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Punctuation is our best defense against the peculiar ambiguities of the English language. Cormac McCarthy's abhorrence to using punctuation is the worst facet o
by driggs 5y ago
Punctuation is our best defense against the peculiar ambiguities of the English language. Cormac McCarthy's abhorrence to using punctuation is the worst facet of his writing, and made the dialog in `Blood Meridian` practically unfollowable.
I kindly urge writers to use his subjective opinion here as an argument FOR rather than against the precision application of punctuation!
- adolph 5y agoEats, Shoots & Leaves would be a great line in BM https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/06/28/bad-comma https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/06/28/bad-comma
- mellosouls 5y agoCormac McCarthy's abhorrence to using punctuation is the worst facet of his writing, and made the dialog in `Blood Meridian` practically unfollowable. No. His (lack of) use of punctuation in his work is mesmerising and beautiful, and part of what made Blood Meridian one of the greatest novels of the last century. Obviously that technique is less likely to be constructive in science writing.
- driggs 5y ago`Blood Meridian` is a great novel in spite of, not because of his lack of punctuation. Do you not see the irony in his own use of four commas and a colon while telling us to minimize our punctuation use in this article? > While you are writing, ask yourself: is it possible to preserve my original message without that punctuation mark, that word, that sentence, that paragraph or that section? Remove extra words or commas whenever you can. Perhaps he merely considered the "Oxford comma" unnecessary!
- sritchie 5y agoDon't you think he does too, and is winking at you with that sentence? Especially given the spare "Remove extra words or commas whenever you can."
- Wistar 5y ago"The following are more of McCarthy’s words of wisdom, as told by Savage and Yeh."
- driggs 5y agoMea culpa! I focused on reading "Cormac McCarthy's tips" and missed that they'd been regurgitated by others. Sort of diminishes the whole point of reading it! Thank you!
- _pqlp 5y agoSomeone made a plot of just the punctuations from Blood Meridian: https://medium.com/@neuroecology/punctuation-in-novels-8f316d542ec4#.cx4yrsrnv https://medium.com/@neuroecology/punctuation-in-novels-8f316...
- gilleain 5y agoNice. Reminds me of 'Code Signatures': http://c2.com/doc/SignatureSurvey/ http://c2.com/doc/SignatureSurvey/
- jschrf 5y agoAgree. The lack of punctuation in Blood Meridian is an artistic decision and aids the flowing, biblical narration and the terrifying yet beautiful aesthetic of the novel. It's intended to be trance-like, feverish and flowing, and I think the lack of punctuation aids in this. Blood Meridian reads like a terrifying, beautiful nightmare, rooted in fact and history, and the writing style is perfect IMO. The description of the Commanche attack near the beginning of the novel, where they suddenly appear out of nowhere and attack the soldiers has an amazing run-on sentence: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328033-a-legion-of-horribles-hundreds-in-number-half-naked-or https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328033-a-legion-of-horrible...
- scop 5y agoI likewise agree. When I read both Melville and McCarthy, I'll often find myself mid-run-on-sentence and think to myself, "welp, he's gone too far this time" only to find, by golly, they pull it off in the end. What would otherwise be complete pretension and chaos is, when wrought by true literature artists, simply breathtaking. There are times when I'm reading McCarthy and I literally, out loud, utter "Lord have mercy" for the beauty/fullness/meaning that man can lay upon us.
- tmountain 5y agoHe’s probably my favorite author. Full tangent, but anyone who likes western novels should also check out Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry) and Paradise Sky (Joe Lansdale). Both are extremely moving and beautiful stories about the Wild West.
- scop 5y agoThis quote from Blood Meridian is one of my favorite in all of literature and I think capture McCarthy's magic. He has such great talent to describe simultaneously with vivid details yet inexact clarity/meaning. > It was the judge and the imbecile. They were both of them naked and they neared through the desert dawn like beings of a mode little more than tangential to the world at large, their figures now quick with clarity and now fugitive in the strangeness of that same light. Like things so charged with meaning that their forms are dimmed.
- lazyjeff 5y agoTechnical writing has swayed too much in the direction of over relying on punctuation, rather than writing good simple sentences. Trying to read a scientific paper is now a chore because of all the footnotes, parentheses, definitions and abbreviations, dashes and subclauses. They read more like legal documents than something you can actually read from start to end to understand a point.
- rspeele 5y agoWhen I read The Road I found the lack of punctuation distracting rather than mesmerizing. I was using an e-reader and my initial thought was, "Is this right? Maybe they OCRed this and only glanced at the output." I had heard that the book was good from a few different sources, but none mentioned the unusual style. I Googled it to find out that this was, in fact, how it was supposed to be, and continued. I am used to reading text with punctuation marks. When I enjoy a book, I forget that I am reading words on a page, and it feels like I'm seeing the story play out in my mind. The syntax of The Road constantly took me out of that feeling. It served only to remind me that I was reading a book by a dude who thinks adhering to the conventions of written English is beneath him. The book was fine. I would have liked it a little more if it was punctuated normally, but of course, different strokes for different folks. I would compare it to adjective order. You might say that the Goodyear Blimp is a big old blue polyester balloon. Never that it's a polyester old blue big balloon. It sounds wrong the second way. If I were a novelist searching for a gimmick, I could intentionally disregard standard adjective order and arrange the adjectives in another order every time I described something. It would give my writing a unique flavor. But it wouldn't make me any more descriptive, just annoying to read, because every time you hit a description your brain would throw an exception and then catch it going "oh, he's doing this again..."
- Adraghast 5y agoLikewise, I would urge anyone reading this comment to view it as a prime example of why HN posters’ opinions on fiction (or any art) should be taken with a grain of salt.
- bmitc 5y agoWhere does he advocate his novel writing style for science writing? His use, or rather lack thereof, of punctuation in his fiction writing is an artistic choice. As far as I know, Cormac McCarthy is the only writer who is a member of the Santa Fe Institute, so apparently the scientists there appreciate his perspectives.
- newsclues 5y agoI would have echoed your criticism after the first read but I was able to try again and really get into the flow and it’s a great work in part because of the lack of punctuation
- WhompingWindows 5y agoI think your odd use of the exclamation mark is a great counter-example to your comment! After a long sentence with zero commas, here we have a punctuation mark! It doesn't exclaim, as in "Watch Out!" or "This is amazing!"! It's a questionable choice, it makes the reader think: why is this here? Is this writer casually throwing out punctuation that isn't needed? That cognitive interruption, which I've kindly added multiple times to my first paragraph, is precisely what McCarthy says not to do in the very first bullet point of the article: "Use minimalism to achieve clarity. While you are writing, ask yourself: is it possible to preserve my original message without that punctuation mark, that word, that sentence, that paragraph or that section? Remove extra words or commas whenever you can."
- anonymousDan 5y agoI don't know, I think the exclamation mark above changes the tone of the paragraph from being a snarky comment to something less aggressive...
- driggs 5y agoIs English your first language? Have you read Cormac McCarthy? Neither McCarthy nor anyone else in this conversation is referring to the punctuation at the end of a sentence. And, for the record, I was exclaiming that the takeaway is exactly the opposite of what the author suggests. That is, in fact, the precise meaning of an exclamation point. I've kindly included some actual cognitive interruptions for you, to aid in your understanding of this discussion.
- brudgers 5y agoNow I am wondering is italics a substitute for ‘“…”’?
- brudgers 5y agoThe first time I read Blood Meridian, I didn’t notice the absence of quotation punctuation for some pages. And then my thought was “that’s kinda interesting” and completely forgot about it. Until, after giving my copy to my brother, he had the same response as you. At the time, twenty five years ago, I was surprised but now I accept everything isn’t for everyone and hence all books are not for all readers. My brother and I had different reading experiences and developed different tastes. I couldn’t get through the Carl Hiassen paperback I got in exchange. There wasn’t anything I cared about there. “Properly punctuated” is not a blurb to captivate my attention. YMMV.
- jcranberry 5y agoI don't really remember him abhorring punctuation. In fact I remember most of the novel being short sentences something like 3-10 words long. I found it very easy to follow.