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Cormac McCarthy's personal library

smithsonianmag.com

21–30 of 149 posts

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#21
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just read it and you will find out. Is a really short book.

Oh I have read almost all of McCarthy’s novels including this one. That’s beside the point though, what’s wrong about something being overtly masculine?

[flagged]

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#22
This article makes me want to cry. I'm an unbelievably big Cormac McCarthy fan and the findings in his library shed so much light on many inscrutable and poetic passages from his books.

I think for example about the following quote from the judge, an insatiably curious (and evil) character from Blood Meridian:

> Whatever exists, he said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.

Cormac's personal library contained "upwards of 20,000 volumes." Turns out, that wasn't the judge speaking but McCarthy himself.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#23
post #5
post #3

The Road is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. I could not stop reading it, but at the same time I hated how it made me feel. I stoped reading novels for years after finishing it.

The Road is my favorite fathering book ever. I have recommended it to all my dad friends. Audiobook is excellent too.

I gifted it to a couple of new Dad friends. They never did get back to me about it. Fair.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#26

"McCarthy’s detractors, meanwhile, found his writing overly mannered, his characters overly masculine, and accused him of relishing the violence he wrote about so vividly." Yeah, maybe his detractors were on to something. I haven't even started "The Road" because of its reputation. I have only read "Child of God" and wondered why someone might write about the worst among us. But then I'm not a fan of Quentin Tarantin…

I hope, at least, you managed to watch the films before you had an opinion on them. Tarantino's, I mean. The Road is not a violent or pessimistic book, tho there is violence and pessimism in it. Don't confuse the set and the setting. Why write about, 'the worst among us'? Some art (and Cormac tottered over the line between wrought and overwrought plenty) is about finding meaning in the margins, in the edge cases. The…

I think it's a stretch to call The Road optimistic.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#29

This article makes me want to cry. I'm an unbelievably big Cormac McCarthy fan and the findings in his library shed so much light on many inscrutable and poetic passages from his books. I think for example about the following quote from the judge, an insatiably curious (and evil) character from Blood Meridian: > Whatever exists, he said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent. Corm…

I think that’s an allusion to the Gnostic demiurge.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#30
post #3

The Road is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. I could not stop reading it, but at the same time I hated how it made me feel. I stoped reading novels for years after finishing it.

It’s the only book I’ve read where I came upon a passage that literally caused my jaw to drop.
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