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Cormac McCarthy's personal library

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#61

Post by noosphr »

currymj wrote: post #9

If you read his last two novels he was clearly well-informed about mathematics. However I have to assume that McCarthy didn't actually master all the material in the math books mentioned here, I think the reporter may be a little too credulous about that. I suspect he had the very common experience of buying a yellow book and being defeated in the first couple chapters.

> His books, many of which are annotated with margin comments,

I'm not saying that he did, but this along with being the right age to have read How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler strongly suggest that he used that book to grasp a lot more of his books than most people can.

That book gives you a very good strategy for reading books that are beyond you normally. In the three years since I've read it I've managed to finish books that I couldn't read even when I was doing my PhD and it was my full time job to understand them.

The funny thing is that I only ran into that book when I was trying to figure out how to build knowledge graphs for complex documents using LLMs. Using multiple readings to create a summary of each chunk, then a graph of the connections between the chunks, then a glossary of all the terms and finally a critique of each chunk gave better than sota results for the documents I was working on.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#62

Post by aloha2436 »

layman51 wrote: post #52
ChanningAllen wrote: post #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. Corm…

I hope that wasn't Cormac McCarthy's stand-in because the Judge character is like some type of supernatural violent being.

It doesn't have to be a direct stand-in. It's mentioned in the article that people suspect McCarthy of reveling in the violence in his novels. Whether he does or does not he would certainly have been aware of that perception. Judge Holden as a character embodies many distasteful qualities of mankind, it would make sense that the qualities he embodies the most distinctly are the ones McCarthy sees in himself.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#63

Post by internet_points »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #17
JKCalhoun wrote: post #4

"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've always gotten the sense from McCarthy that he was keenly aware that civilization is not just something to take for granted and that there is always something dangerous at the edges that needs to be carefully guarded against.

> He said that things would get better.

> The old man shook his head doubtfully, paying the band of his cap through his fingers. I'm satisfied they caint get no worse, he said.

> But there are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse, only Suttree didn't say so.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#66

Post by nylonstrung »

layman51 wrote: post #52
ChanningAllen wrote: post #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. Corm…

I hope that wasn't Cormac McCarthy's stand-in because the Judge character is like some type of supernatural violent being.

The only "self-insert" he's done is the main character of Suttree which is semi-autobiographical

The judge is an incarnation of evil and a pedophile so I don't think that's his Mary sue

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#67

Post by nylonstrung »

username223 wrote: post #36
JKCalhoun wrote: post #4

"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…

"Child of God?" You started at just about the darkest, least approachable place. Try "No Country for Old Men" or "All the Pretty Horses," both of which are far easier to read and contemplate.

All the Pretty Horses has much of the bleakness that characterizes his stories but also genuinely beauty and romanticism that he pulls off equally well

Love it

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#69

Post by nylonstrung »

komali2 wrote: post #60
dyauspitr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is overly masculine a bad thing? Makes me want to read it even more.

It could be clownish and a caricature. I enjoyed The Road but it makes me think of a critique of sci fi I read once, wherein masculine sci fi novels focus deeply on engineering problems and all but ignore human or environmental ones. Some books tackled this by demonstrating the presumptive and flawed approach sci fi writers take to biospheres / space stations / generation ships for example (Voyage from Yesteryear, A…

> masculine sci fi novels focus deeply on engineering problems and all but ignore human or environmental ones

I'd say the Road is a full inversion of this in that it doesn't bother explaining why the world collapsed and purely focuses on how people are left to cope with it

It's a world where femininity and fertility have been completely eradicated and turned into a living hell by said survivalist men who vie to dominate what little is remaining

The only "good" to be found in it is the memory of the Man's wife and the family the child meets at its conclusion

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#70

Post by nylonstrung »

mirabilis wrote: post #16
JKCalhoun wrote: post #4

"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…

Haven’t read “The Road” yet, but I was able to take the time to read “Blood Meridian” this year— I don’t think I would describe the violence depicted as “relished.” It came across as vivid in an arduous, can’t-look-away-from-the-wreckage-so-bear-witness way, and I was really intrigued by how the Kid’s POV dissolves during the worst of it. And about “why someone might write about the worst among us”—the glory-seeking…

Yeah it's hard to say he's "relishing" violence when he a very well-researched depiction of complete horrific and genocidal chapter of the Manifest Destiny period that was essentially forgotten.

I see the violence as a refutation of the idealized, sanitized version of the West popularized in mainstream Westerns. Where law and authority = good, even though the Glanton gang was funded and armed by US authorities

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