Category Archives: LITERATURE

For me, the story seems to end here: Neither spoke until they saw the dog and that was very near to the pike, on the last turn above the gate.  They had overtaken it and even in the few minutes … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’m not quite ready to write a finale on this novel.  Perhaps there is a touch of disappointment after having first read McCarthy’s finer pieces.  When finishing Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, I was struck by how cleverly … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In the mountains where Marion Sylder runs whiskey, John Wesley Rattners hunts and traps, Uncle Ather ceaselessly walks to oversee and keep track of changes, there is a painter cat who does what predators do; survives by stalking and killing … Continue reading → Continue reading →

It is obvious that McCarthy uses his extraordinary skill with language to paint the settings of his stories in rich and deeply intense detail that intimates a close love and knowledge of nature. Then he was straddle-legged with one foot … Continue reading → Continue reading →

You know what scares me?  I don’t see the darkness in McCarthy any more. It was warm in the room, he could feel the sweat in his armpits, but the man was swathed heavily in blankets.  Thickness of them under … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Glad I’m catching up on the old, since the new is coming at us fast and furiously.  Continue reading →

Just a thought this morning, and one that comes up in my mind quite a bit:  How much does the author know about what he presents in a story, what is planned, and what can still surprise him?  What is … Continue reading → Continue reading →

…that is, if we come to understand Benjy, of Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury, and the way stream of consciousness reveals the revealer, then we can come to understand the method enough to understand McCarthy’s characters, or anyone else’s.  … Continue reading → Continue reading →

One thing McCarthy does not do, is race the reader through his stories.  Nor does he tell us about his characters. We follow at a steady pace, and decide by what they do, who they are.  We’re following three different … Continue reading → Continue reading →

One of the elements of what Longinus (or whoever) claims makes up the sublime he calls "noble diction" — "which in turn comprises choice of words, and use of metaphors, and elaboration of language. Here is where Cormac McCarthy excels.  … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Whenever I read McCarthy I come across a few pages that beg to be read aloud.  Usually, a description of a place, and McCarthy colors it well: He went up the far side of the square under the shadow of … Continue reading → Continue reading →