RIP Cormac McCarthy

[YGIFS 19450]

Fucking fuck.  RIP to the legend written atop the myth.          His work will press on

[Mach 1 1677]

1 hour ago, Goredho said:

Whenever I think of Blood Meridian, I always remember the following passage sentence.

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 wedding veil and some in headgear or 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 horses' 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.

 

 

IIRC immediately following that incredible sentence was this reaction from the Army officer in charge:

My God

[G650 14254]

4 hours ago, SL Xpress said:

My thing is, we’re not on some kind of arc as a species where we get more loving and more generous with each generation,

I don't disagree with your overall take, but this is not accurate. We clearly are value human life more greatly as the years go by. People tend to come to your stated view not usually because they paint an overly rosy picture of the present, which is plenty fucked up, but paint an overly rosy picture of the past. I get the most entertainment these days out of the crowd pining for Rome and/or trying to compare US decline to the Roman Empire. This was a society that literally fed Christians to lions for entertainment in a big arena. But anyway, empirically it's obvious we are a much more caring species today than just 100 years ago, not to speak of 3,000 years or 30,000 years. The tribe is constantly expanding to include former others.

 

The pendulum theory is incomplete, because the pendulum swings, but also constantly moves forward. 2 steps up and 1 step back and all that.

Edited June 14, 2023 by G650

[safe sex 11721]

"Death is what the living carry with them. A state of fear, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do not remember and nothingness is not a curse."

[Biff Tannen 45678]

4 hours ago, crash_davis said:

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”

[Sawbonz 27548]

1 hour ago, South Austin said:

Should we scalp Biff now, or later?

Nah make him fuck a watermelon 

 

 

Seriously Biff you should read Suttree and the Border Trilogy if nothing else 

 

ETA Blood Meridian is an epic poem not a novel

Edited June 14, 2023 by Sawbonz

[cactusflinthead 27598]

Old man Bloom taught him in class. 

Chock full of spoilers

https://lithub.com/harold-bloom-on-cormac-mccarthy-true-heir-to-melville-and-faulkner/

 

[seven 1367]

I was introduced to him with no country, and eventually took a road trip to California where I listened to the road, blood meridian, and child of God. CoG is personally the most disturbing book I've read. 

RIP. I've been meaning to relisten to blood meridian. 

[Gatorubet 30233]

If there is a more interesting character, then the judge from Blood Meridian, I can’t remember who that might be.

[Mach 1 1677]

I read most of No Country alone at night when my family was out of town. Chigurh was so disturbing I had to put it down and take a break. Even on paper that character freaked me out. 

[troph 24788]

6 hours ago, burntorangebongos said:

The little boy in The Road. His character stays with me though I've only read the novel once all those years ago when it first came out. "Unrelentingly bleek" is how I recall describing the book, but the little boy's pureness and his innocent understanding of right and wrong worked magic on me the way it did his father in the book. It gave me hope about humanity, even in the face of the brutality required to stay alive in the book's world. It still echos in my mind after all these years.

It’s the defining book of my view of parenthood. For better or for worse.  I cried uncontrollably in a dark closet when I finished the book. So much power, hope, optimism and all under the dark cloud of humanity. 

[troph 24788]

2 hours ago, safe sex said:

"Death is what the living carry with them. A state of fear, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do not remember and nothingness is not a curse."

And that is why some people chose to go out under their own power.

[Coach pop a bitch 5459]

The greatest writer in the history of writing. Was able to read the passenger and stella maris and Mr Mcarthy hadn't lost a beat. I read the road and it fucked with me for months after. Now that I have a son I couldn't even think of reading something that powerful. Wonder how much those signed "the road" books will sell for? Hes gone with the ages. Rip 

[Willfully Horn 8014]

5 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

If there is a more interesting character, then the judge from Blood Meridian, I can’t remember who that might be.

I remember Aurora Zygoiby,, from the Moor’s Last Sigh. And “hate fuck” would be entirely inaccurate, despite her becoming a total cunt from Hell.

[Willfully Horn 8014]

6 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

Old man Bloom taught him in class. 

Chock full of spoilers

https://lithub.com/harold-bloom-on-cormac-mccarthy-true-heir-to-melville-and-faulkner/

 

Yep. Faulkner is an apt comparison. 

[TwiceHorn 31457]

13 hours ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

I read Blood Meridian and No Country For Old Men.  My challenge in reading Blood Meridian wasn't the violence, but instead what I would call the 'thickness' of it.  Very dense, many words I could not find in a dictionary and the whole punctuation thing.  It was obviously great, but it was a challenging read and I was releived when I was finished with it.   He wouldn't make my personal list of favorite authors.  But I recognize his greatness and his skilll.   RIP.

 

 

Agreed.

[C-Man 27222]

15 hours ago, dcbc said:

Same.  I still have my copy along with Bud Shrake's Strange Peaches. 

 

What a loss.

I think "The Last Picture Show" is my favorite book of all time but "Strange Peaches" was awesome and "The Gay Place" might even be better than that. I was covering sports for The Daily Texan while taking Graham's class and met Shrake and Gary Cartwright at some UT journalism cocktail reception one night. I have a signed copy of Strange Peaches somewhere in my house. They were a fun duo.

[cactusflinthead 27598]

He was equally unsubmissive to other human sensibilities: Harold Bloom, who thought Blood Meridian the best novel by a living American, wrote that he had needed a few false starts to get through the book, because the torture and death were so unrelenting. I first read Blood Meridian while sitting next to a cairn of stacked bones, the remains of victims of genocide in the Cambodian countryside.

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2023/06/cormac-mccarthy-author-death-blood-meridian-passenger/674398/

[HonkeyVape 107]

18 hours ago, Goredho said:

Whenever I think of Blood Meridian, I always remember the following passage sentence.

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 wedding veil and some in headgear or 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 horses' 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.

 

 

Same. I think this is probably his greatest writing, plucked from his masterpiece, which I also think (along with Harold Bloom, ((RIP)) world's foremost literary critic of Shakespeare and Western Canon, also thought) is the greatest American novel.

His writing was dense. It was deep and it was extremely rustic, so I get why some aesthetically didn't find the appeal. But as others mentioned, his treatment on morality and the general human condition was in parts terrifying and violent-- nasty, brutal and short, as is said of life-- but wholly beautiful.

I won't belabor what 2 pages have already said, but Blood Meridian is a book I revisit every 4-5 years because it speaks to me and stirs something in my soul. All the Pretty Horses was fantastic as well.

I'm of the mind and minority opinion that The Road takes a back seat to his truly great novels and that NCFOM was a better movie than novel. In fact, I think I read that McCarthy actually approached NCFOM differently than his other books to be less a narrative with sprawling prose and more of the shape of a movie, with the end game of a movie in mind.

Edited June 14, 2023 by HonkeyVape

[HonkeyVape 107]

15 hours ago, Sawbonz said:

Nah make him fuck a watermelon 

 

 

Seriously Biff you should read Suttree and the Border Trilogy if nothing else 

 

ETA Blood Meridian is an epic poem not a novel

I could be misremembering but I thought there was a poster named Suttree. I'm guessing that was his favorite work.

[C-Man 27222]

Never read Blood Meridian but ordered it from Amazon yesterday to finally check this off the list.

[ztejas 43420]

I haven't read any of his stuff. Would y'all start with ATPH or Blood Meridian? Not interested in getting a crash course or easing into it - I want to start with his peak. 

[HonkeyVape 107]

5 minutes ago, ztejas said:

I haven't read any of his stuff. Would y'all start with ATPH or Blood Meridian? Not interested in getting a crash course or easing into it - I want to start with his peak. 

Blood Meridian is his magnum opus and the greatest American piece of literature, so why not start there if you are just trying to skip the foreplay.

Edited June 14, 2023 by HonkeyVape

[G650 14254]

17 minutes ago, HonkeyVape said:

In fact, I think I read that McCarthy actually approached NCFOM differently than his other books to be less a narrative with sprawling prose and more of the shape of a movie, with the end game of a movie in mind.

I think it was actually a screenplay from the go, and he backed it into a novel.

[HonkeyVape 107]

2 minutes ago, G650 said:

I think it was actually a screenplay from the go, and he backed it into a novel.

That makes sense-- and it definitely worked as a novel, it's just a tier-two novel in his expansive and masterful catalogue (and would be most novelists greatest contribution) but I still say that the Coen Bros treatment as a movie was better than the novel, which is unique in and of itself, much less when speaking of a writer with the premiere talent as McCarthy.

[Goredho 17401]

41 minutes ago, ztejas said:

I haven't read any of his stuff. Would y'all start with ATPH or Blood Meridian? Not interested in getting a crash course or easing into it - I want to start with his peak. 

 

36 minutes ago, HonkeyVape said:

Blood Meridian is his magnum opus and the greatest American piece of literature, so why not start there if you are just trying to skip the foreplay.

I will advise, you need to be prepared when  reading Blood Meridian.  It’s a challenge, and if you aren’t focused, you might give up before finishing.  It’s not something to read at night before bed to relax.  It requires active reading and consideration while you read.

I would recommend No Country For Old Men or The Road first.  They are more approachable, easier reads and will likely make it to where you can absorb CM’s prose in Blood Meridian with less effort.

[Coach pop a bitch 5459]

46 minutes ago, ztejas said:

I haven't read any of his stuff. Would y'all start with ATPH or Blood Meridian? Not interested in getting a crash course or easing into it - I want to start with his peak. 

I would start with ATPH (the border trilogy). However BM is the greatest book ever written.  

Edited June 14, 2023 by Coach pop a bitch

[Brisketexan 105119]

Just now, Coach pop a bitch said:

I would start with ATPH (the border trilogy) 

This.  Some things are to be eased into.  McCarthy is one of those things.  ATPH was my entry point, and it was a perfect one.

[ztejas 43420]

5 minutes ago, Goredho said:

I would recommend No Country For Old Men or The Road first.  They are more approachable, easier reads and will likely make it to where you can absorb CM’s prose in Blood Meridian with less effort.

Probably not gonna do that because I've seen the movies. Although I haven't seen the road in awhile. 

Per your suggestion though, sounds like you might recommend ATPH then BM?

Guess I could just get both then change course if one of them isn't grabbing me. 

[Coach pop a bitch 5459]

1 minute ago, ztejas said:

Probably not gonna do that because I've seen the movies. Although I haven't seen the road in awhile. 

Per your suggestion though, sounds like you might recommend ATPH then BM?

Guess I could just get both then change course if one of them isn't grabbing me. 

The border trilogy would have been any other authors greatest achievement.  But because he wrote BM and the road it often gets overlooked IMO.  

[Sawbonz 27548]

Unless you have read something like Ulysses, don’t start with Blood Meridian. 

[Goredho 17401]

9 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Probably not gonna do that because I've seen the movies. Although I haven't seen the road in awhile. 

Per your suggestion though, sounds like you might recommend ATPH then BM?

Guess I could just get both then change course if one of them isn't grabbing me. 

Yep. I’ve read NCFOM, the Road, border trilogy/ATPH and Blood Meridian and would probably rank them in that order in terms of accessibility to new readers.  You might do fine with Blood Meridian, but I’ve recommended it to people who didn’t finish it because it’s was too big a leap from the casual reading they were accustomed to.

[jdhorn92 1548]

1 hour ago, C-Man said:

Never read Blood Meridian but ordered it from Amazon yesterday to finally check this off the list.

Same, just ordered now,  after wanting to do so for months.  Cant wait to start it.

[jdhorn92 1548]

12 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Unless you have read something like Ulysses, don’t start with Blood Meridian. 

I read Empire of the Summer Moon, which had several graphic passages.  The Orphan Master's Son about North Korea also had several torture stories.  Cant wait to start this one.  And no, I am not a masochist haha.

Edited June 14, 2023 by jdhorn92

[Sawbonz 27548]

1 minute ago, jdhorn92 said:

I read Empire of the Summer Moon, which had several graphic passages.  Cant wait to start this one.

It’s not the graphic violence as much as it is the density of the text. Complex sentence structure, lack of punctuation. It’s like an epic poem, written in blank verse with no meter. You will need a dictionary at hand and will find yourself re reading passages often just for comprehension. Oh, and a good bit of it is in Spanish.

[Damor 1236]

Agree that ATPH, The Road, NCFOM are all suitable entry points, and that is by no means a slight to any of them.

Although I haven't reread the Border Trilogy in a while, I recall feeling that The Crossing in parts could match BM and Suttree for fever-dream opacity.  So if you decide to start with the whole trilogy, you might feel (as I did) that you got into the deep end pretty quickly after ATPH.  Cities of the Plain then brings it back to a more ATPH level IMO.

[jdhorn92 1548]

10 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

It’s not the graphic violence as much as it is the density of the text. Complex sentence structure, lack of punctuation. It’s like an epic poem, written in blank verse with no meter. You will need a dictionary at hand and will find yourself re reading passages often just for comprehension. Oh, and a good bit of it is in Spanish.

Good to know.  I am pretty fluent in Spanish thanks to highschool  and UT.  Is it similar to Kerouac's On the Road? Minus the Spanish.

Edited June 14, 2023 by jdhorn92

[ztejas 43420]

8 minutes ago, jdhorn92 said:

I read Empire of the Summer Moon, which had several graphic passages.  The Orphan Master's Son about North Korea also had several torture stories.  Cant wait to start this one.  And no, I am not a masochist haha.

He means the prose is really thick and unorthodox. 

[Mach 1 1677]

@Goredho  there was a passage in The Road that left a similar impression on me as the one in Blood Meridian:

The marchers appeared four abreast.  Dressed in clothing of every description, all wearing red scarves at their necks.  Red or orange, as close to red as they could find ... an Army in tennis shoes, tramping.   Carrying three foot lengths of pipe with leather wrappings.  Lanyards at the wrist.  Some of the pipes were threaded through with lengths of chain fitted at their ends with every manner of bludgeon.   They clanked past, marching with a swaying gait like wind up toys.  Bearded, their breath smoking through their masks.  Shh, he said, Shh.  The phalanx following carried spears or lances tassled with ribbons, the long blades hammered out of truck springs in some crude forgery upcountry.  The boy lay with his face in his arms, terrified.  They passed two hundred feet away, the ground shuddering lightly.  Tramping.  Behind them came wagons drawn by slaves in harness and piled with goods of war and after that women, perhaps a dozen, some of them pregnant, and lastly a supplementary consort of catamites, ill-clothed aginst the cold and fitted with dog collars and yoked to each other.

 

[strangulation! 1716]

25 minutes ago, jdhorn92 said:

I read Empire of the Summer Moon, which had several graphic passages.  The Orphan Master's Son about North Korea also had several torture stories.  Cant wait to start this one.  And no, I am not a masochist haha.

so in you broods already a taste for mindless violence?

[Goredho 17401]

15 minutes ago, Mach 1 said:

@Goredho  there was a passage in The Road that left a similar impression on me as the one in Blood Meridian:

The marchers appeared four abreast.  Dressed in clothing of every description, all wearing red scarves at their necks.  Red or orange, as close to red as they could find ... an Army in tennis shoes, tramping.   Carrying three foot lengths of pipe with leather wrappings.  Lanyards at the wrist.  Some of the pipes were threaded through with lengths of chain fitted at their ends with every manner of bludgeon.   They clanked past, marching with a swaying gait like wind up toys.  Bearded, their breath smoking through their masks.  Shh, he said, Shh.  The phalanx following carried spears or lances tassled with ribbons, the long blades hammered out of truck springs in some crude forgery upcountry.  The boy lay with his face in his arms, terrified.  They passed two hundred feet away, the ground shuddering lightly.  Tramping.  Behind them came wagons drawn by slaves in harness and piled with goods of war and after that women, perhaps a dozen, some of them pregnant, and lastly a supplementary consort of catamites, ill-clothed aginst the cold and fitted with dog collars and yoked to each other.

 

Yeah, too many periods in that paragraph

 

[Sawbonz 27548]

27 minutes ago, jdhorn92 said:

Good to know.  I am pretty fluent in Spanish thanks to highschool  and UT.  Is it similar to Kerouac's On the Road? Minus the Spanish.

TBH the only Beat author I have read is Burroughs 

[HonkeyVape 107]

42 minutes ago, strangulation! said:

so in you broods already a taste for mindless violence?

Milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom...sharpens you up and makes you ready for a bit of the old ultraviolence.

Edited June 14, 2023 by HonkeyVape

[nbmishoid 949]

Read them all, but was introduced to him via Blood Meridian, a gift from a sister.  He and Martin Amis gone in a week.  Not that they were comparable.  McCarthy was in his own class.  McCarthy Updike, Roth, Bellow, Amis.  That’s one hella collection to read. 

[Ben Tobin 374]

Read Child of God first followed closely by The Orchard Keeper. Finished Suttree while still in Knoxville walking the same streets. Nothing more to be said about Blood Meridian, a masterpiece in my opinion. Everything else is good. Really enjoy his style. He nailed the East Tennessee dialect so well that it was hard not to read everything in that ‘voice’. RIP

[Damor 1236]

Username checks out.

The priest does not say.

[futureman 22457]

3 hours ago, jdhorn92 said:

Is it similar to Kerouac's On the Road? Minus the Spanish.

[futureman 22457]

3 hours ago, ztejas said:

He means the prose is really thick and unorthodox. 

exceedingly so.  individual passages and even pages are simply incredible in their own right and will amaze you that someone was capable of putting it to paper from between their ears but to get through the whole thing is an absolute task.  read suttree or the border trilogy.  you’ll want to read them anyway if you appreciate blood meridian and there’s less chance that you’ll be overwhelmed or frustrated.  I’m not doubting your capabilities but it’s a challenge.  I quit reading blood meridian the first time and didn’t get through it fully until years later. 

[demos 3003]

I read Blood Meridian, and I’m still not entirely sure what I read, though I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t reread it.

[Bateshorn 9927]

5 hours ago, ztejas said:

I haven't read any of his stuff. Would y'all start with ATPH or Blood Meridian? Not interested in getting a crash course or easing into it - I want to start with his peak. 

Stick with it, once Glanton shows up, the book takes off like a rocket ship.