Category Archives: LITERATURE

LITERATURE & WRITING: Good Reading Intimidates

Ah, just when the muses had returned, poked me with their golden staffs and had me hopping, hoping; I read Faulkner: Pa stands over the bed, dangle-armed, humped, motionless.  He raises his hand to his head, scouring his hair, listening … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: As I Lay Dying – Character Empathy

Part of character development is to establish reader identification with the characters, especially the protagonist.  In Faulkner’s novels, with the multiple points of view, we’re never sure exactly who that is.  What’s more, we have to learn to separate good … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: As I Lay Dying – Character by Character

Faulkner’s novel is told by the characters, mainly the members of the Bundren family; a similar technique that he employed in The Sound and the Fury.  The immediate tension is the knowledge that Addie Bundren is lying very ill in … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Symposium

Finished Plato’s Symposium and will be moving on to Phaedrus, but I know that I would like to eventually get the book form (I’ve been reading it online) as it seems to be wanting of a more continual thinking on … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: As I Lay Dying

While it was my best intention to hold off on the reading except for Plato, Macromedia learning and catching up on the lit journals, I couldn’t help it.  Honest, I just walked near the lineup of books and Faulkner slid … Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Symposium – On Love and Hiccups

In the midst of a deep dinner discussion about the forms of love, I find this amusing bit: "Pausanias came to a pause-this is the balanced way in which I have been taught by the wise to speak; and Aristodemus … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Child of God – Finale

Just finished McCarthy’s Child of God and honestly don’t know what to say.  I truly wish some day to continue my formal study of literature so that I can offer a more insightful review than Whew!  I seem to base … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Child of God – Foreshadowing

Lester’s first murder of a woman is born of the egg of rejection with the sperm he’s left inside a woman he found dead in a car (boy, that’s a whole psychological story right there that I won’t go into … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Child of God More on Character

There is no doubt about it, Lester Ballard is one of the worst characters that McCarthy’s come up with so far in my readings.  Worst as far as evil, that is, and maybe, just maybe the Judge is more evil, … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Child of God – Character Empathy and Writing Technique

The storekeeper looked at Ballard.  Ballard, he said, how old are you? Twenty-seven, if it’s any of your business. Twenty-seven.  And in twenty-seven years you’ve managed to accumulate four dollars and nineteen cents?  (p. 126) This was a shocker.  In … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Learning of the Mind of Man

I have just gotten into Plato’s Symposium past sitting down to dinner, so the discussion of the topic of love is just about to begin and I’ll probably go through that today (McCarthy’s holding my reading interest right now!).  But … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Child of God -Evil

While McCarthy’s characters are a major force in the direction of his stories, reacting to a strongly built environment that produces more common but no less traumatic conflicts, they seem to me to be vague as individuals.  What I mean … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Child of God – Ahem, Character

Oh my.  McCarthy’s outdone himself.  Harrogate’s love of watermelons seems positively normal. Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Child of God – Mood

Lord, this is McCarthy: I remember back a number of years, talkin about fairs, they had a old boy come through would shoot live pigeons with ye.  Him with a rifle and you with a shotgun.  Or anything else.  He … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Child of God – Character

I’m well into Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God and learning by alternating first and third person narrator pov about the main character, Lester Ballard, who just lost his property to auction and has set up in a shack somewhere in … Continue reading Continue reading

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