Cormac McCarthy: Suttree

[DB Cooper]

To this point the only McCarthy book Ive been totally sold on is Blood Meridian, but I finished Suttree a few days ago and was bowled over. For me, this is the crowning achievement of McCarthy, at least standing alongside Blood Meridian. One man wandering through society, barely engaged, dealing with riff raff of all stripes. Some of the themes are definitely present in McCarthy's other works, but I think this is the perfect distillation of what he was striving for in the first half of his career. Knowing that a beautiful, shimmering work of art such as this exists only reaffirms ones faith in literature.

[Mirabell]

YES YES YES

so glad you read it isn't it fucking great what an amazing, amazing book!!

[Beth]

American literature has always been dissatisfying to me, perhaps because America knows nothing except consumption and destruction.

Good grief. I'm sickened that such a simplistic thought could be penned by someone who has such beautiful understanding and appreciation for Middlemarch.

Moving on, I think either Suttree or Child of God will be my next McCarthy. I loved Blood Meridian even though it was a tough read. Glad to know that you're enjoying The Road, Paul Dorell.

[Beth]

I think you would have a rather difficult time making a case that literature or most art that has been produced in the U.S. exceeds in quality that produced in, say, Europe.

That isn't my point. I'm as much a rest-of-the-world-ophile as you or any reader here. But when you sweepingly proclaim "America knows nothing but consumption and destruction", you are just patently wrong. This may be the wild west, but there is no reasonable doubt that American literature can hold its own with any. Perhaps it isn't American literature that is dissatisfying for you, but the broader American culture. I can sort of understand your disdain as you are not American. But this sort of public arrogance, whether homegrown or imported, does nothing to encourage others to look beyond the US boundaries for cultural or literary enlightenment. It just gets up noses.

It's not my place to change your mind! Eek! And I really enjoy bold, clear, opinionated writing such as your posts. But when I read the above earlier, it truly stopped me in my tracks and made me wonder.

It sounds like you've read some of McCarthy's other works. I think he's tremendous, along with many others.

Cheers

[Liam]

Thank you, Beth. Of course this wouldn't be the first time that P.D. made a sweeping generalization that is just DEAD wrong.

America knows nothing except consumption and destructionLooks like someone needs to brush up on his Thoreau.


Frankly, Europe completely obliterates the U.S. in nearly every categoryWell, I think that Emily Dickinson completely obliterates every other 19th century poet, American, European or otherwise; but your comparison is simply not fair. America is a young nation, the English language is a relatively recent import here (as opposed to Ireland, say); obviously we have a long way to go yet to have even a millennium's worth of literature (if we last that long. Actually, and disturbingly, this would take us to 2666, since the first written texts were produced in the northern American colonies in the early decades of the 17th century.)

Let's wait and see, shall we--

[Liam]

my Europhilia only increases as time goes on. I don't think I'm being particularly arrogant about it.
Awesome. Just out of curiosity, how many European languages can you speak or read?

[lenz]

Of course, this doesn't mean that good art hasn't been or can't be produced here. It means that high culture, such as existed in Paris up to World War I, has never existed here on the same scale and may never. In the McCarthy work that I'm aware of, there is no high culture at all, except perhaps his depiction of its nonexistence.

I think you would have a rather difficult time making a case that literature or most art that has been produced in the U.S. exceeds in quality that produced in, say, Europe. Frankly, Europe completely obliterates the U.S. in nearly every category

Are you complaining about the U.S.A being a cultural entity of shorter artistic lineage than Europe and that there are too many badly educated people there? There are things that can't be helped and some that can. I think you should take a look at the history of art - literature, music and visual art - in the U.S. before saying anything about "high culture." European "high art" doesn't "obliterate" American art - it has been met and equalled in quality by artists of all kinds and in a very short period of time.

It was an American poet, Ezra Pound, who spoke to artists of Europe and America when he proclaimed the sacred words of modernity, "Make it new!" That has been the excuse for a lot of bad art everywhere but also the most exciting art of the 20th c. of which some of the best and most innovative, in literature, music and visual art, was made in your adopted homeland. The 19th c. wasn't too bad, either.

I have been disappointed with American writers of the past 30 years or so and that's partly because of the arrogant insularity you speak of - also, because of the "dumbing down" in schools that is having a sad effect on intellectual life there. Cormac McCarthy is a writer I have yet to read and dread doing so because I fear he is one of those anti-intellectual libertarians who disdains everyone but himself.

But, there's life in old dame yet, as an american cat once said. Look for the best.

[Stiffelio]

Here we go again with the McCarthy curse!! Why is it that every time a thread about a McCarthy book is opened we end up discussing anything but his book?

I loved what I've read so far from McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses and The Road) but haven't yet tackled Suttree. It would be interesting if the original poster, DB Cooper, would tell us a bit more about it.

[Refus de Sejour]

Here we go again with the McCarthy curse!! Why is it that every time a thread about a McCarthy book is opened we end up discussing anything but his book?

I loved what I've read so far from McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses and The Road) but haven't yet tackled Suttree. It would be interesting if the original poster, DB Cooper, would tell us a bit more about it.

At least it hasn't veered into the ridiculous yet, as every other thread mentioning McCarthy seems to have.

After I finish 2666 (which should be tonight), I'm gonna start on either Blood Meridian or Suttree. Haven't decided which yet.

[Manuel76]

Thank you, Beth. Of course this wouldn't be the first time that P.D. made a sweeping generalization that is just DEAD wrong, :p.
Looks like someone needs to brush up on his Thoreau, :).

Well, I think that Emily Dickinson completely obliterates every other 19th century poet, American, European or otherwise;L.

not so completely: Holderlin, Keats, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Whitman...and many many others.

But personally I think American literature since the XIX century is one of the most interesting :Poe, Dickinson, Whitman, Twain, Melville, James, Eliot, Frost, Faulkner, McCullers, Pynchon, Carver...are among my favorite writers.

By the way, the destructive capacity of a country from a political point of view has very little to do with its capacity for creating amazing works of art.

[miobrien]

Fiction usually reflects the times, and American fiction has moved from agrarian subjects to greedy tycoons to populism to war to suburbia. Now what? As coherent communities disappear, there is less to write about besides strangers interacting with strangers (As we are doing here; you could write a novel about this!). Some of the remaining thematic choices seem to be: a) unreadable post-postmodern exercises in unsatisfying innovation or b) alienated individuals in an apocalyptic environment. I'm not saying that this can never result in successful art, but it's beginning to look as if this period may become dominated by gloomy apocalyptic works such as The Road. America is now running in parallel with Europe, which has the apocalyptic visions of Michel Houellebecq. I would say that this is the direct result of the shared American and European economic model. Literature can always inspire us about our current conditions, but it can never bring back the halcyon days of the 19th century.
While I don't agree with all your other replies in this thread, I'm inclined to agree about the "post-postmodern exercises," which I simply described as gimmicky in another thread. On the other hand, I'm most definitely not as unsatisfied with American literature as a whole as you, but I understand your complaints. I have also wondered: "What's next?" After the suburbs, what is there to explore? I think there is something; I'm trying to discover it myself.

What do you think of Tobias Wolff?

[DB Cooper]

The general attitude in the U.S. is that it's the best place to live in the world, with the highest standard of living and the strongest economy. The majority never travel to Europe or have any desire to. As you can tell, I like to express my position and interact with others. At this point I have several years of experience in attempting to engage right wing types and rednecks, and have found that it's virtually impossible to convince them that the Iraq War wasn't perfectly justified, or in some cases that Obama isn't a Kenyan Muslim. While Europe is mostly secular, 41% of Americans actually believe that Jesus Christ will return to Earth by 2050.



Im not sure what happened to this thread, but let me just say that you and I know VERY, VERY different people. This is laughable, and throwing out ridiculous statistics is meaningless. Quite obviously they are influenced to show whatever number whomever is doing such a poll wishes to show. Take your vitriol to another thread, this one is aimed at discussing Suttree, not a platform for bizarre digressions about your hangups with any particular country or culture. Unless its done in the context of the book, of course, which this clearly wasnt.

[Bubba]

What do you think of Tobias Wolff?

I don't think that anyone who starts out with hostility toward contemporary American literature is going to be swayed in any way, unless maybe his hostility is exacerbated, by reading Tobias Wolff's work. I've read three or four of his books (In Pharaoh's Army, Old School, This Boy's Life, and a few stories) and found that an oddly self-pitying and, at the same time, self-congratulatory voice characterizes them all.


Im not sure what happened to this thread, but let me just say that you and I know VERY, VERY different people. This is laughable, and throwing out ridiculous statistics is meaningless. Quite obviously they are influenced to show whatever number whomever is doing such a poll wishes to show. Take your vitriol to another thread, this one is aimed at discussing Suttree, not a platform for bizarre digressions about your hangups with any particular country or culture. Unless its done in the context of the book, of course, which this clearly wasnt.

Well, I'm of redneck stock myself, but I'm quite surprised--and not a little bit skeptical--by the information that more than forty percent of my countrymen are eagerly awaiting the Second Coming, and I wonder about the validity of the assertion that European art "obliterates" American art. Still, methinks Coop doth protest too much. His defensiveness suggests that he realizes Paul is not entirely wrong. Nor do I see anything wrong with threads' going off-topic. Sticking slavishly to the topic in the subject line strikes me as a bit autistic; in this case, it is also a recipe for premature death of the thread, as none but DB Cooper and Mirabell seem to have read the book about which we are permitted to post. I myself have no plans to read it, as I don't really like McCarthy's shorter novels, and on another thread somebody posted a self-indulgent description taken from Suttree that only strengthened my resolve to stay far away from this novel.

Paul is right to say that most celebrated contemporary American novelists are awful. Windbags like Lorrie Moore, Richard Ford, and Don DeLillo aren't really even liked by the critics who praise their work. No one reads Updike's novels anymore. Sic transit gloria! All those Eastern Seaboard Jonathans. Ugh! There is good contemporary American writing, but it's done by writers you've never heard of and probably never will hear of, as it is in the interest of the mediocrities and the talentless, who are far more numerous, to drown out the voices of the relatively few writers of real talent.

My advice would be not to dismiss relatively recent American writing without reading such work as the stories "Last of the Spanish Blood" and "Noise of Strangers" by George Garrett, or his novels Which Ones Are the Enemy? and Entered from the Sun, without reading Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire or The Fool's Progress, without reading the novels of Charles Portis. Garrett, Abbey, and Portis (and others like them, I imagine) long labored in relative obscurity, while bores like William Styron earned money and fame. It's a mistake, in other words, to believe that the most celebrated contemporary American writers are the best contemporary American writers.

David Sedaris? What can I say? Sure, he can sometimes make me laugh, but above all his frivolousness and his straining for comedic effect bug the crap out of me.

[Refus de Sejour]

Windbags like Lorrie Moore, Richard Ford, and Don DeLillo aren't really even liked by the critics who praise their work.

Oh god, this again: the moment when critique becomes telepathic. Or do you just sneak into critics' bedrooms and read their private journals:


Dear Diary:

Described DeLillo as the third best Post-War American author today. But had my fingers crossed as I typed!! (LOL!) (PS: can't wait 'till the next Twilight novel comes out!!!)

- M. Kakutani

But seriously; do you have any evidence that critics don't really like the authors they praise, or does this belong in the "women don't like William T. Vollmann" basket of conjecture?

*

Just started Blood Meridian yesterday. How similar is it to Suttree?

[Beth]

The points that I have been making are relevant to the context in which McCarthy writes. The world McCarthy writes about in the two books I mentioned is characterized by anarchy, survival and psychopaths, and they are both set in the U.S. Don't you think these are rather discordant themes for what is supposed to be the greatest nation in the world at the peak of its power?

Oh, but I think that the beauty is in that discord, PD. Even in Blood Meridian, there's the subtle theme of dignity in the face of marauders. And I view The Road as one of the most optimistic novels I've ever read. (Pardon me, Heteronym).



Are these the sorts of books that were written in England at the height of the Commonwealth?

Don't you all have your zombies? :p

[miobrien]

I don't think that anyone who starts out with hostility toward contemporary American literature is going to be swayed in any way, unless maybe his hostility is exacerbated, by reading Tobias Wolff's work. I've read three or four of his books (In Pharaoh's Army, Old School, This Boy's Life, and a few stories) and found that an oddly self-pitying and, at the same time, self-congratulatory voice characterizes them all.
I've only read his short stories, so I'm not familiar with his memoirs. I suggest Tobias Wolff because he doesn't use postmodern techniques and doesn't write about post-apocalyptic futures, that's all. To me, he's a pretty old-fashioned story-teller.



There is good contemporary American writing, but it's done by writers you've never heard of and probably never will hear of, as it is in the interest of the mediocrities and the talentless, who are far more numerous, to drown out the voices of the relatively few writers of real talent.

My advice would be not to dismiss relatively recent American writing without reading such work as the stories "Last of the Spanish Blood" and "Noise of Strangers" by George Garrett, or his novels Which Ones Are the Enemy? and Entered from the Sun, without reading Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire or The Fool's Progress, without reading the novels of Charles Portis. Garrett, Abbey, and Portis (and others like them, I imagine) long labored in relative obscurity, while bores like William Styron earned money and fame. It's a mistake, in other words, to believe that the most celebrated contemporary American writers are the best contemporary American writers.
Anyone else besides these three?

[Bubba]

Oh god, this again: the moment when critique becomes telepathic. Or do you just sneak into critics' bedrooms and read their private journals:



But seriously; do you have any evidence that critics don't really like the authors they praise, or does this belong in the "women don't like William T. Vollmann" basket of conjecture?


Of course I don't sneak peeks into their private journals, Refus, but I do observe, and I am not naive. Just this morning, for example, on the front page of the New York Times, was a large banner ad (or whatever they're called) vaunting the merits of Moore's A Gate at the Stairs. The ad noted that it was a "New York Times Book of the Year" and reproduced a bit from a review in the Washington Post: "Profound... Expands the notion of what Lorrie Moore--and the novel--can do." Are you really prepared to believe that the editors of the NYT thought Moore's book was one of the best of the year? That the Post reviewer thought it was profound? As revenue from ads bought by publishers pays their salaries, these cultural journalists simply think they know which side their bread is buttered on.

I think seeing conspiracies everywhere is just as likely to lead you into error as naivete is, and, as I've said elsewhere, I'm a firm believer that there was a single gunman (the litmus test for susceptibility to conspiracy theories), but, yes, I think many book reviewers' diaries would read much as you have imagined Kakutani's, minus perhaps the postscript.






Anyone else besides these three?

Because I don't read much of it (the books that get the publicity are usually bad, and much of what might be better isn't easily available where I live), I'm not the best person to ask about contemporary American literature (two of the three writers I mention are dead, and the third hasn't published anything for a while). Still, I have a few recent issues of literary reviews around the house (Antioch Review, News from the Republic of Letters, Chattahoochee Review, Hayden's Ferry Review) and in nearly all of them is some excellent work by contemporary Americans I'd never heard of: poetry by Andrew Hudgins, stories by Jean Ross Justice and Trevanian (not sure if this one's a contemporary American); "Pi Day," a story by one Jim Wyatt, in a recent issue of Republic of Letters, is, to me, worth any hundreds of pages of work by Cormac McCarthy (and I speak as someone who has, at times, enjoyed McCarthy's books).

[Bubba]

For the benefit of Refus, who is apparently about to begin one of McCarthy's border books, let me add--though here I must beg a thousand pardons, as my coming addition has precious little to do with Suttree, and anyone bothered by my making so bold as to take the thread slightly off track is urged to disregard my post--that McCarthy's use of Spanish is inauthentic, inconsistent, and frequently erroneous. For example, whereas McCarthy's American characters speak in the most utterly ridiculous hayseed vernacular, his Mexican characters, from the richest landowners to the lowliest "pe?nes [sic]," are shown speaking in a standard, educated Spanish register. Most English-language readers and reviewers don't pick up on this inconsistency, and for them, by virtue of their ignorance of the language alone, the Spanish adds to the allure of the books.

McCarthy will also call a Mexican ranch hand a "pe?n," which is not incorrect; in the plural, he writes "pe?nes," which reflects the pronunciation of the word accurately enough but is incorrect orthographically. Likewise, for "thief," he writes "ladr?n," but gangs of thieves become "ladr?nes [sic]." (These are not, by the way, intentional departures from proper orthography.) In McCarthy, finally, "huev?n," a word perhaps best used to describe McCarthy himself, would, in the plural, become "huev?nes."

[Mirabell]

Cormac McCarthy made an interesting comment in an interview:
"Well, I don't know what of our culture is going to survive, or if we survive. If you look at the Greek plays, they're really good. And there's just a handful of them. Well, how good would they be if there were 2,500 of them? But that's the future looking back at us. Anything you can think of, there's going to be millions of them. Just the sheer number of things will devalue them. I don't care whether it's art, literature, poetry or drama, whatever. The sheer volume of it will wash it out. I mean, if you had thousands of Greek plays to read, would they be that good? I don't think so."


I think this is borderline asinine.

1. the "handful" are not all the plays written but all the plays that survived. Oodles more have been written that we know of and who knows how many that have been utterly lost. Given this fact,

2. it's odd to claim that sheer number is indicative of quality. If they are good, they are good however many there are.


Also, McCarthy started giving these odd interviews and comments once the quality of his own output declined sharply. I think the only way to admire and praise The Road so heavily is to read it first. After Blood Meridian and Suttree, The Road pales in comparison. I was mostly disappointed.

[Mirabell]

(These are not, by the way, intentional departures from proper orthography.)

How do you know? Did you ask him? Checked the journals?


As for your ridiculous rant about reviewers: many people loved Moore's new book. A great many people. Why should the lead reviewer from the NYT and Wash Post not be among them? What's so unbelievable about this?

[Mirabell]

A review of Suttree
'Suttree' - New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/18/books/mccarthy-suttree.html)

he's not wrong, but he misses the fullness of the book, the way darkness and hilarious humor overlap and mix.

[Mirabell]

You may be missing his point. He's saying that having too many works of art - or too much of anything - devalues each one because of our psychological makeup. If everyone had a ton of gold, it would become nearly worthless. He's saying that the Greek plays that we think are great may not be as good as ones that didn't survive, and that we value them in part because of their scarcity. This effect could be even more radical in the future if millions of novels are preserved. How would you pick the top 10 out of a million? It would be nice to think like you and say that divine works are unique and of eternal value, but actually everything is relative and depends on context. I do, however, agree with you that McCarthy sounds a little philistine. At first I thought of him as a pure voice, but the more I learn about him, he seems to calculate much like his characters, and his commercial savvy is in evidence everywhere.

Ah, but "value" is not the same as "value" here. Gold is valuable in the sense that due to its scarcity, we conventionally agree that it is worth a certain amount of money. Gold can't be "good" in the sense that a play can be. The value of a play depends on its quality, and is independent of the amount of money that we agree it's worth. A very rare print of a Dan Brown book may, in 100 years, fetch a handsome sum. That does not make the book any better. Scarcity affects one aspect, it doesn't affect the other.

As to the philistinism: I've long settled for writers whose work I love to be idiots when it comes to talking about it or about anything. Writers like Lowell, Bishop or Muldoon, who are both great poets AND great critics are rare.

[Bubba]

How do you know? Did you ask him? Checked the journals?


As for your ridiculous rant about reviewers: many people loved Moore's new book. A great many people. Why should the lead reviewer from the NYT and Wash Post not be among them? What's so unbelievable about this?

Oh, Jesus Christ, Mirabell! There are some things a halfway intelligent reader just knows. Without having to "check the journals" (by the way, repeating someone else's joke isn't very funny). Since, however, your post suggests that you have not yet reached the midpoint on the long and arduous path to becoming an intelligent reader, I will attempt to spell out for you how it is that I know, without having read the journals, that McCarthy's use of such spellings as ladr?nes is an inadvertent mistake. For one thing, as I mentioned in my earlier post, McCarthy has his Spanish speakers adopt a standard, formal register. Only when he is writing in English does he indulge in neologism and in reproduction of cowpoke speech. For another, it's a mistake typical of a writer who doesn't know Spanish quite as well as he thinks he does. As a rule, Spanish words are stressed on the next-to-last syllable; keeping the accent mark in the plural is pointless.

And, frankly, I fail to see what's so "ridiculous" about my pointing out, a bit acerbically, perhaps, that review outlets that depend on sales of advertising space to the publishers of the very novels they review highly favorably are not altogether credible.

I realize, Mirabell, I've been a bit hard on you here and there, but I can't help myself: weak thinking--not to mention Teutonic humor--just gets to me.

[lenz]

Bubba:
McCarthy has his Spanish speakers adopt a standard, formal register. Only when he is writing in English does he indulge in neologism and in reproduction of cowpoke speech. For another, it's a mistake typical of a writer who doesn't know Spanish quite as well as he thinks he does

What you say about McCarthy is just the sort of thing that puts me off reading him. He is always disparaging other writers and seems to think his way of writing is the best. This kind of tough guy talk and lazy thinking and arrogance even toward his characters whose language he doesn't bother to get right is really not attractive.

[Mirabell]

Oh, Jesus Christ, Mirabell! There are some things a halfway intelligent reader just knows. Without having to "check the journals" (by the way, repeating someone else's joke isn't very funny). Since, however, your post suggests that you have not yet reached the midpoint on the long and arduous path to becoming an intelligent reader, I will attempt to spell out for you how it is that I know, without having read the journals, that McCarthy's use of such spellings as ladr?nes is an inadvertent mistake. For one thing, as I mentioned in my earlier post, McCarthy has his Spanish speakers adopt a standard, formal register. Only when he is writing in English does he indulge in neologism and in reproduction of cowpoke speech. For another, it's a mistake typical of a writer who doesn't know Spanish quite as well as he thinks he does. As a rule, Spanish words are stressed on the next-to-last syllable; keeping the accent mark in the plural is pointless.

And, frankly, I fail to see what's so "ridiculous" about my pointing out, a bit acerbically, perhaps, that review outlets that depend on sales of advertising space to the publishers of the very novels they review highly favorably are not altogether credible.

I realize, Mirabell, I've been a bit hard on you here and there, but I can't help myself: weak thinking--not to mention Teutonic humor--just gets to me.

what you do is weak thinking. You assume that what seems most plausible to you is the correct solution. But this is nitwittery. we are discussing literature, where writers make odd decisions all the time for reasons that may not be obvious to us. From your own narrow mind you extrapolate to others, but that doesn't work. This is weak thinking. you state that mccarthy makes "typical" mistakes and assume this is a mistake on his part, but in the field I specialize, poetry, writers very often, and not systematically, make use of "typical" mistakes in a very aware and careful fashion. In this case one doesn't know what's the case. Because your limits don't allow you to assume otherwise, you think it's a mistake.

the same applies to reviewers. you think that kakutani for example praises writers she doesn't like, and you cite Delillo, Moore and Ford. Kakutani has ripped many of delillo's recent books to shreds, and her praise for moore is to be expected since she always praises books like that. it's called consistent taste. these are the facts. you leap to a conclusion unwarranted by these facts because you expect others are just as jaded and tasteless as you are and can't possibly like the books you dislike so much, and must be corrupt to boot. These, again, are assumptions drawn from nothing.

when you assume...

[Refus de Sejour]

Of course I don't sneak peeks into their private journals, Refus, but I do observe, and I am not naive. Just this morning, for example, on the front page of the New York Times, was a large banner ad (or whatever they're called) vaunting the merits of Moore's A Gate at the Stairs. The ad noted that it was a "New York Times Book of the Year" and reproduced a bit from a review in the Washington Post: "Profound... Expands the notion of what Lorrie Moore--and the novel--can do." Are you really prepared to believe that the editors of the NYT thought Moore's book was one of the best of the year? That the Post reviewer thought it was profound?

Yes, I am. Here's why.

Clearly some people genuinely enjoyed Moore's book. Paul directed me to it's Amazon reviews, which are actually evenly split between laudatory and condemnatory. Now, follow this closely:

(a) Some human beings like Lorrie Moore
(b) Reviewers are human beings
Therefore:
(c) It is not beyond the realms of possibility that some reviewers like Lorrie Moore.

As you know, I've read Charles Portis's The Dog of the South. I enjoyed it, but don't think it's nearly as good as you've claimed. I also recently gave Gringos a try, but didn't like it as much and gave up after about 40 pages.

Now: am I to conclude that you don't really like Charles Portis as much as you claim? If you published a review claiming Portis was one of the greatest living American writers, should I doubt your sincerity? Or should I simply conclude that we have different tastes - i.e., are using different aesthetic criteria to evaluate books. For me to assume the former would be stunningly narrow minded.

Back on topic; it's interesting what you say about McCarthy's use of Spanish, thanks. But it's not relevant to my enjoyment of the novel. It's a story, not an anthropological study.

[DB Cooper]

I don't think that anyone who starts out with hostility toward contemporary American literature is going to be swayed in any way, unless maybe his hostility is exacerbated, by reading Tobias Wolff's work. I've read three or four of his books (In Pharaoh's Army, Old School, This Boy's Life, and a few stories) and found that an oddly self-pitying and, at the same time, self-congratulatory voice characterizes them all.



Well, I'm of redneck stock myself, but I'm quite surprised--and not a little bit skeptical--by the information that more than forty percent of my countrymen are eagerly awaiting the Second Coming, and I wonder about the validity of the assertion that European art "obliterates" American art. Still, methinks Coop doth protest too much. His defensiveness suggests that he realizes Paul is not entirely wrong. Nor do I see anything wrong with threads' going off-topic. Sticking slavishly to the topic in the subject line strikes me as a bit autistic; in this case, it is also a recipe for premature death of the thread, as none but DB Cooper and Mirabell seem to have read the book about which we are permitted to post. I myself have no plans to read it, as I don't really like McCarthy's shorter novels, and on another thread somebody posted a self-indulgent description taken from Suttree that only strengthened my resolve to stay far away from this novel.

.

I suppose Im just at a loss why someone would bother to post in (or click on) a thread about a book you state you have no intention to read, and on top of that by an author you clearly dislike. You misread my "defensiveness" which was actually annoyance by the fact I started a thread about a book, in hopes of discussing said book, when now thats clearly not going to happen.

[DB Cooper]

I'm not trying to disrupt the thread, but the above quote has thus far been the only informative statement about Suttree by anyone. I became involved only because of my familiarity with The Road and No Country for Old Men. Although McCarthy is a good writer, no one on this thread has convinced me that I should read another of his books.

The points that I have been making are relevant to the context in which McCarthy writes. The world McCarthy writes about in the two books I mentioned is characterized by anarchy, survival and psychopaths, and they are both set in the U.S. Don't you think these are rather discordant themes for what is supposed to be the greatest nation in the world at the peak of its power? Are these the sorts of books that were written in England at the height of the Commonwealth? Your criticism would carry more weight if you used more substantive phrases than "shimmering work of art." One would hope that this site would provide a forum in which contributors did more than list the books they like.

I started this thread in the post coital afterglow of finishing Suttree, in hopes of discussing the book with people who read it, and perhaps engaging those who hadnt but are interested. As far as criticism, I wasnt aware that Im obligated to provide an essay length exegesis about my reading experience. Thats something I have neither the time nor the inclination to do on a message board. Im all too happy to discuss the book with those interested though. At this point your Celine-like bitterness over US cultural hegemony or whatever else youre angry about has sidetracked things to the point of disaster. How is Lorrie Moore in this thread? All I can do is laugh at your unhappiness. Perhaps I should start another thread, Suttree 2: The Return.

[DB Cooper]

Suttree Dos: Con Espanol Inauthentico

[DB Cooper]

Suttree Two: With Commentary by Lorrie Moore

[DB Cooper]

Sutree Redux: Now with more tirades against the culture of US consumerism!

[DB Cooper]

The Return of Sutree: Bubba reads from Cormac McCarthy's personal journals

[Refus de Sejour]

Suttree Two: With Commentary by Lorrie Moore

DB, how does Suttree compare to Blood Meridian? I had a look at the first few pages of Suttree on Amazon, and the opening looks considerably 'denser' and more impressionistic than Blood Meridian.

[DB Cooper]

The opening is incredibly dense and poetic, and while not an absolute precursor to the book, it does point the direction. Your impression is fairly correct. Suttree is a very polyphonic experience. The writing is beautiful and intense, and very episodic. Blood Meridian follows a much more linear path than Suttree does, also the body count is WAY lower in this book.

[DB Cooper]

DB, how does Suttree compare to Blood Meridian? I had a look at the first few pages of Suttree on Amazon, and the opening looks considerably 'denser' and more impressionistic than Blood Meridian.


Im about to hit the hay, long day tomorrow, but please feel free to post thoughts and I will respond to them tomorrow. Anyone else who wants to join in please do.

[Mirabell]

DB, how does Suttree compare to Blood Meridian? I had a look at the first few pages of Suttree on Amazon, and the opening looks considerably 'denser' and more impressionistic than Blood Meridian.


I wouldn't say impressionistic. Blood Meridian has this allegorical sheen, people are there to fill pre-established roles. The Kid, the Judge, they are borrowed from ancient narratives, with for example the Judge clearly a stand-in for the Devil. There's a hardwood surface to the book in way. Does that make sense?
In comparison to that, Suttree is a Swamp. It's McCarthy's most Faulknerian book, it's full of life, full of laughter, full of darkness. It's autobiographically inspired, and as Paul Dorell correctly noted, this lends McCarthy's books a kind of warmth.
I'd say Blood Meridian is a stunning book, while Suttree is more affecting, a significantly greater book, not afraid of silliness, but undaunted in its pursuit of some kind of Truth.
Does this make sense, Mr. Cooper?

[Refus de Sejour]

I wouldn't say impressionistic. Blood Meridian has this allegorical sheen, people are there to fill pre-established roles. The Kid, the Judge, they are borrowed from ancient narratives, with for example the Judge clearly a stand-in for the Devil. There's a hardwood surface to the book in way. Does that make sense?


Most certainly. The opening pages are strikingly different, Blood Meridian kicking straight into the action, Suttree wallowing (I don't mean that in a bad way) in it's evocation of place. That's the main reason I chose Meridian over Suttree; I feel like something relatively linear at the moment, Suttree has been set aside for another day.

[Bubba]

Yeah, I always preferred Aloysius Bertrand myself.

Whether a text is "shit" or "perfume" has nothing to do with the question of a critic's sincerity.

Until you have something relevant to say, adieu.

Ah, Refus! I see you who are always relying on the "de gustibus" defense hesitate not at all to hang the "irrelevant" tag on comments that are not to your taste. Besides, how is it possible, in nearly the same breath, both to condemn the irrelevance of the excerpt I posted and to respond seriously to it (you express your preference for Bertrand)? Either one or the other, but not both. Make up your mind!

To get back to your point from an earlier post--and here I'm being relevant to a discussion of Blood Meridian (which I was unable to finish), if not exactly to the subject of the thread--I read fiction not for anthropological or linguistic insight but for entertainment alone; I seek to find myself absorbed by the story. And because I happen to know Spanish, I can't overlook McCarthy's inconsistencies and occasional mistakes in that language; they interfere with my enjoyment of his work; they distract me, and they make his novels less convincing, less believable. Instead of being absorbed by the story, I find myself wondering why, for example, two American characters from different social classes will speak in wildly differing registers (compare the speech of the inarticulate, nearly mute brothers Boyd and Billy of The Crossing and that of the "sexton"), whereas two Mexicans of equally different background are shown speaking in the same formal, educated register. Worse, in the middle of reading one of his novels, I may even find myself wondering why he didn't run the Spanish spell check.

In short, the effectiveness of McCarthy's border novels depends, to a degree, on his readers' ignorance of Spanish, and, though of course I haven't examined the handwritten annotations on his typescripts--mea maxima culpa!--and can't be certain, I suspect that McCarthy himself knows that this is so. My point, then--and whether you consider it relevant or not is of little importance to me--is that McCarthy relies on his readers' ignorance and that many of his readers, it seems, are all too happy to oblige.

[Rumpelstilzchen]

To get back to your point from an earlier post--and here I'm being relevant to a discussion of Blood Meridian (which I was unable to finish), if not exactly to the subject of the thread--I read fiction not for anthropological or linguistic insight but for entertainment alone; I seek to find myself absorbed by the story. And because I happen to know Spanish, I can't overlook McCarthy's inconsistencies and occasional mistakes in that language; they interfere with my enjoyment of his work; they distract me, and they make his novels less convincing, less believable. Instead of being absorbed by the story, I find myself wondering why, for example, two American characters from different social classes will speak in wildly differing registers (compare the speech of the inarticulate, nearly mute brothers Boyd and Billy of The Crossing and that of the "sexton"), whereas two Mexicans of equally different background are shown speaking in the same formal, educated register. Worse, in the middle of reading one of his novels, I may even find myself wondering why he didn't run the Spanish spell check.

In short, the effectiveness of McCarthy's border novels depends, to a degree, on his readers' ignorance of Spanish, and, though of course I haven't examined the handwritten annotations on his typescripts--mea maxima culpa!--and can't be certain, I suspect that McCarthy himself knows that this is so. My point, then--and whether you consider it relevant or not is of little importance to me--is that McCarthy relies on his readers' ignorance and that many of his readers, it seems, are all too happy to oblige.

Since I basically do not understand Spanish I would like to know to what extend Bubba's claims are true. I know that Daniel read a few of McCarthy's novels, but I don't know if he already tackled the mentioned Blood Meridian and/or the novels of the border trilogy. I would really like to get your opinion on this, Daniel. I am interested if it is true that McCarthy makes so many blatant mistakes in Spanish in those 4 novels, so relevant mistakes that the reading pleasure of Spanish native speakers is ruined.

Edit: I copied this question to the main McCarthy thread, where it belongs to.