Hi, I'm new but this discussion gives me the urge to pipe up because I think it's interesting you mention Faulkner when defending Cormac McCarthy. I think McCarthy's earlier work "Suttree" is a great novel, about a guy trying to figure himself in or out of Tennessee, not the southwest. Suttree has tremendously inventive language and imagery that has a strong feel of Faulkner, to me. But not a "hard boiled" type of novel. Closer to John Gardner's "Bear Mountain" as what pulls the dreamy drifter.
A literary critical academic type, I can't think of the name at all but maybe it will come to me or someone knows, once said that writers sometimes need to invent a new way of writing in order to convey what needs to be said. Great hard-boiled writers do that a lot too, in my opinion, though it's called authentic or street language sometimes.
annvon
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "jacquesdebierue" <jacquesdebierue@...> wrote:
>
> A criticism of McCarthy on _technical_ terms? To me, it's quite obvious that the guy is world-class in literary technique. But maybe we're talking about different things. What is your specific complaint about McCarthy's technique? And more importantly, how do you think he _should_ write?
>
> Many years ago, a clueless professor told me that "Faulkner didn't know how to write"... and I figured he didn't know anything. If the best writer doesn't know how to write, who does? Certainly not college professors...
>
> The cricicism of Ellison you mention is just as puzzling to me. What do such critics mean by "writing well"?
>
> Best,
>
> mrt
>
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