Humpf

[flemmings]

I've never read Cormac McCarthy and now I certainly won't. 

"There’s no such thing as life without bloodshed. I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea."

I hope there was some context to that but somehow I doubt it. Bloodshed is great until someone decides to shoot *you*, right? But these people never think they could be the victim. No, they're the triumphant alpha male always.

Dick-lit gives me migraines.

Comments

[oursin]

Did you see that awful quote - by one of his admirers, even worse - about how his INTEGRITEE as a writer kept him and his (now-ex) wife in poverty and he actually turned down paying gigs? It's bad enough when they pull the Suffering Writer stunt but when they insist on sharing the suffering about...

[flemmings]

He can join JD Salinger in the pantheon of unmourned male writers.

[kore]

He's such a poser! He was so cruel to his wives, too -- he and his first wife lived in some shack without running water, and a new baby, and he wanted her to go out and work to support his Great Artistry. She fled.

[flemmings]

Good for her. I know it was a time when husbands were close to an economic necessity, which may be why she married him, but really.

[anna_wing]

He obviously hadn't noticed all the attempts made during his lifetime to use extensive bloodshed to improve the species...

[flemmings]

Or thought they were a good idea. Honesly, I can't think what the man was on about.

[anna_wing]

It will be interesting to see how long (or not) his reputation lasts. One of those more read about than read, would be my guess.

[flemmings]

Given all the people, some of them surprising, lamenting his death in the Guardian, it may take a while for his reputation to dwindle. I hope it will, like Miller and Mailer.

[heleninwales]

I once tried to read a Cormac McCarthy book, managed a couple of chapters and gave up. I've never been tempted to try anything else that he wrote.

[flemmings]

He seems geared to a certain mindset, the kind that believes grimdark is an accurate reflection of reality. I won't say 'adolescent' because many people's reality is indeed grim and dark, but I'm not sure how many middle-class white men live in that reality.

[lebateleur]

Late to the game here, but ditto to all of the above. My 2008 thoughts on The Road: "nothing more than science fiction cleverly marketed to an audience that turns its nose up at the genre and is thus unable to spot how unoriginal and mediocre this novel really is." Given McCarthy's "admirable" traits as an Uncompromising White Dude writer, I don't understand why the gilt was ever on the lily in the first place.

[flemmings]

There's an awful lot of Uncompromising White Dudes out there quite happy to see their worldview presented unquestioned. And the grimdark fans, ditto.

'But he's such a great stylist!!', I keep hearing, and maybe that's also a part of it?

[lebateleur]

Riddle me this, Batman: Why is dropping apostrophes from contractions or double quotation marks from direct quotes an insufferable affectation when teenage girls on the Internet do it, but incontrovertible proof that we are in the presence of a Great Stylist when Cormac McCarthy does it in a paint-by-numbers dystopian novel?

[flemmings]

Because McCarthy has a penis and therefore must be taken seriously. No quirks, merely Style.