Cormac McCarthy

[Rumpelstilzchen]

I would like to open this general thread on Cormac McCarthy with a discussion about the usage of Spanish in some of his novels, in particular:
Blood Meridian
The Border Trilogy

I am very curious on this topic since I am not a Spanish speaker. Another member of this forum made some interesting comments in the thread about McCarthy's novel Suttree (I have no idea why, because Suttree does not contain any Spanish actually, as far as I remember):
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/showthread.php/35031-Cormac-McCarthy-Suttree

A list of the comments:

[...] 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."

[...] 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.

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. One should always keep in mind that McCarthy's unusual habits in punctuation and orthography are likely to be also visible in the Spanish parts.

 

[Stiffelio]

I have only read the first book of the so-called border trilogy plus The Road, so I cannot comment on the other books you mention. I think McCarthy is a fantastic writer, regardless of the spelling or 'tone' mistakes he may commit in Spanish. The same is true with writers such as Hemingway or Graham Greene, both of whom had stabs at Spanish words and often made mistakes. I'm sure there are many other examples of great writers 'trespassing' into langauges other than their own for local colouring and who were totally inept in doing so.

 

[Bubba]

I would like to open this general thread on Cormac McCarthy with a discussion about the usage of Spanish in some of his novels, in particular:
Blood Meridian
The Border Trilogy

I am very curious on this topic since I am not a Spanish speaker. Another member of this forum made some interesting comments in the thread about McCarthy's novel Suttree (I have no idea why, because Suttree does not contain any Spanish actually, as far as I remember):
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/showthread.php/35031-Cormac-McCarthy-Suttree

A list of the comments:






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. One should always keep in mind that McCarthy's unusual habits in punctuation and orthography are likely to be also visible in the Spanish parts.

You didn't quote it, or maybe you didn't find it, but somewhere I modified my assertion that McCarthy frequently makes outright mistakes in Spanish. He doesn't. His Spanish (apart from the consistent rendering of, say, peones or ladrones as peónes and ladrónes) is in fact excellent. Too excellent to be convincing in the mouths of, say, his illiterate ranch hands.

You may not get the corroboration you are seeking from the Spanish speakers, as they may have read these books in Spanish translation. In such translations, any mistakes in McCarthy's Spanish would almost certainly be corrected by the publisher; translators are also likely to have flattened out the sharp differences in register I was complaining about. Finally--let's let him speak for himself--but I'd think a self-respecting Mexican like Daniel would be insulted be a book like All the Pretty Horses or, above all, The Crossing--all them mustachioed and sombrero-wearing bandidos and pistoleros.

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

One can get a good idea of the usage of Spanish in his books from this page here:
http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/Resources.htm#Translations

Here you can find four pdf documents with all the Spanish phrases/dialogues used by McCarthy in the border trilogy as well as Blood Meridian and their translations into English (in case of Blood Meridian only the English translations are given without the Spanish original, but the amount of Spanish in this book is negligible in any case).

I can not remember any relevant Spanish in any of his other books.

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

You may not get the corroboration you are seeking from the Spanish speakers, as they may have read these books in Spanish translation. In such translations, any mistakes in McCarthy's Spanish would almost certainly be corrected by the publisher; translators are also likely to have flattened out the sharp differences in register I was complaining about. Finally--let's let him speak for himself--but I'd think a self-respecting Mexican like Daniel would be insulted be a book like All the Pretty Horses or, above all, The Crossing--all them mustachioed and sombrero-wearing bandidos and pistoleros.

I know that Daniel also reads books in the original English, though maybe not always. And I also know that he bought Blood Meridian in English recently .

Well, Daniel lives in a completely different region of Mexico in a different century. But in any case I do not see any reason to get insulted by a novel like All the Pretty Horses. Why should one? In general McCarthy has a very bleak view of those times. To a large extend humanity consists of scum in his books. So should I fell insulted as a human being?

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

You didn't quote it, or maybe you didn't find it, but somewhere I modified my assertion that McCarthy frequently makes outright mistakes in Spanish. He doesn't. His Spanish (apart from the consistent rendering of, say, peones or ladrones as peónes and ladrónes) is in fact excellent. Too excellent to be convincing in the mouths of, say, his illiterate ranch hands.

Ah ok, sorry. I just quoted all your statements from the Suttree thread. I did not see your modification there, so you must have made it somewhere else.

Ok, so no 'mistakes' by McCarthy then in those books. But does this mean that you still claim that his (correct) usage of Spanish is at least "inauthentic"?

To be honest, I personally would be very surprised if it is so blatant and disastrous or if this is the case at all, because an author like McCarthy who puts so much effort into his work, who writes so well researched books (to my knowledge) and takes so much care of the English dialogues, such an author is not likely to do a sloppy job on the Spanish language part, especially if he thinks this to be an important aspect.

 

[Daniel del Real]

Well, I can't help at all with that discussion since the only two books I've read from McCarthy are The Road and No Country for Old Men, and both in Spanish translation. I did bought Blood Meridian in English recently but haven't read it yet.
Now Bubba, well, you just can't say this:

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.

Really egocentric from your part calling all the readers who like McCarthy ignorant just because one or two acentos that are misplaced. I'm sure many writers that for example can't write in German make an incorrect use o the umlaut in some words, and the same goes to many languages. Come on, I'm sure you can't put all the accents correctly in Spanish and probably neither I can (altough I'm a pretty picky person regarding orthography in Spanish language).

 

[Bubba]

You misunderstand me rather spectacularly, Daniel. My comment has nothing to do with my egocentricity (or, as it happens, lack of it), and by no means am I suggesting that readers who like McCarthy are necessarily ignorant. What I am trying to say is that, for many readers, especially for those who don't read the language, McCarthy's use of Spanish adds an aura of mystery to his books, heightens their allure; this effect, which I suspect McCarthy is aware of and even banks on, is lost on readers who do know Spanish. In this respect, McCarthy calls to mind a character in a Ribeyro story (it seems to me you still haven't read Ribeyro; but don't, as his stories will spoil you for such things as McCarthy's so-called Border Trilogy), who, if he were asked to explain the mysterious organization he himself is head of but doesn't understand, says he would reply: "A lo más, me limitaría a pintar rayas rojas in una pizarra negra, esperando confiado los resultados que produce en la mente humana toda explicación que se funda inexorablemente en la cábala." For many readers, then, McCarthy's Spanish is the equivalent of these red lines drawn on a blackboard (it means nothing to them, but McCarthy need not worry, as any writing that draws on the kabbalah, on occult knowledge, will inevitably produce the desired results in his readers' minds).

I should add that, until very recently, I was an editor of financial research (and perhaps will be again); much of this research, meant for people who work for banks or asset management firms, is packed with one lengthy mathematical formula after another, not one of which makes any sense to the people for whom the research is intended. But that is precisely the point. These formula, drawing on esoteric knowledge, serve the same purpose as Ribeyro's red lines on a blackboard, as McCarthy's Spanish.

I must say, finally, that the malevolent dwarf's posts to this thread remind me of a schoolboy who is reporting to his schoolmasters a naughty thing he thinks one of his classmates has said.

 

[Daniel del Real]

You misunderstand me rather spectacularly, Daniel. My comment has nothing to do with my egocentricity (or, as it happens, lack of it), and by no means am I suggesting that readers who like McCarthy are necessarily ignorant. What I am trying to say is that, for many readers, especially for those who don't read the language, McCarthy's use of Spanish adds an aura of mystery to his books, heightens their allure; this effect, which I suspect McCarthy is aware of and even banks on, is lost on readers who do know Spanish. In this respect, McCarthy calls to mind a character in a Ribeyro story (it seems to me you still haven't read Ribeyro; but don't, as his stories will spoil you for such things as McCarthy's so-called Border Trilogy), who, if he were asked to explain the mysterious organization he himself is head of but doesn't understand, says he would reply: "A lo más, me limitaría a pintar rayas rojas in una pizarra negra, esperando confiado los resultados que produce en la mente humana toda explicación que se funda inexorablemente en la cábala." For many readers, then, McCarthy's Spanish is the equivalent of these red lines drawn on a blackboard (it means nothing to them, but McCarthy need not worry, as any writing that draws on the kabbalah, on occult knowledge, will inevitably produce the desired results in his readers' minds).

I should add that, until very recently, I was an editor of financial research (and perhaps will be again); much of this research, meant for people who work for banks or asset management firms, is packed with one lengthy mathematical formula after another, not one of which makes any sense to the people for whom the research is intended. But that is precisely the point. These formula, drawing on esoteric knowledge, serve the same purpose as Ribeyro's red lines on a blackboard, as McCarthy's Spanish.

I must say, finally, that the malevolent dwarf's posts to this thread remind me of a schoolboy who is reporting to his schoolmasters a naughty thing he thinks one of his classmates has said.

Why is that everybody misunderstand you? Know that I get, I think you're probably right as McCarthy uses it as not-too-literary element to create an atmosphere for his novels. I can't judge it as good or bad but now that I'm aware of that I'll put special emphasis when reading Blood Meridian.

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

[...] What I am trying to say is that, for many readers, especially for those who don't read the language, McCarthy's use of Spanish adds an aura of mystery to his books, heightens their allure; this effect, which I suspect McCarthy is aware of and even banks on, is lost on readers who do know Spanish.[...]
.

I have a different opinion on this (btw, I checked the translations of all Spanish passages when reading those books and I guess most people would do this). My guess is that McCarthy uses Spanish for authenticity. The mentioned books are set in the border regions between Spanish and English speaking countries, so an English novel without any Spanish would have a feeling of "inauthenticity". Setting aside the question for the moment if the level of Spanish is adequate for the purpose or not, those books certainly gain authenticity by using Spanish in comparison to the case that he had used no Spanish at all. And in this respect it would not matter if people understand Spanish or not (of course, the second group of people will have to rely on translations of the Spanish parts). My hypothesis is that McCarthy used Spanish for authenticity and that he is likely to have put as much effort into researching this as in any other aspect of his novels. Think about it, he is not stupid, he knows that many people will read the books that have mastered Spanish. So he certainly will be interested in a correct and authentic and consistent incorporation of Spanish. McCarthy is not one of those industry writers who produce a new book once a month. Of course this is only my guess, therefore I would like to get the opinion of a native speaker on this, in the best case someone who read all the four mentioned book in the original English version.

I must say, finally, that the malevolent dwarf's posts to this thread remind me of a schoolboy who is reporting to his schoolmasters a naughty thing he thinks one of his classmates has said.

??

Let me quote my first post: "I am very curious on this topic since I am not a Spanish speaker. Another member of this forum made some interesting comments in the thread about McCarthy's novel Suttree". And then I quoted stuff posted on this forum, which everybody can crosscheck himself. So what is the problem now? You brought the topic up in the first place, but now you do not like it anymore? I think it is an interesting topic.

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

I can't judge it as good or bad but now that I'm aware of that I'll put special emphasis when reading Blood Meridian.

Cool Daniel, looking forward to getting your opinion on this question .

 

[Daniel del Real]

I have a different opinion on this (btw, I checked the translations of all Spanish passages when reading those books and I guess most people would do this). My guess is that McCarthy uses Spanish for authenticity. The mentioned books are set in the border regions between Spanish and English speaking countries, so an English novel without any Spanish would have a feeling of "inauthenticity". Setting aside the question for the moment if the level of Spanish is adequate for the purpose or not, those books certainly gain authenticity by using Spanish in comparison to the case that he had used no Spanish at all. And in this respect it would not matter if people understand Spanish or not (of course, the second group of people will have to rely on translations of the Spanish parts). My hypothesis is that McCarthy used Spanish for authenticity and that he is likely to have put as much effort into researching this as in any other aspect of his novels. Think about it, he is not stupid, he knows that many people will read the books that have mastered Spanish. So he certainly will be interested in a correct and authentic and consistent incorporation of Spanish. McCarthy is not one of those industry writers who produce a new book once a month. Of course this is only my guess, therefore I would like to get the opinion of a native speaker on this, in the best case someone who read all the four mentioned book in the original English version.



??

Let me quote my first post: "I am very curious on this topic since I am not a Spanish speaker. Another member of this forum made some interesting comments in the thread about McCarthy's novel Suttree". And then I quoted stuff posted on this forum, which everybody can crosscheck himself. So what is the problem now? You brought the topic up in the first place, but now you do not like it anymore? I think it is an interesting topic.

Now, another interesting point to consider is that Spanish from the border is very different to the one I usually hear on the streets from Guadalajara or the one that is spoken in Mexico City or the Southeast of the country. There are a lot of peculiarities in the Spanish spoken in the northern border, and in such a large border there are different ways of speaking from Tijuana to Mexicali, Ciudad Juárez or Matamoros. I don't know if McCarthy even uses the so typical Spanglish to illustrate the way Mexicans or Hispanic population born in the US speak in those cities.

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

On the problems of translating McCarthy:
Missing in Portuguese: Prolegomenon to a Translation of Cormac McCarthy's Suttree
http://goo.gl/g8JK6

[...] The noble act of literary translation, for all of its potential splendor, never ceases to be a carefully calculated exercise in damage control. In dealing with McCarthy, what is required is a translatorial poetics of disruption of convention—"a willful disturbance and destabilization"—, through which the translation should seek to do to its own language what McCarthy does in and to the English language. [...]

Some interesting facts and links can be found in this document, like:
[...] McCarthy has used 30,609 words in his ten novels: 16,093 words that appear only in one book; 13,384 words that are only used once; and 4,313 words only used twice. There are 4,567 words unique to Suttree[...]
with a footnote adding that:
[...] This is a remarkable number, similar to that of Shakespeare: “In his complete works, Shakespeare used 31,534 different words.” The average native speaker of English, depending upon the level of education, uses between 12,000 and 20,000 words, which explains one aspect of why McCarthy is a challenging read [...]

 

[Heteronym]

Well, it may please you to know that Suttree was published in Portuguese around 2009.

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Well, it may please you to know that Suttree was published in Portuguese around 2009.

Good to hear because this means that the translator was not intimidated by this article and statementes like the following:
"The translation-to-be will require the talents of a master wordsmith in order to felicitously bring the novel's many complexities into Portuguese, and doing so will enrich the library of world literature available in the Portuguese language."

The article is generally a nice reminder of the complexities of literary translation and of how much respect the translators deserve for their work, which quite often they are denied by publishers and public.

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

The Quarterly Conversation, Scott Esposito, (2009)
Cormac McCarthy’s Paradox of Choice: One Writer, Ten Novels, and a Career-Long Obsession

A retrospective of McCarthy's 10 novels, also might work as an overview of his work for those not yet familiar with it.

 

[Heteronym]

[...] This is a remarkable number, similar to that of Shakespeare: “In his complete works, Shakespeare used 31,534 different words.” The average native speaker of English, depending upon the level of education, uses between 12,000 and 20,000 words, which explains one aspect of why McCarthy is a challenging read [...]

I wouldn't argue he's not difficult, but I think it's curious that some words that may block English readers are very easy for me. I noticed this a lot in The Road. Unusual words like carrafe, to lave or discalced are garrafa, lavar and descalço in Portuguese These words are unusual in everyday English, but ordinary in everyday Portuguese. For me it's just another sign of Mr. McCarthy's pedantic tendencies, to go for the 'hard, obscure' words when he could easily use bottle, to wash and barefooted.

 

[Stiffelio]

The Quarterly Conversation, Scott Esposito, (2009)
Cormac McCarthy’s Paradox of Choice: One Writer, Ten Novels, and a Career-Long Obsession

A retrospective of McCarthy's 10 novels, also might work as an overview of his work for those not yet familiar with it.

Thanks for the link to this article

I wouldn't argue he's not difficult, but I think it's curious that some words that may block English readers are very easy for me. I noticed this a lot in The Road. Unusual words like carrafe, to lave or discalced are garrafa, lavar and descalço in Portuguese These words are unusual in everyday English, but ordinary in everyday Portuguese. For me it's just another sign of Mr. McCarthy's pedantic tendencies, to go for the 'hard, obscure' words when he could easily use bottle, to wash and barefooted.

I wouldn't say he's pedantic; challenging is a better description. He's not the only anglosaxon writer to make profuse usage of latinisms (or Latin American hispanism, in his case). Besides, McCarthy's fictional landscape and context call for that type of exotism.

 

[maidenhair]

An interesting recent article from Slate magazine:
Cormac McCarthy Cuts to the Bone

Blood Meridian used to be a much different novel. McCarthy’s early drafts reveal how an American masterpiece was born.

The author of the article had a look at early drafts of the novel in the Cormac McCarthy Archives at the Texas State University. Those archives also feature a box with drafts of (one of) his upcoming novel(s) titled The Passenger, drafts that go back as far as the end of the 90s. He does not seem to be in a hurry

 

[maidenhair]

If you are interested in a discussion of the way Spanish was implemented in the dialogues of McCarthy's Border Trilogy I would like to point you to this publication:
A Cormac McCarthy Companion: The Border Trilogy
which includes this interesting article
Autotextuality, or Dialogic Imagination in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy

The article makes a strong and lengthy case for McCarthy's sophisticated and polyphonic construction of the dialogues in these books, how he creates meaning in various ways by careful consideration of the English and Spanish words and their interplay. Needless to mention that the use of Spanish goes far beyond mere enhancement of authenticity, but in addition alienation and misunderstanding are much better conveyed like this in an English novel. The dialogues are full of puns and wordplay, in particular also in the interplay between both languages. It is obvious that using more than one language enriches the possibilities for a literary text set in the borderlands between the US and Mexico. The article carefully reveals McCarthy's detailed and subtle building of the dialogues. Consequently he also brings along his obsessions from the English to the Spanish, e.g. he consistently omits diacritical marks in the Spanish.

Talking about obsessions, there is also the funny anecdote that he offered the physicist and Nobel prize winner Murray Gell-Mann (who is a friend) to excise all exclamation points and semicolons from his then latest book, as those 'have no place in literature' according to McCarthy. But Gell-Mann did not follow his advice