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Cormac McCarthy's personal library

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#81

Post by random_moonwalk »

lourendotco wrote: post #72
random_moonwalk wrote: post #68

Are there any collections of annotated pages from books belonging to well-known authors that have been made available online? I'd be interested to get some impression of how they engaged with the material, whatever it is.

you could start here https://archive.ph/M2H3s here you can find an archive of hannah arendt's marginalia and annotations https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/hapl_marginalia_all/

Thanks, these are great! A link to some scans of David Foster Wallace’s annotations in the New Yorker piece too. For the curious: https://archive.ph/o/M2H3s/www.hrc.utexas.edu/press/releases...

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#82

Post by reedlaw »

metadat wrote: post #33
aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For the uninitiated (like me!): TL;DR: An old testament reference to the "malevolent god". E.g. "god in the old testament wasn't so nice or forgiving.." > In Gnosticism, the Demiurge is the lesser creator god who fashioned the material world and is often seen as the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh. Unlike the supreme, unknowable God, the Demiurge is ignorant, imperfect, and sometimes malevolent, responsible for the…

Not an Old Testament reference, but a Gnostic belief. 1 John addresses Gnosticism by refuting some of its claims such as Jesus only appearing to be human. While John doesn't reference the Demiurge, the concept goes hand in hand with this Gnostic teaching that Jesus was a pure spiritual being. Gnostics considered material things evil, so Jesus coming in the flesh and a benevolent creator God did not fit their worldview.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#83

Post by justupvoting »

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote: post #31
BrenBarn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It’s quite a stretch.

I don't think so; preserving goodness and decency comes at little personal cost to most of us, but McCarthy's effort in the book is at its core a depiction of these things surviving even the apocalypse, and at an incredible cost.

That fire they carry is not extinguished even in a world where all systems and pretenses at civilization have been ruined. It finds the wider flame, and decent folks to tend it.

It is one of the more optimistic works he's done, not despite the setting, but because.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#84

Post by philipallstar »

lunatuna wrote: post #15
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 only read The Road and found it extremely difficult because of the nihilism. I put it down in the middle of it and stewed for 6 months before I picked it up again. I am so glad I did. I think his detractors are right, it is violent, nihilistic, masculine and whatever else. Through that the other side of the contrast becomes so vivid. Maybe there are better ways to get there. For me it hit. My daughter and I talk…

> I think his detractors are right, it is violent, nihilistic, masculine and whatever else.

Thinking masculine is a criticism is quite a tell.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#85

Post by Cruncharoo »

octygen wrote: post #5
lomase wrote: 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'd also suggest Siddhartha for this. Having read it at different points of my life makes it uniquely special.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#86

Post by ryanar »

Fascinating article. As I was reading it, particularly the part about his son John saying his father was very loving and was there for him, but also saying he did not like to be interrupted during his work or reading, and would say "Go away! I am reading!" immediately made me think he was quite narcissistic. His work was more important than even his own son. Later on his brother Dennis confirmed my suspicions that McCarthy was a narcissist. I have an insatiable curiosity as well and truly love learning, but in being a christian I have actively worked against my tendency to narcissism. A life like McCarthys sounds romantically fabulous, but when you think about the end of it, four people around your bed, it sounds tragic. There is something profound in sacrificially loving others and it doesn’t seem like Cormac experienced that. Though I am sure his wives, brother Dennis, and son John, did.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#88

Post by pwillia7 »

> “I had two dreams about him after he died. I dont remember the first one all that well but it was about meetin him in town somewheres and he give me some money and I think I lost it. But the second one it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin through the mountains of a night. Goin through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin. Never said nothin. He just rode on past and he had this blanket wrapped around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.”

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#89

Post by lanfeust6 »

dyauspitr wrote: post #11
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…

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

No kidding. Try to find an "overly masculine" book among Pulizer or Hugo nominees today. And people feign to wonder where the male readers have gone.
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