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Carly Gay Dead Son posted:Also, for what it’s worth, All The Pretty Horses did not amaze me either, but the Border Trilogy as a whole turned out one of the most deeply moving reading experiences of my life. As someone who has mostly loved all of Cormac's work -- that's good to hear. I was bored by All the Pretty Horses and haven't moved on with the Border Trilogy as a result, but maybe I should revisit it.
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Dec 28, 2022 13:29
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Oxxidation posted:The Crossing is one of the bleakest stories he’s written (also one of the best) Honestly I think The Crossing is my favorite of all his books.
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Dec 28, 2022 20:56
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James Franco's "rewrite" of Blood Meridian is abominable, it is laughably bad, and I didn't think I could despite that dude anymore. It starts off with: "Introduce the kid. He is lean and mean." Apparently he did a rewrite and directed some test footage of the scene with the Judge making gunpowder. If you have some time to waste and some hair to spare, you're gonna be pulling it out, then Google it
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Dec 29, 2022 04:28
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Blood Meridian in the right hands (Coen Bros.) would be the ultimate movie. They could just pack Hollywood in after that, it's what every movie that has ever been made has been building towards. They could write it like they wrote NCFOM, with one holding the book open for reference while the other types out the script. It's an extremely cinematic book as it is.
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Dec 29, 2022 05:03
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Just finished Stella Maris and really loved it, though still kinda boggling just what it all means in the end. But I understand fully why it's split into two books, rather than just making it a second part, it feels like an independent companion piece that answers few questions about The Passenger but thematically reinforces it. I don't understand the mathematics and physics enough to fully make sense of it though and would love to read a good review or analysis of it if anyone has a recommendation. One big thing that seems notable though. Like I mentioned earlier about how Bobby is a very passive figure, generally the one asking questions in conversations or simply absorbing long monologues and bits of philosophical intrigue from others -- here it's Alicia who provides everything and the psychiatrist as more of a device to ask leading questions.
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Dec 30, 2022 18:04
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AcidCat posted:Honestly I think The Crossing is my favorite of all his books. same. quotes from that book randomly pop into my head all the time the ending still wrecks me
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Dec 31, 2022 03:28
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clean ayers act posted:same. quotes from that book randomly pop into my head all the time Same here. The end of the first section broke my heart in all the best ways.
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Jan 3, 2023 21:03
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why is mccarthy the only vaguely literary author that a bunch of people on this forum will read. what's up with that. what's "the deal"
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Jan 4, 2023 12:51
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hes really good hth
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Jan 4, 2023 13:08
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Yeah I love The Crossing the most. Blood Meridian's a great book but it doesn't have Billy Pilgrim's heart. Gonna be honest, I could not finish The Passenger. The italicized sections felt like a lousy Ken Kesey imitation. More broadly I'd say the whole structure and style felt antiquated in an unfortunate way, which I suppose makes sense for a book written by an 89-year-old hermit.
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Jan 4, 2023 16:31
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Kull the Conqueror posted:Yeah I love The Crossing the most. Blood Meridian's a great book but it doesn't have Billy Pilgrim's heart. my understanding of mccarthy's life atm is that he hangs out at the santa fe institute all day and shoots the poo poo with scientists in between writing, so i dont know that hermit applies
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Jan 5, 2023 00:59
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Just finished The Passenger. Don't know what to think, still digesting it. I liked it, it's not my least favorite of his but nowhere near my favorite. My thoughts would be In the end it's a book full of red herrings, of threads that aren't pursued about paranoia and delusion and a protagonist who does a whole lot of things but isn't good at any of them, he's a deep sea diver who is afraid of the ocean. Eventually becomes unmoored from society and sort of just drifts away. I had no problems with the Kid, at the start I thought what the gently caress, but eventually I appreciated it, and the scene after The Shock treatment was funny, also Bobby getting visited by the Kid was good. A lot of the dialogue was very funny, I'm haunted by "Don't go back there, the sink is so full of dirty dishes you have to go outside to piss." Boco_T posted:I really loved Cormac spends 5 pages letting you know how convinced he is about a JFK assassination conspiracy. This ruled. edit: My main takeaway from this book is I need to finish Mason & Dixon. algebra testes fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Jan 5, 2023 |
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Jan 5, 2023 02:40
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clean ayers act posted:my understanding of mccarthy's life atm is that he hangs out at the santa fe institute all day and shoots the poo poo with scientists in between writing, so i dont know that hermit applies Lets say monastic then
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Jan 5, 2023 03:10
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I finished The Road and I hated it. The prose was nearly as desolate as the apocalyptic wasteland it depicted. After reading many tomes of post-apocalyptic fiction, as far as plot goes, I am jaded. Next will be The Crossing. Rankings 1 (tie). Blood Meridian 1 (tie). Suttree 3. All The Pretty Horses 4. The Road
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Jan 5, 2023 14:40
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escape artist posted:I finished The Road and I hated it. The prose was nearly as desolate as the apocalyptic wasteland it depicted. After reading many tomes of post-apocalyptic fiction, as far as plot goes, I am jaded. Next will be The Crossing. This take is so weird, but I love it. Since you seem to gravitate to McCarthy’s “high baroque” style I might suggest you move backwards through this oeuvre since his earlier books resemble BM/Suttree a bit more in their style. Give Outer Dark or Child of God a try. They are both extremely grim. If you didn’t care for ATPH I don’t think you’re going to find The Crossing that much different.
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Jan 5, 2023 14:49
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Couldn’t get into the Passenger until about halfway through. Reading Stella Maris now. Had some reservations about it being dialogue only but I’m fairly hooked. For some reason my brain has cast John Ritter as her psychiatrist
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Jan 6, 2023 16:18
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clean ayers act posted:same. quotes from that book randomly pop into my head all the time so someone on twitter pointed out that the end of the Crossing sees Billy witnessing the trinity explosion from a great distance while he looks for the old dog. I completely did not catch that but upon rereading that section I can see the interpretation.
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Jan 6, 2023 17:35
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I thought The Passenger was pretty indulgent. It seems McCarthy wanted to write about cars, science and...JFK conspiracy? Idk man, I can't begrudge him after all he's given us. In between the semi-random conversations between Western and his buddies, there are many beautiful philosophical passages about death and grief. McCarthy has a way of being a mystery man while also writing deeply personal works.
Fun Times! fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Jan 16, 2023 |
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Jan 16, 2023 12:15
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Fun Times! posted:I thought The Passenger was pretty indulgent. It seems McCarthy wanted to write about cars, science and...JFK conspiracy? Idk man, I can't begrudge him after all he's given us. In between the semi-random conversations between Western and his buddies, there are many beautiful philosophical passages about death and grief. McCarthy has a way of being a mystery man while also writing deeply personal works. The Passenger is probably one of the saddest and most direct portrayals of grief, loss, isolation, and the indifference of the universe/god that I've ever read. Being 89, at that point in your life, you have seen like 95% of the most important people to you in life live and die. The universe and life can probably seem like a pretty cold, indifferent place at that point. I think in many ways this what McCarthy is expressing in The Passenger, and I feel a little obligated to oblige the man some indulgence because of that. Personally, I think the JFK stuff and other derailments are fun. I guess overall I liked The Passenger significantly more than the thread on the whole. If this is C-tier McCarthy I am just so fuckin pumped to get into his S-tier stuff! Blood meridian has sky rocketed up the reading list
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Jan 17, 2023 18:32
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hobbez posted:The Passenger is probably one of the saddest and most direct portrayals of grief, loss, isolation, and the indifference of the universe/god that I've ever read. Being 89, at that point in your life, you have seen like 95% of the most important people to you in life live and die. The universe and life can probably seem like a pretty cold, indifferent place at that point. I think in many ways this what McCarthy is expressing in The Passenger, and I feel a little obligated to oblige the man some indulgence because of that. You read The Passenger first? poo poo well yeah you're in for a treat then.
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Jan 17, 2023 21:19
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Fun Times! posted:You read The Passenger first? poo poo well yeah you're in for a treat then. I read the road back in college but I can't say it left much of an impression on me.
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Jan 17, 2023 21:22
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hobbez posted:Personally, I think the JFK stuff and other derailments are fun. I guess overall I liked The Passenger significantly more than the thread on the whole. If this is C-tier McCarthy I am just so fuckin pumped to get into his S-tier stuff! Blood meridian has sky rocketed up the reading list I was really struck by the bartender in the final chapter talking about how his brother was lucky to have died in the Spanish Civil War believing in something. In comparison to that, the post-WW2 world the rest of the characters navigate is so cold and empty. Even the JFK stuff plays into that for how passionless and pathetic Klein's narration of the assassination is--the ringleader of the conspiracy is right there and no one cares, it doesn't matter at all. There's a nod to Libra with all DeLillo has to say about conspiracy and identity, but it's only to be dismissed--nope, the Kennedys just hosed around with the mob and found out. Has anyone worked out what the link is between McCarthy's interest in the unconscious and Alicia's horts/the Kid? Is that something that gets alluded to in Stella Maris? Haven't gotten to that one yet.
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Jan 17, 2023 22:03
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My pet theory is that McCarthy is making some causal link between Alicia’s genius and her schizophrenia. He states in one of the books, and in interviews and articles that he’s intensely fascinated with the subconscious’s ability to serve complex problems without the apparent use of language. It seems slightly trite but perhaps the idea is that Alicia’s genius derives from an overactive subconscious that also has unintended side effects (like the fallout from a bomb)
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Jan 17, 2023 22:52
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hobbez posted:I read the road back in college but I can't say it left much of an impression on me. Sheriff Bell Voice: he's read the same things I have and it sure left an impression on me.
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Jan 18, 2023 01:21
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I'm halfway through The Passenger. I've only read Blood Meridian and that was a decade ago. Dude hates punctuation
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Jan 18, 2023 14:31
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wait he's still alive?
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Jan 19, 2023 04:59
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i dont think i entirely get the passenger yet, but theres some good insights itt. also i just remembered "the passenger" from the counselor. going from place to place without intent or consent
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Jan 28, 2023 14:47
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I read Child of God in a sitting and loved it. Brilliant. I requested Outer Dark and The Passenger from the library.
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Feb 2, 2023 00:50
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escape artist posted:I read Child of God in a sitting and loved it. Brilliant. I requested Outer Dark and The Passenger from the library. Outer Dark and Child of God are very similar vibes. Probably the two books of his that are most alike. Enjoy.
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Feb 2, 2023 02:00
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I am now at the part in The Passenger where Thalidomide Kid is talking to Bobby. What a strange, ponderous book, so far. I am glad I read his others before I got into this one. I doubt I would've stuck around this long. Definitely feels Pychon-y at times. I love the Suttree-esque characters.
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Feb 14, 2023 21:38
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Alice's description of a drowning death hosed with me.
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Feb 21, 2023 11:35
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snoremac posted:Alice's description of a drowning death hosed with me. Absolutely same. The back half of Stella Maris was really great, and it improved my view of The Passenger as well, which I already quite enjoyed. It took my dense rear end until the extended discussion of the summer of dating Bobby at the end of SM for me to realize what The Kid is a manifestation/symbol of. drat! What a deeply tragic and pondersome pair of books.
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Mar 24, 2023 03:08
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Flutch posted:Absolutely same. So what do you think the kid is a symbol of?
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Mar 24, 2023 18:36
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snoremac posted:Alice's description of a drowning death hosed with me. same. having finished both as of yesterday, i am definitely going to have to go back and re read. its pretty clear to me though that this served as the finale to his career(which, obviously given his age). All the major themes from his prior work are there and synthesized. Before i read these i had happened to read When We Cease to Understand the World, which, besides being an interesting book on its own, really helped a layman like me understand some of the mathematical references
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Mar 27, 2023 01:15
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Proust Malone posted:So what do you think the kid is a symbol of? My read was that The Kid is both a manifestation of the child she wants with Bobby and of the incest taboo (bc of his deformity) that keeps her apart from him.
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Mar 28, 2023 01:17
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Courtesy of the PYF Tweets thread...
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Mar 28, 2023 21:15
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Who's second from the right? The others I recognize.
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Mar 30, 2023 06:09
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Gotta be Glanton, no?
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Mar 30, 2023 06:44
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Lol, you're right, I didn't zoom in. I thought the guy in the middle was Glanton (figuring Glanton and the Judge would be standing together), but he has the forehead tattoos. That's toadvine.
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Mar 30, 2023 13:26
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i think one of the only physical descriptors of Glanton is that he's tiny. they had to give Tobin a cross to make that explicit.
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Mar 30, 2023 17:31
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