Cormac McCarthy's personal library • Hacker News Board

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#141

Post by ctrlp » Fri, Oct 03, 2025, 5:57 PM UTC

anl00000007 wrote: post #134

ctrlp wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to piss on the fire but that's almost exactly the kind of thing I'm unable to enjoy. I guess I wonder "Who speaks like that?" It's wooden and affected to my ear. It comes across as needlessly obtuse. I'm not saying it's exceptional for that style, but to me it reads like so many YA fantasy novels from my youth, or maybe a /r/ for aspiring writers. If I'm being asked to work so hard to elucidate the symboli…

I don't think you've anything to apologize for. I really liked the long run on sentence about the horses you pasted in. It's lyrical and preachy, maybe a little breathless. It drones and twirls like dervish I found it broke down In my head Into verses Alternating Between a few And several syllables each And lo! I heard it sung By Bono By Jim Morrison By Johnny Cash and David Byrne Each having His own band Accompanime…

Appreciate your sharing your experience. I can hear Jim Morrison's incantatory rhythms as you point out..."Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding. Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind."

But as you point out, you're bringing a lot to the equation. If all we had were Jim Morrison's lyrics they wouldn't be that interesting. He just wasn't that great of a poet compared to what's available in English poetry. Without the music it doesn't have much magic.

A more irrecoverable criticism is if something lends itself to parody. My sense is McCarthy's prose style is extremely parodyable. How could one distinguish between it and something an LLM generates? Not in the fragmentary incantatory cadence or questionable semantics. Not in the meaning, or the symbolic and metaphoric content? So where then?

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#142

Post by ctrlp » Fri, Oct 03, 2025, 6:02 PM UTC

cxr wrote: post #135

ctrlp wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to piss on the fire but that's almost exactly the kind of thing I'm unable to enjoy. I guess I wonder "Who speaks like that?" It's wooden and affected to my ear. It comes across as needlessly obtuse. I'm not saying it's exceptional for that style, but to me it reads like so many YA fantasy novels from my youth, or maybe a /r/ for aspiring writers. If I'm being asked to work so hard to elucidate the symboli…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Reader%27s_Manifesto >

Ah, yeah... It makes sense for why the publications push certain writers, but then where is the reader? Are we to assume the public fans are just hypnotized by critics? I wonder how many people take their cues (and taste) from book reviews in the New Yorker et al. More than I'd hope probably. Depressing. This was funny and useful though:

"This is a good example of what I call the andelope: a breathless string of simple declarative statements linked by the conjunction 'and'. Like the 'evocative' slide-show and the Consumerland shopping-list, the andelope encourages skim-reading while keeping up the appearance of 'literary' length and complexity. But like the slide-show (and unlike the shopping-list), the andelope often clashes with the subject matter, and the unpunctuated flow of words bears no relation to the methodical meal that is being described."

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#143

Post by cal_dent » Fri, Oct 03, 2025, 7:16 PM UTC

ctrlp wrote: post #129

ojosilva wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Do you think we’re going to die?” “No.” “We’re not?” “No.” “Why not?” “Because we’re carrying the fire.” “What fire?” “The fire inside. Goodness. That’s what we’re carrying.”

Not trying to piss on the fire but that's almost exactly the kind of thing I'm unable to enjoy. I guess I wonder "Who speaks like that?" It's wooden and affected to my ear. It comes across as needlessly obtuse. I'm not saying it's exceptional for that style, but to me it reads like so many YA fantasy novels from my youth, or maybe a /r/ for aspiring writers. If I'm being asked to work so hard to elucidate the symboli…

No one is obligated to like anything because someone else likes it. It doesn't work for you, it's a big whole world out there and this is just one of may subjective representations of it.

On the point about punctuation, you just infer where they should be. It takes some getting used to but once you're in the rhythm and cadence of the style (& era Cormac writes about) you kinda don't notice it and pause at the natural places.

Anyway I like his stuff. Not all of it but plenty of it. One of my more favourable lines from him (Blood Meridian I think): "All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage"

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#144

Post by da-bacon » Fri, Oct 03, 2025, 11:40 PM UTC

currymj wrote: post #139

voidhorse wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However I have to assume that McCarthy didn't actually master all the material in the math books mentioned here Why? And what exactly would mastery look like? Regardless, McCarthy didn't make his mark as a mathematician so his private ability to understand doesn't matter. Why take the opportunity to make a negative assumption and diminish the possibility that he had mastered an understanding in his private life? Wh…

I don't think it diminishes him. "Stella Maris" is a great novel that could only be written by someone who was very knowledgeable about math. As far as art that engages deeply with math and science, I don't know of anything comparable. Most artists would focus only on the human drama of discovery, without being able to engage with the subject matter. However, I would consider "mastery" of a math textbook to be you ha…

Agree that “Stella Maris” is amazing for this deep engagement with art. Perhaps in a similar vein I do think there are a couple of other books that do this . One is Anathem by Neal Stephenson, which is similar in that foundations of math makes an appearance. The other is “The Weyl Conjectures” by Karen Olson, which captures what it’s like to really do mathematics. Highly recommend both.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#145

Post by ctrlp » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 2:27 PM UTC

cal_dent wrote: post #143

ctrlp wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to piss on the fire but that's almost exactly the kind of thing I'm unable to enjoy. I guess I wonder "Who speaks like that?" It's wooden and affected to my ear. It comes across as needlessly obtuse. I'm not saying it's exceptional for that style, but to me it reads like so many YA fantasy novels from my youth, or maybe a /r/ for aspiring writers. If I'm being asked to work so hard to elucidate the symboli…

No one is obligated to like anything because someone else likes it. It doesn't work for you, it's a big whole world out there and this is just one of may subjective representations of it. On the point about punctuation, you just infer where they should be. It takes some getting used to but once you're in the rhythm and cadence of the style (& era Cormac writes about) you kinda don't notice it and pause at the natural…

Honestly, it's less about the lack of punctuation and more about the apparent lack of cohesion or even relation among the list elements. It sounds like these are just what items occurred to the writer's mind in a sort of ecstatic frenzy (that register he favors). What I'm hoping is that I'm just blind to the intricate relatedness of the images, symbols, word choices, etc... They read like just whatever he thought of at that moment of his febrile brain running along and not to have more intentionality than that. If the listicles were in a poem (even a lengthy one, like Whitman) I might be inclined to do the work of teasing out the relationships. But the enumerations are frequent and endless. That's a lot to ask if there aren't visible markers of genius. Surely there a hermeneuticists among the fandom that can shine a light on the necessity of this prose style as structural supports for the work overall. Otherwise it's just pulp and doesn't mean anything except a vibe. Which, ok, whatever, but that's not much of a selling point. Are we to say that Bach and Taylor Swift are equally artistic just because they can both appeal to different tastes? That sounds like the argument here.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#146

Post by philipkglass » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 2:45 PM UTC

ctrlp wrote: post #145

cal_dent wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is obligated to like anything because someone else likes it. It doesn't work for you, it's a big whole world out there and this is just one of may subjective representations of it. On the point about punctuation, you just infer where they should be. It takes some getting used to but once you're in the rhythm and cadence of the style (& era Cormac writes about) you kinda don't notice it and pause at the natural…

Honestly, it's less about the lack of punctuation and more about the apparent lack of cohesion or even relation among the list elements. It sounds like these are just what items occurred to the writer's mind in a sort of ecstatic frenzy (that register he favors). What I'm hoping is that I'm just blind to the intricate relatedness of the images, symbols, word choices, etc... They read like just whatever he thought of…

Are we to say that Bach and Taylor Swift are equally artistic just because they can both appeal to different tastes? That sounds like the argument here.

McCarthy has his champions among ordinary readers but he also won many "serious" awards. Which authority could satisfactorily bless his work if not the reading public and not professional critics/professors/writers?

I like McCarthy, but I also understand not liking authors that other readers love. Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall garnered widespread acclaim, and I generally like historical fiction, but I had to give up on it after a few chapters. Sometimes an author doesn't fit with one's tastes. Trying to persuade a reader to feel differently is like trying to persuade someone who loves/hates fish how they should feel about grilled salmon.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#147

Post by justupvoting » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

Slow_Hand wrote: post #122

justupvoting wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think McCarthy is one of the greatest American writers, but I will say my two main gripes with him are his tendency to drift over the line into overwrought (sometimes the biblical language is incredibly powerful, sometimes not), and his utter inability to write women. He did ok with Alicia in his last couple books, but even there he flounders some. "If I had a baby I wouldn't care about reality"? Hmm, ok? "His face…

Watched a video essay yesterday by a female reader who found the Aunt’s four page monologue in ‘All the Pretty Horses’ one of the most insightful and moving explanations of women she’d ever read. She was particularly surprised to find such a passage in a book by McCarthy who she expected to be some gruff man’s man. I haven’t read that passage myself, but seemingly Cormac was capable of writing women when he chose to.…

It's funny you mention it; I have a friend who writes books who had trouble with McCarthy and I recently mentioned this same criticism. I suggested ATPH to her and this same character came to mind as a decent piece of work on that subject.

I will say this about the passage tho: McCarthy writes a small narrative which does seem to explain her choices and character as it affects John Grady. It's convincing, and she's a good character, but even there she's something of a set piece.

Still, glad you mentioned this. Thanks.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#148

Post by justupvoting » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 4:45 PM UTC

BrenBarn wrote: post #133

justupvoting wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that everyone is doomed (even if you imagine we can survive the civilization-murdering tools we've cobbled up, we can't outrun physics), but that even at our most vulnerable , since the book occurs during a period directly after Armageddon, it is possible for some goodness in us to persist. I don't want to spoil, but the optimism isn't for the characters, it's for we the reader, and the species. The thim…

Yes, but I wouldn't call that optimistic. It's just an epsilon away from 100% pessimism.

If you say so. I think we could agree that when it comes to McCarthy, one has to grade on a curve.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's personal library

#149

Post by crabkin » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 9:19 AM UTC

phendrenad2 wrote: post #39

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 have a theory that everyone has a different level of detachment vs self-insertion when consuming a fictional narrative. Those more self-insertive probably shouldn't read his books.

Don't really think so. I love Pynchon and there's not really a character I'm latching onto when I read that. McCarthy and Pynchon both fetishize a sort of violence. I find McCarthy's writing going there many times for shock value or aesthetic reasons and it makes me take him less seriously. Other people have mentioned Tarantino and I think that is apt.