Let me just get in line to be flamed alongside you, James. I agree with
your broader comments regarding McCarthy's style, and the pretentiousness of
his writing.
Brian
On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 8:33 AM, James Michael Rogers <jeddak5@cox.net>wrote:
>
>
> I was waiting for this to come up with some trepidation because I found
> McCarthy to be very poor stylist. I realize I am swimming upstream here, as
> the critics just love him. Makes one wonder how far Jim Thompson could have
> gone had he been writing in the right decade. It seems to me to be a mixture
> of bad Celine, bad Hemingway and bad Stephen King. In fact, thematically,
> Blood Meridian is quite comparable to King's The Dark Tower. That's not a
> compliment, except insofar as the King book is marginally less pretentious.
>
> There used to be a great article on the web called "This Is No Country For
> Old Copy Editors" that just annhilated McCarthy's style from the
> old-fashioned, technical standpoint as well as from the perspective of the
> sterility of his descriptive powers. The only other time I've seen anyone
> get treatment that harsh was when John Gardner trashed Harlan Ellison's
> writing. The article doesn't seem to be available on-line any longer but if
> anyone has a copy I would love to read it again.
>
> Further, I have become quite weary of the kind of self-conscious
> mythologizing of the west that is so fashionable these days. I couldn't
> stand it in Welcome to Hard Times, either, so I can't blame that just on
> McCarthy. But I think it's easier to do that sort of thing than it is to
> come up with credible dialogue and strong characters. I mean is the
> protagonist of Blood Meridian anything more than a cipher?
>
> I'm prepared to be more or less flamed for this opinion. As I no longer
> have a copy of Blood Meridian, I apologize in advance for not being able to
> currrently engage in the kind of close textual analysis that I am
> recommending. It's just my two cents anyway.
>
> James
>
>
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>
>
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