My fellow Clarion dude Trent writes:
...but I think it's only fair that your blog exists in order to answer my questions.
Sounds good to me. Let's do it!
The question, for those of you who do not read every comment on this blog, is about the writing of Cormac McCarthy. I'm certainly no authority, and I can only give my own brief reflections (plus one other guy's) on the three McCarthy works I've read. Here we go....
I first listened to No Country for Old Men on audio shortly after its release in 2006. I'd never read anything by McCarthy, but at that point had owned an unread copy of Blood Meridian for a few years, so I thought I'd start with something I could listen to while driving.
(You can read the plots of each of these books on Amazon, so I'm not going into them here. One is set in the current west, one in the Old West, and one in a post-apocalyptic locale.)
The first thing I noticed about the audio version of No Country was the absence of "he said"s and "she said"s, which I really didn't dwell upon until much later. There was (as I remember) a fair amount of poetic language scattered throughout the book, mainly reflections on and personifications of the landscape, the desert heat, violence, that sort of thing. The dialogue, however, was fairly simple and unadorned. I thought the book was effective, although maybe a bit emotionally manipulative and brutal. But as it was my first encounter with him, I thought I'd want to read McCarthy again. (Almost immediately after reading No Country, I read somewhere that the novel was considered by many to be McCarthy's most approachable work. Of the three I read, I would agree.)
Next I read Blood Meridian. If I thought No Country was brutal, I soon redefined (or rather McCarthy redefined) the word. I considered Blood Meridian a much more challenging, but more satisfying read overall than No Country. At times I thought McCarthy's poetic descriptions of the landscape and the brutality/depravity of man were a bit over the top, at least for me, but I kept at it and was glad I did. Blood Meridian is certainly not a feel-good read and I sometimes felt like I'd lose my lunch reading it, but I can't deny the power of the book.
Since I'd listened to No Country, I learned from reading Blood Meridian and The Road that McCarthy apparently has a deep-rooted hatred for quotation marks and often dialogue attributions too, which makes it sometimes difficult to know who is speaking. But for the most part, you get used to it.
By the time I'd finished the book, I understood that McCarthy's style, pacing, word choices and tone in Blood Meridian, sometimes referred to as "muscular prose" (more on that term in a minute) worked very, very well. I felt it was a book I would and should read again. Well, most of it. Some parts I didn't think I could stomach again.
I hadn't really intended to read The Road, my third meeting with McCarthy in twelve months, but I'd heard the novel was somewhat of a post-apocalyptic tale approaching genre dimensions, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm in the vast minority here, but I didn't think it was that great. McCarthy's "muscular prose" is in full use here as are his distaste for quotation marks and love of sparse dialogue. I can't really put my finger on why, but The Road just didn't do it for me. Maybe I should read it again to see if I missed something. But to me, it just seemed to be one of those novels that everyone says is great just because everyone says it's great. Again, I may be the only person on the globe reluctant to anoint McCarthy for The Road and if I indeed missed the boat, I feel I should give it another shot.
After reading all three of these McCarthy novels, I ran across a book by B.R. Myers called A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose. In the book, Myers takes a swing (with a pretty hefty bat) at several American writers including Cormac McCarthy. Myers refers to McCarthy's writing style as "muscular prose," which he only defines as "The masculine counterpart to the ladies' prose poetry." I'm not exactly sure what he means by that, but he goes on to accuse McCarthy of unrestrained "literary" complexity. For example, Myers cites in McCarthy's writing what he calls the andelope: "a breathless string of simple declarative statements linked by the conjunction and." Sentences like this:
He ate the last of the eggs and wiped the plate with the tortilla and ate the tortilla and drank the last of the coffee and wiped his mouth and looked up and thanked her. (from The Crossing [1994]).
Sure, McCarthy does a lot of andeloping, but I guess I just got used to it. What makes Myers even madder is McCarthy's lack of economy of words, instead using "barrages of hit-and-miss verbiage (rather) than...careful use of just the right words." He may have a point, but maybe McCarthy's not always interested in the economy of words. And maybe he enjoys andeloping.
But what really steams Myers is his belief that McCarthy just flat-out isn't a good storyteller. He attempts to make his point by quoting a section from a novel by one of the western genre's most-loved writers, Louis L'Amour and comparing (whether fairly or not) his style to McCarthy's:
Fortunately for millions of readers around the world, L'Amour was less interested in winning prizes than in telling a good story: "That's the way I'd like to be remembered," he told an interviewer, "as a storyteller." So of course the critics dismiss Hondo as pulp, just as many book-reviewers once regarded Treasure Island as fit only for children. The cultural establishment likes to reserve its accolades for those who take themselves most seriously. But how many critics will care to be reminded of Cormac McCarthy in twenty years? The smart money's on the storyteller.
Myers may have some valid points, but he also may have an axe to grind – I don't know. I do know that for me, McCarthy's style worked best in Blood Meridian. No Country for Old Men certainly seems to have fewer instances of the things Myers is griping about. The Road I just couldn't get that excited about. I don't think Myers and his views have really changed my mind about any of these three books, but he's entitled to his opinion.
So Trent, I don't know if that helps you at all, but there it is, bro. My suggestion: Definitely read Blood Meridian. If you like it, try No Country, or maybe The Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain), which many people seem to enjoy. Let me know how it turns out.
2 comments:
I find it weird anyone would place McCarthy in the patrimony of contemporary literary writers (at least from the one book I read). There is a huge difference between McCarthy and Annie Proulx's style, for example, the latter having much more commonalities with that pretensious New Yorker form of writing that I generally can't stand.
Now I know these aren't your accusations, Andy, but rather you're just reporting what someone else said, but when I think of modern literary style I always think of Oscar Wilde's descriptions of "Teapot Tragedies" --- a story where a family heirloom breaks and there is a minor crisis over it and reflection about it where nothing really happens.
With that in mind, there is definitely plot movement and an actual character arc in All the Pretty Horses. Everything you'd expect from a fully plotted story. So I really don't see the similarities between McCarthy and other contemporary literary writers that I've read who seem to love the plotless day-in-the-life teacup tragedy stories. I am curious what other contemporary authors did B.R. Myers comment on?
I would agree with you, Eric. There's definitely plot movement in the McCarthy books I've read, and they're also goal-oriented. But those aspects aren't what Myers is screaming about. He seems more interested in blasting McCarthy for pretentiousness and a lack of clear writing. (Remember the subtitle of his book.) Myers may be right about McCarthy's style, but I think his assertion that McCarthy is a lousy storyteller is unfounded.
Myers also slams Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, David Guterson and Annie Proulx with chapters devoted to each writer. The only other chapter I've read is the one on Proulx. After reading the many examples of her writing in that chapter, I'm pretty convinced I would not enjoy reading Proulx. The only other author I've read from that group is Guterson - Snow Falling on Cedars, which I didn't much care for.
Yeah, for me as a reader, something has to happen in the story, whether that something is happening in the past/present/future, in someone's mind, etc. As Nancy Kress said, something has to be at stake; stuff costs. I'm willing to be patient with an author, but eventually something has to happen. Things certainly happen in McCarthy.
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