this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
35 points (100.0% liked)

Literature

5393 readers
1 users here now

Pretty straightforward: books and literature of all stripes can be discussed here.

If you're interested in posting your own writing, formal or informal, check out the Writing community!

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
alyaza@beehaw.org
Kamirose@beehaw.org
remington@beehaw.org
35
A Guide to Cormac McCarthy’s Books (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 1 year ago by SemioticStandard@beehaw.org to c/literature@beehaw.org
20 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

If you haven't read Cormac McCarthy, that needs to change. His prose simply has no equal. The man was an actual, honest-to-god, national treasure. He was so formative for me as an author, and I'm just gutted by his death.

Be warned: if you're going to attempt to read one of his books, you need to make sure that you have the time and space to give it proper attention. His work is heavy, like a slab of lead, and you need to be sure to give yourself extra time to digest things. But it's so, so rewarding.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Violet@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I read The Road and it just didn't click with me, I finished it feeling like it was just "ok." I think part of the problem was how much it had been hyped up by other readers and how famous it was and I went into it expecting to be changed when I came out, though I wasn't. I'll give McCarthy another try though, I have both No County for Old Men and Blood Meridian sitting on my bookshelf and I'll get to them eventually.

[–] LilBiFurious@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Road was definitely an outlier of his, but one that I still think is a good book. You're right though, I feel like it got overhyped a bit, but I hope that doesn't shadow his other work for you. No Country and Blood Meridian are both juggernauts and incredible pieces of fiction. If you haven't seen the movie adaptation of No Country either I highly recommend it.

[–] Violet@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah I haven't seen the movie, so I'm looking forward to experiencing the story as brand new.