Category Archives: LITERATURE

LITERATURE: The Orchard Keeper – Pacing

McCarthy is a master at keeping the reader on a level with his characters in time.  If someone’s trudging down a road, we know how he’s walking, how long it’ll take him to get into town.  And this, a fight … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: On the Sublime – Endurance and Agreement

YOU must know, my dear friend, that it is with the sublime as in the common life of man. In life nothing can be considered great which it is held great to despise. (Chapter 7, Part I) It would seem … Continue reading

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LITERATURE: On The Sublime – That Beyond Order

I would think that words, and I have found them as gems glittering amid the coal black text, can be as breathtaking as a sunset, or a painting, or a newborn child.  Here is what Longinus has to say about … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Orchard Keeper – Thinning the Flock

I suspect, after reading several of McCarthy’s books now, that his readers are weeded out or strengthened into firm believers by his opening chapters. In this novel, we follow one man walking towards a place he wants to be going.  … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: On The Sublime – Longinus

Trying to get back into the habit of reading for knowledge as well as literature, and have started Longinus’ On the Sublime online, only because if I order it from amazon.com, it’ll cost me a bundle because I’ll no doubt … Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Stories for Late at Night – Finale

Well, I’m glad I took this little side trip in reading these stories of both another genre and of another era.  It is rather surprising that language changes with the times, and reminds me of photographs of a certain time … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Some Um’s..?

Having my own work critiqued recently may have made me even more diligent in the reading of story, and there are a couple that I’ve found in this Hitchcock anthology: Finger!  Finger! by Margaret Ronan is about a young girl … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Stories for Late at Night – Hmmm….

Just finished two stories, George Langelaan’s The Fly, which was the basis for two movies, one in 1958 and the remake we all know, in 1986.  Langelaan was credited in each movie. The other is Our Feathered Friends by Philip … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: McCarthy, et al – Language

I can’t find it easily enough to excerpt here, but something I found in McCarthy’s Blood Meridian awed me when I first read it since it was the first time I’d come across it.  It was a repetition of words … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Orchard Keeper

For some time now the road had been deserted, white and scorching yet, though the sun was already reddening the western sky.  He walked along slowly in the dust, stopping from time to time and bobbling on one foot like … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Stories for Late at Night – M. R. James

Ah, leave it to Hitch to fulfill the gothic needs by including one of the stories of M.R. James, The Ash Tree. Witches, curses, horrible deaths over the generations, bedrooms haunted by an old ash tree that nearly touches a … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Next Up – McCarthy

Need a Cormac fix.  But since I’ve so many books in the pile, I’m pulling one out of there (have a total of five left in there!): The Orchard Keeper. Am still enjoying Stories for Late at Night, and will … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Brett Halliday – Pieces of Silver

Oh my, what a fool I am.  The story I was so taken with, Pieces of Silver, in the Stories for Late at Night anthology I’m reading is one by Brett Halliday–who I now find out after Googling the name … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Stories for Late at Night – Technique

The gringo Thurston?  Si, senor.  I remember him well.  I was one of those who went with him on his trip into the hill country exploring for oil.  (p. 141) So starts out Pieces of Silver, a short story by … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Next Up? McCarthy?

Have been hearing reviews of the newest Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and I’m sorely tempted to order it even though I have No Country and the Border Trilogy on the hearth (and maybe a couple more). Though my writing enthusiasm … Continue reading Continue reading

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