|
I like reading McCarthy's books during the summer because they are so dark. It's a nice contrast to all the sun and fun of summer but also when it gets to be too much I can just put the book down and jump in the pool or whatever.
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 17:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 16:52 |
|
|
One quarter of the way through and this is some extremely good stuff. Harrogate has just reconnected with Suttree So far I am seeing vague parallels between Suttree/Harrogate and Bloom/Daedalus, but I might be trying to be too big brained about this since there are very clear differences in, for instance, maturity of character and power dynamics. But also, the chapter of Suttree getting completely shitfaced also reminded me of the chapter in the brothel in Ulysses, although obviously not in a beat for beat sort of way. But, perhaps it would be even closer were we to have seen that scene from Stephen's perspective? Perhaps the parallels I am seeing is more due to the modernism influence on Southern Gothic? But I am also desperately behind in reading Faulkner, and I will probably have to read Absalom! Absalom! before the end of the year now.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2023 05:35
|
|
|
The funeral scene. So good
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2023 05:24
|
|
|
I have a nominee for the most cormac McCarthy of all paragraphs:quote:Suttree went on. A mute and shapeless derelict would stop him with a puffy hand run forth from the cavernous sleeve of an armycoat. Ive been thinking about mccarthys use of cafes and lunch counters in his books. I’ve read his books backwards by publish date I think but it makes it stand out to me. You have these characters living on the margins but so much description is of nature you’d think they were out in the wilderness. Especially in the scene where they suttree is loving off in the woods and he comes across the hunter with the crossbow, the hunter is bewildered and says “bro the road is like a mile that way and where does he go? A cafe. The return to dependency on civilization and particularly women’s domestic care. Bro is living on Walden pond and getting his laundry done by his mom. Proust Malone fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Jul 21, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 15:43
|
|
|
Hot drat, I saw the announcement that this was the book, and because of his recent death I had been coincidentally also been reading Suttree (about 40%) through. Dense prose is my favorite writing style so I love Cormac dearly, have been doing the audiobook and love hearing his sentences wash over me. Going into Suttree with 0 knowledge has been interesting, it has felt what I imagine a Bukowski novel to be like (have read none). The one thing that stands out to be is the juxtaposition of how eloquently Cormac writes, and how basic and base the dialogue is. The fact he can do both side by side without it bleeding together is fascinating to me.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2023 18:21
|
|
|
It’s like Bukowski if Bukowski knew how to write, and had a point
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2023 19:31
|
|
|
I hope everyone is enjoying this book as much as I am. I'm about half way through, and read the cold chapter most recently, which was beautifully done--really makes personal the impact of poverty IMO. We will continue to talk about this book as long as folks wish but I'm also mindful of the fact we are a week away from August (*breathes into a paper bag to calm down*), so we need some new suggestions for the next BotM! I'm thinking for the dog days we want some light fun summer reading (especially after the complexity and sometimes emotional wallop of the present novel). Suggest some beach books folks!
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2023 19:59
|
|
|
Gene…. Gene…
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2023 20:39
|
|
|
I’m not going to finish Suttree before the month is over, because as much as I love McCarthy, I can't read his books that fast. Sometimes I need a break to read something like Starlight Barking with telepathic hover-dogs. (Which would be a light summer suggestion, but the 372 Pages podcast is already reading it.) Suttree seems like a proto-Bobby Western from The Passenger, to the point where I could see an interpretation where they’re the same person. Suttree also apparently went to a university, but chooses to live deliberately aimless and destitute, and he has a similar circle of friends.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2023 20:44
|
|
|
The Passenger has some serious "Suttree-esque" moments, especially all the stuff with John Sheddan Attached, DFW's annotated Suttree
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2023 21:28
|
|
|
The bar fight  no not that one
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 04:45
|
|
|
I think a feller gets started with goats he just more or less sticks to goats.
Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Jul 26, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 02:38
|
|
|
Just keep Sutteee rolling through august. Nobody is gonna finish this book in a month and there’s at least another thirty good quotes to mine
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 03:16
|
|
|
Bilirubin posted:I think a feller gets started with goats he just more or less sticks to goats. What is that man doing to his bible
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 07:09
|
|
|
poisonpill posted:Just keep Sutteee rolling through august. Nobody is gonna finish this book in a month and there’s at least another thirty good quotes to mine vvv same, I read it in December and don't have the time to go all the way through it, as much as I'd like to. Enjoying the hell out of this thread though escape artist fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Jul 26, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 18:02
|
|
|
I'm not reading the book (read it last year), but I'm enjoying seeing everyone's reactions to it. Keep the quotes flowing!
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 18:08
|
|
|
given I am only approaching halfway done myself this is an appealing idea, for purely selfish reasons hey derp, post up your thoughts! I know you just finished it
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2023 15:18
|
|
|
I just reached this quote that I think sums up the novel pretty well: "But there are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse, only Suttree didnt say so." If I was a more literary reader I might be able to make something of the dualism I keep coming across. There's the "cat and countercat" already posted, then "His fetch come up from life's other side like an autoscopic hallucination, Suttree and Antisuttree, hand reaching to the hand," then the section with Vernon and Fernon.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2023 17:07
|
|
|
I think you captured it. There are these reverse, these kind of dark negatives is the world, that keep reminding the reader that the sort of placid middle class life is on tenuous ground. it can always get worse, you can always fall further and experience more pain.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2023 17:15
|
|
|
AngusPodgorny posted:I just reached this quote that I think sums up the novel pretty well: "But there are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse, only Suttree didnt say so." What gets me is how entirely self inflicted Suttree’s misery is. He’s alienated from what is implied is probably a upper middle class family. He deliberately withdraws from opportunity but for what? If it were more autobiographical there would be at least the suffering for his art, but here Suttree suffers for….complete self loathing? Is it that he cares for all these figures of the underworld? That he’d rather be a figure of respect in McAnally than a reprobate in the normie culture. Maybe he’s gay?
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2023 18:51
|
|
|
His dad is the train conductor living in the caboose right? Or am I way way off base? Also I don't think he's gay, since he gets down with the ladies on the reg in the latter half of the book Anyway, McCarthy has a unique knack for knowing just how much misery he can subject his characters (and readers) to before cutting us all some slack and relenting a bit. Suttree's windfall fancy dress party is a welcome relief after almost starving/freezing to death in the woods. McCarthy does this in his other books too and it's always a welcome respite from all the other terrible crap that's going on. Arson Daily fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Jul 28, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 00:30
|
|
|
Wait, how did I miss the book club was doing Suttree this month? gently caress! I need to reread this.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 00:49
|
|
|
Good news: we’re gonna keep it rolling another month (hopefully)
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 01:02
|
|
|
poisonpill posted:Good news: we’re gonna keep it rolling another month (hopefully) Yeah, given the number of folks who are saying they won't be done, and given the conversation for the book is so good, and notable lack of suggestions for new books, I'm making the executive decision to continue Suttree through August. Keep posting those quotes, this is just so good.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 01:21
|
|
|
Suttree has been really interesting, but I think I need to get further along with it to feel the message it is trying to convey. In some ways it feels very sympathetic to Suttree and the life he chose, even if it is deep in the mud. Like a much less rosey eyed On The Road. Gene as a character is really interesting. He often feels like the bright eyed youth that I think in another book would be a source of hope, but even early on Suttree notes that he is unlikable and will do terrible things. I imagine he will be similar to the Kid, in that we see his slide down into the dark. But right now he is just making a horrible boat and trying to kill bats so who knows.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 03:39
|
|
|
He represents the entrepreneurial spirit in us all. Also we’re all dumbasses.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 03:41
|
|
|
Proust Malone posted:He represents the entrepreneurial spirit in us all. I could see that, like an idiot degenerate Milo Minderbinder.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 03:46
|
|
|
Milo was the only sane person in that whole book
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 03:57
|
|
|
poisonpill posted:Milo was the only sane person in that whole book The war profiteer?!
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 04:00
|
|
|
Ah man this was gonna be the month I actually finished a book of the month on time! Oh well this'll give me time to go back and read Don Quixote
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 04:05
|
|
|
Arson Daily posted:Ah man this was gonna be the month I actually finished a book of the month on time! Oh well this'll give me time to go back and read Don Quixote don't' forget to  your thoughts about both!ShimmyGuy posted:Gene as a character is really interesting. He often feels like the bright eyed youth that I think in another book would be a source of hope, but even early on Suttree notes that he is unlikable and will do terrible things. I imagine he will be similar to the Kid, in that we see his slide down into the dark. But right now he is just making a horrible boat and trying to kill bats so who knows. I am also at this point. I can't wait to see how it all pans out for him (lol)
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 04:11
|
|
|
JUST got the book in the mail, so I am glad it continues in august! I've basically only gotten a little bit past cat and countercat, but there definitely seems to be much stuff about chirality, with him having his heart in the right place, etc. Guy's got a vocabulary too! It is really fun, though I have to accept rather than understand a couple of words almost on every page, me not being a native English speaker.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 07:47
|
|
|
McCarthy does that to native speakers like me too, his vocabulary is just that vast. He's like Gene Wolfe in that I'll think he must have made up some word, but I'm always proven wrong. Except for obvious compound words like "whoreclown" in "“in upper windowcorners a white hand might wipe the glass and glazed in the sash a painted face appear, some wizened whoreclown, will you come up, do you dare?" Unrelated, another duality reference I just came across: "In the act is wedded the interior man and the man as seen." This is a good book to pull quotes from because, not only does he say something quotable on every page, but it's structured in a way that I can drop quotes from the last quarter of the book and they spoil absolutely nothing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 18:51
|
|
|
When I was a kid, I loved Stephen King's stuff -- he was the first writer I ever read where people seemed real, full of self-doubts and bad, strange, self-destructive adult habits. His novels and short stories got me into reading. After i became an adult, McCarthy's books got me into the love and awe of the language more than any poet (or hell, even Shakespeare) ever did. I remember picking up Blood Meridian on a lark at a Barnes and Noble back in I guess 2008 or 2009, and I opened it up to a random page and was just utterly entranced by the prose. I bought it immediately and then read almost all of the rest of his work over the next ten or so years. Anyway, that isn't especially relevant to Suttree, other than the whole goddamn novel being a marvelous prose poem, but I'm sad the man's gone because of the influence he had in my life. I'll feel the same when King goes. Even though they're opposites in most ways (except for a keen eye toward human horror), for my money they're hands-down the two greatest writers of the late 20th and early 21st century.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 19:18
|
|
|
Corman McCarthy and Steven King Suttree and AntiSuttree life and death twinned
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 19:26
|
|
|
There is an ingrained, probably masculine, idea that you have to get dirty, raw, stripped away from all the comforts of a traditional life to understand reality. The idea of Suttree is to almost live a debased life of dirty, lonesome survival and to approach some kind of meridian where life and death touch; there is some theme permeating every aspect of the book about twins and duplicates; and the idea being that where they touch, or where the profane and the sublime meet, that's where you're going to find reality and truth.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 19:28
|
|
|
ShimmyGuy posted:Suttree has been really interesting, but I think I need to get further along with it to feel the message it is trying to convey. In some ways it feels very sympathetic to Suttree and the life he chose, even if it is deep in the mud. Like a much less rosey eyed On The Road. I'm not sure if you've reached the point where it talks about his family, but I think it's heavily implied that he committed some supposedly unpardonable sin that he's spending the rest of his wretched life atoning for, whether or not anyone is asking or needing him to at this point. McCarthy's father was a lawyer for the Tennessee Valley Authority, and though I don't know if McCarthy has ever commented on that work, his early books also seem like a way of atoning for the displacement that the TVA wrought on that region (likewise with Bobby Western being haunted by the work of his father).
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 19:43
|
|
|
On the topic of Cormac's deep vocabulary I honestly find books like this to be best in the form of audiobooks. Hearing the inflection of the sentences I think gives a lot of understanding to unfamiliar words. You retain less this way, but I do absolutely love the feeling of hearing his sentences. It reminds me of listening to Book of the New Sun.poisonpill posted:There is an ingrained, probably masculine, idea that you have to get dirty, raw, stripped away from all the comforts of a traditional life to understand reality. The idea of Suttree is to almost live a debased life of dirty, lonesome survival and to approach some kind of meridian where life and death touch; there is some theme permeating every aspect of the book about twins and duplicates; and the idea being that where they touch, or where the profane and the sublime meet, that's where you're going to find reality and truth. I am curious if this idea gets pushed as a thing that should be done, or that there is a need for it. There is understanding that comes from the life Suttree lives, and he is not exactly a cautionary tale but Cormac is not slow to show the awful results of his decisions.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 19:45
|
|
|
The prose is too dense for me to understand it when spoken aloud (I even listen to it at like 90% speed), but I do agree it’s very helpful to hear the rhythm at times. And you’re dead on with BoTNs.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 19:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 16:52 |
|
|
Jewmanji posted:The prose is too dense for me to understand it when spoken aloud (I even listen to it at like 90% speed), but I do agree it’s very helpful to hear the rhythm at times. And you’re dead on with BoTNs. There are definitely parts that require more than one listen. I relistened to the first chapter recently and got so much more out of it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 19:52
|
|