DaRK PaRTY ReVIEW
::Literate Blather::
Friday, March 21, 2008
Our Sort-of-Kind-of Apology to Cormac McCarthy


Several years ago we muddled through Cormac McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses” (1992). We found it long and dull; peppered with McCarthy’s annoying omission of simple punctuation (what’s wrong with using quotation marks and apostrophes?) and filled with run-on sentences of questionable clarity.

Try this sentence on for size:

“Although the night was cool the double doors of the grange stood open and the man selling the tickets was seated in a chair on a raised wooden platform just within the doors so that he must lean down to each in a gesture akin to benevolence and take their coins and hand them down their tickets or pass upon the ticketstubs of those who were only returning from outside.”

Yeah, it makes you dizzy that McCarthy can write a 70-word sentence about a man handing another man a ticket stub (which is two words, Cormac). Our jaw dropped when this novel won the National Book award.

We applauded critic and author B.R. Myers scathing literary criticism “A Reader’s Manifesto” when he called out McCarthy as one of the guilty among the long list of pretentious literary writers (other authors called out by Myers included E. Annie Proulx, David Guterson, Paul Auster, Charles Frazier, and Don DeLillo).

Myers took offense at this sentence from McCarthy’s “The Crossing” (1995): “He ate the last of the eggs and wiped the plate with the tortilla and ate the tortilla and drank the last of the coffee and wiped his mouth and looked up and thanked her.”

Then Myers tore into it:

“This is a good example of what I call the andelope: a breathless string of simple declarative statements linked by the conjunction and. Like the "evocative" slide-show and the Consumerland shopping-list, the andelope encourages skim-reading while keeping up the appearance of “literary” length and complexity. But like the slide-show (and unlike the shopping-list), the andelope often clashes with the subject matter – the unpunctuated flow of words bears no relation to the methodical meal that is being described.”

We were greatly revealed to learn that another critic found McCarthy’s prose pompous, confusing, and as heavy as a lead weight.

We still find McCarthy’s Border Trilogy to be overrated, but his last two novels have us reconsidering McCarthy: “No Country for Old Men” (2005) and “The Road” (2007).

While we still find McCarthy’s reluctance to use proper grammar maddening it appears that he may have been listening to his critics (such as it is). Both novels are shorter and he strays away from his past sin of using long complicated sentences to describe simple mundane moments.

Instead, he focuses both “No Country for Old Men” and “The Road” on developing rich complex characters and then mines their interactions with each other for great emotional depth. The novels evoke great truths about human nature that at times left us breathless (and eager for more).

While reading “All the Pretty Horses” felt like a miserable chore, we couldn’t put down “No Country for Old Men” or “The Road.” There was energy to the prose and while the plots weren’t intricate – at least they had plots. The action feels more external and less internal. And that’s a good thing.

While we’ll stop short of lavishing McCarthy with the praise the likes of Literary Critic Harold Bloom – who called him one of the most important authors of his time – we have changed our minds about McCarthy.

The greatest praise we can give to McCarthy is that both “No Country for Old Men” and “The Road” have stayed with us. Both novels are haunting and powerful and stick to the ribs of your mind for a long, long time (like good, old-fashioned oatmeal).

So we kind-of apologize, Mr. McCarthy. We’re not going back to the Border Trilogy, but we can’t wait for your next book – ‘cause we’re going to be first in line to buy it.


Our literary sketch of Edith Wharton's "A Journey"

A Menu of Tasty Books

Knock Your Socks Off Great Books

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7 Comments:
Blogger Bybee said...
I was left bruised and bleeding by All The Pretty Horses and was put off by McCarthy for more than a decade. Thanks to your analysis, I won't be so scared to test out my copy of The Road that I found at a book exchange.

Blogger Dwight said...
I found "Blood Meridian" one of the most disturbing books I have ever read, and I mean that in a good way. I think.

Very big of you to admit your change of heart. :) I just haven't had any interest in trying out his books---the idea that a writer is supposedly somehow important isn't enough for me. I want to actually enjoy the process of reading, heavens forbid. I know, most people would shake their heads at the number of 'important' books I've had no interest in reading. But life's too short to spend all of it doing what I'm supposed to.

Blogger GFS3 said...
I agree wholeheartedly Heather. That's what changed my mind about McCarthy. I started to really enjoy his work.

But sometimes you need to challenge yourself as a reader. Reading important, but difficult, writers can open up your mind -- push your perceptions into new directions.

Some writers just need to be read: Shakespeare, Dickens, Joyce, Austen, Melville, Faulkner, etc... because they had such an enormous impact on literature.

Blogger Madam Miaow said...
Phew! You had me worried there. I'm 20 pages into an in depth reading of No Country at last, having loved the film and blogged a review but only skimmed the book.

It kicks off so well. I'm relieved that it doesn't go downhill from there.

Hope I'm not being too forward in posting a link to my review here. You may, of course, respond in kind.
http://darkpartyreview.blogspot.com/

Blogger Madam Miaow said...
Oops! I mean here:
http://madammiaow.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-read-film-no-country-for-old-men.html

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