Meridian.
|
| And hopefully nobody would offer it to somebody second rate.
| breakbread wrote:
| Paul Thomas Anderson?
| ftxbro wrote:
| terry gilliam
| noduerme wrote:
| The Road was really poorly written, but it did have an
| emotional resonance. It was beautiful in some ways, but it was
| a pretty crappy novel that didn't deserve a fraction of the
| attention it received. I'm still a bit baffled as to why it
| received that much attention. I picked it up at random off my
| gf's bookshelf last year, and read it in a day. It was quite
| simplistic. Calling it _reductive_ would be giving it undue
| credit.
|
| If you write a novel that aims to distill a genre into its own
| __prototype methods, you should leave the reader with a feeling
| that you're doing something more important and artful than
| simply cashing in on the existing archetype. Perhaps, like, a
| critique of the archetype itself embedded in the work would
| give the reader something more to think about.
|
| [edit] I'd also just call attention to "Earth Abides" by George
| R. Stewart (1949). This pulpy, pathos-ridden, amazing jerk-off
| sci-fi fantasy of being the last person on earth already hits
| pretty much all the major themes. If you're going to write the
| dark and traumatizing version of it with a boy in tow, how
| about adding something to the genre rather than collecting
| accolades based on an unproven assumption that by reducing it
| to parts you have somehow expanded upon it?
| ftio wrote:
| I choose to read this as describing a frustrating round of
| golf.
| bamfly wrote:
| Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could
| see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was
| and I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass
| by the flower tree. They took the flag out, and they were
| hitting. Then they put the flag back and they went to the
| table, and he hit and the other hit. Then they went on, and I
| went along the fence. Luster came away from the flower tree
| and we went along the fence and they stopped and we stopped
| and I looked through the fence while Luster was hunting in
| the grass.
|
| (Faulkner; the first lines of _The Sound and the Fury_ )
| ftio wrote:
| Absolutely gorgeous. Thank you for sharing.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Truly an indictment of those who build golf courses, by which
| metric Florida is utterly damned.
| ftxbro wrote:
| "A legion of golfers, dozens in number, dressed in plaid or
| argyle or attired in golfing gear from a bygone era, with
| visors and gloves and golf bags still stained with the grass
| and dirt of prior rounds. Some wore knickers and tam
| o'shanters, while others donned bright polo shirts and khaki
| shorts. One golfer carried a large umbrella, another wore
| white knee-high socks stained with grass, and another wore a
| bloodstained wedding veil. Some wore hats adorned with
| feathers or made of rawhide, and one even dressed in the
| armor of a medieval knight. The golfers' faces were painted
| in outrageous patterns, like a troupe of carnival performers,
| all howling and shouting in a language unintelligible to the
| uninitiated, as they approached the tee box like a raiding
| party from a wilder world than that of the manicured course
| they terrorized, screeching and yammering, their clothing
| billowing behind them like smoke from some infernal realm."
| ckw wrote:
| A phalanx of mace-wielders, legioned by the dozens, swathed
| in interlocking geometries of archaic clan and tribal
| shroud, donned in specters of yesteryears garb. Upon crowns
| they bore the half moons of sun-shielders, hands sheathed
| in the callused gloves bearing the earthen residue of the
| wars waged on emerald fields. Some festooned in old world
| breeches and shapeshifter's bonnets, others in the blaring
| colors of plebeian polo and desert-dusted shorts. Among
| these warriors, a solitary figure, a shielder of storms,
| his trusty parasol held high. Another's lower limbs swathed
| in ghostly shroud, baptized by the verdant life of the
| fields. And still another, a tragic bride, her veil
| sanguinary from the love-feast unholy. Feathers plucked
| from the winged ones adorned the headgear of some, the
| rawhide caps of others akin to the primal trophies of
| untamed hunts. A lone paladin armored in the steel and iron
| of yore. Faces beneath this motley parade painted in the
| ghastly festival hues of the carnivalesque. A cacophony of
| unknown tongues ricocheted, a grotesque operetta resounding
| in the ears of those unversed. As they approached the
| maiden's tee, they were as a raiding horde birthed from
| some primeval chaos, an epoch more untamed than the
| manicured world they stormed upon. The shrill discordance
| of their cries echoing, their raiments in their wake,
| whispering tales of an infernal dimension, billowing like
| the smoky breath of the underworld's beast.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| oAlbe wrote:
| At risk of sounding stupid in public, what does that epilogue
| mean? I've read it several times now, and aside from being
| surprised at how fluid it still reads despite the parsimonious
| use of punctuation, I really can't figure out what it's talking
| about.
| williamcotton wrote:
| I've always interpreted it as post holes as they fence in and
| close the Wild West.
|
| _He uses an implement with two handles and he chucks it into
| the hole and he enkindles the stone in the hole with his
| steel hole by hole striking the fire out of the rock which
| God has put there_
|
| A post hole digger has two handles. When you're using it in
| rocky ground you hit rocks and make sparks.
|
| Picture:
|
| https://images.homedepot-
| static.com/productImages/ed49f7f1-a...
| robbintt wrote:
| It is also related to the judge's quest to name all things.
| The relationship is measurement, a fundamentally human
| activity... or perhaps fundamental to the way our
| civilization is doing human.
| bamfly wrote:
| I'm quite sure he means a post-hole digger. I can
| practically _smell_ the odor of digging in rocky soil with
| those, coming off the page, almost feel the cracked dust-
| sweat-caked knuckles of setting posts on a hot, dry day.
|
| [EDIT] As for the rest, putting aside metaphorical
| readings, the clockwork-like progression and repeated
| crossing of the line of holes calls to mind the stop-and-
| start movement of running barbed wire and working a
| ratcheting tensioner tool behind the one digging the holes,
| and in the right country, the curious among those workers
| may pause to reflect on the remains of long-dead things
| (fossils, "bones"--fish, horse, bison, mammoth, spine-like
| crinoid stems, shells and coral from an eons-dead sea, even
| dinosaurs--the ranches and farms of the West largely sit
| atop the shallow graves of life's history on Earth) sitting
| flat in the dirt or exposed by the digging, while others
| may pay them no mind. There's definitely a defensible
| reading of this as _on the surface_ a plain, if oblique,
| description of a work crew running a fence line--not just
| the one digging the holes, but the whole set of folks
| described. I 'd wager that's what's intended (though not
| the only thing intended), in fact.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| Yeah, the interpretation of that scene as an elegy of the
| end of the "wild West" through fencing, feels obvious if
| the reader has read what McCarthy wrote next after _Blood
| Meridian_ : the Border Trilogy, where some 20th-century
| Texas romantics are already dealing with that fencing-off.
| csharpminor wrote:
| It's often interpreted as a critique of manifest destiny, the
| idea that settlers were destined to expand across North
| America. He's describing that westward expansion in abstract
| terms.
|
| The man digging holes is a pioneer. McCarthy isn't really
| clear on what he does; intentionally so. He might be digging
| fence holes, making campfires, building railroad tracks - it
| doesn't really matter.
|
| The wanderers are the settlers following the pioneer
| westward. They appear to be coordinated by some force, like
| the pieces of a clock. This is arguably the "go west"
| attitude of manifest destiny.
|
| "...they appear restrained by a prudence or reflectiveness
| which has no inner reality" is McCarthy's true criticism of
| manifest destiny. Retrospectively, we glorify settlement of
| the west and slot it into a clean narrative or progress. But
| in its time, the expansion was chaotic, violent and devoid of
| morals. People were just walking hole-to-hole for the sake of
| finding the next hole.
|
| Some wanderers collect bones and some don't. Perhaps McCarthy
| means that some wanderers kill, but we don't know. From
| McCarthy's nihilistic viewpoint it doesn't matter because the
| westward expansion is moral-less so killing someone isn't
| different from collecting bones on the ground.
|
| This contrasts with the moral good vs. evil narrative usually
| applied to the old west (see anything written on cowboys vs.
| indians, sheriff vs. bandits, etc.) McCarthy portrays the old
| west outside of a moral framework. Horrific violence happens
| and there's no explanation or justification.
| csharpminor wrote:
| I'll just add: in my own opinion this epilogue is a bit of
| literary trickery. Like the past, it's difficult to parse.
| As the epilogue, it naturally occupies a place of
| significance. This must be the key to understanding Blood
| Meridian!
|
| But after wracking your brain trying to decrypt the
| message, you realize that it just says there is no greater
| meaning to the violence of the book. It is just people
| doing things on a vast plain.
|
| It's almost as though McCarthy is saying to us, "See?
| You're still looking for a deeper meaning that does not
| exist."
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I'm about halfway through this book and I'd say this is a
| very apt explanation, but a bit handwavey.
|
| McCarthy seemed to deal _absurdly well_ in the banality
| of the pitches of life, both high and low. One always
| leads to another. It's a sort of nihilism but with a
| karmic baseline. Reading his prose I got the sense I
| shouldn't make much out of anything, but all the same, it
| still happened and is worth talking about.
| csharpminor wrote:
| Yes, I think the detail and lyricism of the prose
| intentionally causes us to look for a moral framework for
| the story.
|
| Many readers feel cognitive dissonance from this book:
| there's so much detail, it must add up to some moral
| lesson. You'll hear people say, "Blood Meridian is an
| amazing book, but I don't understand it."
|
| They're still trying to apply a moral label to the story
| and can't find one. To quote The Judge, "Your heart's
| desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that
| there is no mystery."
|
| McCarthy's message in Blood Meridian may be that we see a
| higher fidelity picture of the old west if we don't
| attempt to fit events into a moral arc. Still worth
| discussing, but we must abandon good vs. evil as a
| framework if we want a glimpse at the truth of what
| happened.
| aagha wrote:
| I'd like to say that this is one of the best explanations
| of the epilogue I've ever read. Thank you.
| inphusorian wrote:
| When I read it without any context I could see the dawn of
| human civilization (and progress) in it as well (you can
| think that the man is trying to make fire, for example). I
| guess the vagueness allows for many interpretations and the
| parallelism between these interpretations gives a sense of
| profoundness. I wonder if the ancient texts, like Torah or
| Daode Jing, were written with the same intent :?
| airtonix wrote:
| [dead]
| kkwteh wrote:
| I read on Twitter that it's a reference to the introduction
| of barbed wire fencing that marked the end of the wild era
| that the book was set in. It makes sense but I never looked
| into it.
| dvt wrote:
| Not stupid at all! There's a long tradition of figuring out
| what it _means_ (just google "Blood Meridian epilogue"), but
| the short answer is that McCarthy was probably playing around
| with ideas, having a bit of fun, waxing poetic. But there's
| some elements in the passage about determinism, causality,
| exploitation, the man with the instrument being a "pioneer"
| of the American West, the holes being railroad tracks, or
| fence posts, or mine stake poles (referencing the imminent
| gold rush), etc.
|
| Like like with all poetry, it's a joy to think about and
| dissect.
| mcbutterbunz wrote:
| I'm not a strong reader and Blood Meridian took me a few
| times to read and appreciate. I just remember thinking how
| crazy it was that almost the entire page was a single run-
| on sentence. I really liked the book but it was difficult
| for me to read and understand.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| If you like that kind of writing, you would enjoy "Autumn
| of the Patriarch". Probably Marquez's best prose work.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Samuel Delany also has that fever dream wandering style
| of prose for me.
| winnit wrote:
| Or Wyndham Lewis's 'The Childermass', which is 300 pages
| odd without chapters, just one continuous chunk of prose.
| JackFr wrote:
| Stephen had a great quote - which I cannot find tonight -
| that Cormac McCarthy was like some pop music. It was ok
| to like it even if you couldn't make out every lyric.
| hipsterstal1n wrote:
| I'm right there with you. It was definitely a difficult
| read and I often found myself going back a few pages and
| re-reading sections. Many times.
| l33tbro wrote:
| Some say it's more like approaching poetry than prose
| with his work. There is certainly causality and narrative
| development in his writing, but he often uses his
| magisterial command of language to impart a cosmic
| dimension to the simplest of instances or utterances.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| It's not all like that. Just the things that can't
| suitably be explained as events. The native assault on
| the brigade comes to mind. How could you adequately
| describe such an event with words. It's a horror poem in
| the way he writes it and if you haven't read it, it is as
| chilling as it sounds.
| hiyer wrote:
| It's a great book, but it was depressing enough the first
| time I read it. I can't imagine reading it several times
| :(
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| My reaction to McCarthy has been similar. After trying a
| couple of his works, my reaction was that he was
| primarily focussed on the nasty side of humanity. We
| people can be nasty, but - like much of today's news - he
| fails to balance that with our positives. There are a lot
| of grays between black and white. Great authors manage to
| show them all.
| Timon3 wrote:
| I am actually not sure. I used to agree, but I've found
| that the best stories I've read use the good and
| beautiful moments primarily to make the bad moments hit
| that much harder. That doesn't mean there aren't good
| stories focussing on balance, but I'd be surprised if
| there is as much to explore there as there is in the
| depths of both good and bad.
|
| My foremost example here would be _Berserk_.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| bizarrely reductive take. You think every piece of art
| should try to represent the entire spectrum of human
| emotion?
| defen wrote:
| _Suttree_ is your best bet if that 's what you're after.
| zerbinxx wrote:
| There a couple themes in this particular passage that really
| come through to me: steel/fire/stone, the holes in the earth
| being a "path", the wanderers following a command they can't
| comprehend. To me it evokes it's a commentary on the weary
| fatalism of westward expansion, the grim
| meaninglessness/banality of evil of the nascent industrial
| revolution. I really love the idea of those exploring the
| west as a gang of bone-collectors, which tracks with BM's
| ghastly but realistic scalp economy.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I get the sense that McCarthy didn't just find banality in
| evil but also in beauty and good. Not that they were bad
| things (any more than "banal evil" is a good thing) but
| more that they just _are_. His storytelling always felt to
| me like an illustration of "how can you know what's bad or
| good in the grand scheme?"
| whiddershins wrote:
| The man is digging post holes, which means he is putting up a
| fence.
|
| By putting up a fence he alters so many things about the
| land, in a profound way, and the others who occupy that land
| have a relationship and reaction to this fence.
|
| Edit: maybe it isn't a fence. Could be set up for a railway?
| Or something else like early poles for wires for
| communication?
|
| I've read a lot of McCarthy but not Blood Meridian
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I'm sure it's something horrible and violent, like the rest
| of that book. I go back and read the ending (in addition to
| the epilogue) periodically trying to convince myself of one
| particular version of the ending and main character, or
| another.
| jollyllama wrote:
| Siblings talking about the closing of the American West are
| correct but that's _not_ sufficient; you have to extrapolate
| it out to the existential scale that Blood Meridian grapples
| with. He 's critiquing the notion of "progress" as a whole,
| favoring instead a view of humanity stumbling through history
| and all which that entails.
| [deleted]
| korse wrote:
| Haven't read McCarthy, however it sounds like a pretty bleak
| take on westward expansion of the United States across the
| North American continent / high plains. The hole, steel and
| fire metaphor brings to mind the process by which rail lines,
| telegraph runs and extractive industries are established.
| Those seeking bones brings to mind the search for grounds in
| which to establish extractive industries concerned with oil
| and some chemical precursors.
|
| Then the rest follow blindly not truly knowing why and
| getting stuck with the destruction/dregs/etc.
|
| If that is what is going on, I can't really argue about it
| however I'll take the more joyous propaganda tyvm.
| windowshopping wrote:
| I'm glad you asked, the responses were really interesting. I
| wasn't sure what it meant either and now I can get even more
| out of reading it.
| narrator wrote:
| I'm confused why The Road is said to be such great literature.
| Half the book is " Kid: Daddy, I'm scared. Dad: Don't be
| scared. " What's really funny is how it has become an all
| purpose meme for a bad future if we don't go along with
| whatever the latest political program is.
|
| Klaus Schwab even references it in his recent book "The Grand
| Narrative" as an alternative future that will come to pass if
| we don't do everything right even though the future disaster,
| from the hints given in The Road, is clearly not climate
| change.
| tehnub wrote:
| I don't think it is generally considered to be as great as
| his other works like Blood Meridian, Suttree, and All the
| Pretty Horses. It's just his most popular.
| dbtc wrote:
| Read it from the pulpit! Thanks for sharing the quote.
| javier2 wrote:
| I like that you enjoy this, but it gives me absolutely nothing.
| And I do find that interesting.
| williamcotton wrote:
| Do yourself a favor and read that prose out loud to yourself.
| It has amazing rhythm and flow! How he was able to do this for
| page after page is just astonishing.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| I don't wish to be too dismissive, but I listened to the
| audiobook for Blood Meridian and found it to be noticeably
| boring. There were some neat phrases here and there, the
| descriptions were fun, but felt pretty ripped off of both
| time and money.
|
| It's frustrating because I generally like writing in a
| similar manner to how he wrote, but I found it incredibly
| dull to listen to for any length of time. It was just this
| meandering mess of "here and there" without anything to pay
| attention to, or have a need to care for. It wasn't that I
| hated it, I just didn't like it either. I was entirely
| indifferent to it, other than a vague sense of politely
| waiting for it to end. I didn't feel I lost much by listening
| to it, but had nothing to gain either. It was just a
| distraction of other things I could have been listening to
| instead.
| scop wrote:
| A phenomenal artist. Thank you Cormac for bringing honest beauty
| to my life.
|
| Some of my past HN comments re McCarthy:
|
| -
|
| When I read both Melville and McCarthy, I'll often find myself
| mid-run-on-sentence and think to myself, "welp, he's gone too far
| this time" only to find, by golly, they pull it off in the end.
| What would otherwise be complete pretension and chaos is, when
| wrought by true literature artists, simply breathtaking. There
| are times when I'm reading McCarthy and I literally, out loud,
| utter "Lord have mercy" for the beauty/fullness/meaning that man
| can lay upon us.
|
| --
|
| This quote from Blood Meridian is one of my favorite in all of
| literature and I think capture McCarthy's magic. He has such
| great talent to describe simultaneously with vivid details yet
| inexact clarity/meaning.
|
| > It was the judge and the imbecile. They were both of them naked
| and they neared through the desert dawn like beings of a mode
| little more than tangential to the world at large, their figures
| now quick with clarity and now fugitive in the strangeness of
| that same light. Like things so charged with meaning that their
| forms are dimmed.
| tehnub wrote:
| Here's a nice essay from Harold Bloom on Blood Meridian (FYI:
| Full of spoilers):
|
| https://lithub.com/harold-bloom-on-cormac-mccarthy-true-heir...
| whiddershins wrote:
| Although the preface to Suttree is my favorite, the preface to
| The Passenger is beyond the best:
|
| * It had snowed lightly in the night and her frozen hair was gold
| and crystalline and her eyes were frozen cold and hard as stones.
| One of her yellow boots had fallen off and stood in the snow
| beneath her. The shape of her coat lay dusted in the snow where
| she'd dropped it and she wore only a white dress and she hung
| among the bare gray poles of the winter trees with her head bowed
| and her hands turned slightly outward like those of certain
| ecumenical statues whose attitude asks that their history be
| considered. That the deep foundation of the world be considered
| where it has its being in the sorrow of her creatures. The hunter
| knelt and stogged his rifle upright in the snow beside him and
| took off his gloves and let them fall and folded his hands one
| upon the other. He thought that he should pray but he'd no prayer
| for such a thing. He bowed his head. Tower of Ivory, he said.
| House of Gold. He knelt there for a long time. When he opened his
| eyes he saw a small shape half buried in the snow and he leaned
| and dusted away the snow and picked up a gold chain that held a
| steel key, a whitegold ring. He slipped them into the pocket of
| his huntingcoat. He'd heard the wind in the night. The wind's
| work. A trashcan clattering over the bricks behind his house. The
| snow blowing out there in the forest in the dark. He looked up
| into those cold enameled eyes glinting blue in the weak winter
| light. She had tied her dress with a red sash so that she'd be
| found. Some bit of color in the scrupulous desolation. On this
| Christmas day. This cold and barely spoken Christmas day.*
| tehnub wrote:
| It hits even harder when you finish Stella Maris and consider
| the significance of that red sash -- that she put it on despite
| her despairing solipsism. It breaks your heart.
| squeegee_scream wrote:
| https://readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com/
|
| > READING MCCARTHY is a podcast devoted to the consideration and
| discussion of the works of one of our greatest American writers,
| Cormac McCarthy. Each episode will call upon different well-known
| Cormackian readers and scholars to help us explore different
| works and various essential aspects of McCarthy's writing.(Note
| these episodes try to offer accessible literary criticism and may
| contain spoilers from different McCarthy works.)
| 2devnull wrote:
| CAPS MATTER1
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| Punctuation sentence structure not.
| richardatlarge wrote:
| I think McCarthy believed that telling a story and conventional
| grammar had no necessary relationship. Whether you like few or
| none of his novels, recognize that he was brave enough to forfeit
| fame and fortune to tell the story he wanted to tell, and the way
| he wanted to tell it. Fiction publishing today would squash CM
| like a bug. That's the bad news
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