6 ms·

Unrelated to his typewriter, I'm currently reading Cormac McCarthy's Suttree, and I'm really enjoying it. I had previously only associated McCarthy with The Ro

Unrelated to his typewriter, I'm currently reading Cormac McCarthy's Suttree, and I'm really enjoying it. I had previously only associated McCarthy with The Road and Blood Meridian, but I'm glad I gave some of his other work a shot.

Baeocystin 4y ago
Cormac McCarthy has the dubious distinction in my library of producing the most beautiful English I've ever read in service of such unrelentingly dismal stories that I don't feel that I have the stomach to read them again. I admit this is a me problem, but still. I've only read The Road and Blood Meridian, though. Does Suttree follow the same pattern? [edit] Thank you for the answers!
- ycombinete 4y ago
  All the Pretty Horses isn’t all that bleak. More of a western Bildungsroman.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
  Not really. Suttree is not exactly a happy story, but it has beautiful prose descriptions of filth and the Tennessee river, great rendering of vernacular language and culture, and some hilarious laugh out loud segments (the watermelon incident, for instance). It's probably the least dismal of his books, tone-wise.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  They're all sort of heavy and with grim parts but I think the two you already read are the most disturbing by far. There are some parts of his other books as intense as those two but they aren't pervasive.
- brudgers 4y ago
  Suttree is semi-autobiographical. There is less violence and more drinking than his other novels. It doesn’t really investigate morality in the ways most of his novels do. It is the last of his early novels set in Appalachia.
themisto 4y ago
When Suttree found me it was exactly the right time and it left me forever changed. Not a month goes by I don't think of it nearly a decade later. Definitely my personal favorite of his. Wish I was reading it again for the first time :)
marttt 4y ago
I remember a Cormac scholar suggesting "Outer Dark" as a good starting point to his works. Haven't read it myself, though. I finished "Child of God" last year -- definitely worth a read, especially if you're interested in the roots of loneliness. McCarthy's empathy towards complete retards is always compelling to me. Sexual intercourses with dead bodies were nonetheless not that easy to digest, though. McCarthy's sense for capturing dialects is fascinatingly good, really. I remember somebody saying that to a significant part, the phenomenon of Quentin Tarantino's movies lays in his ability to very deeply understand how people actually speak. I'm not from the US, but I would like to say the same about Cormac McCarthy.
- bradknowles 4y ago
  As a person who was held back in math class due to poor performance [0], I would prefer that you not use the word "retard". [0] Which was later demonstrated to be due to a lack of inspiration from my math teachers, a fact that Mrs. King taught me so well in her pre-algebra class in 9th grade. From then on, I got straight As in math. To this day, nearly forty years later, I still credit Mrs. King for helping me get down the path to whatever success I have had in life.
  - marttt 4y ago
    Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately I cannot edit the reply, but I sincerely apologize for my choice of words. I am not a native English speaker, so I was actually using it as a more rough expression for "outcast". People lost or trapped in themselves, possibly due to unlucky past; because of this, they've become antisocial (thinking of Lester Ballard from McCarthy's "Child of God"). Nothing to do with mental performance. A really embarrassing error, entirely due to poor command of English language. Once again, I apologize. I wish you all the best, mate.
    - bradknowles 4y ago
      Understood. I thank you for your response! I confess that when I was much younger, I used that same word in the same way. It was only after my coming to understand how my usage of that word had hurt other people that I came to where I am today. So, yours is a pain that I know well, and I trust that we are both better for this exchange. Thanks!
horns4lyfe 4y ago
I’d recommend reading his Plains trilogy, it starts with all the pretty horses. Fantastic books all the way through.

Baeocystin 4y ago

Cormac McCarthy has the dubious distinction in my library of producing the most beautiful English I've ever read in service of such unrelentingly dismal stories that I don't feel that I have the stomach to read them again. I admit this is a me problem, but still. I've only read The Road and Blood Meridian, though. Does Suttree follow the same pattern? [edit] Thank you for the answers!

ycombinete 4y ago
All the Pretty Horses isn’t all that bleak. More of a western Bildungsroman.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
Not really. Suttree is not exactly a happy story, but it has beautiful prose descriptions of filth and the Tennessee river, great rendering of vernacular language and culture, and some hilarious laugh out loud segments (the watermelon incident, for instance). It's probably the least dismal of his books, tone-wise.
giraffe_lady 4y ago
They're all sort of heavy and with grim parts but I think the two you already read are the most disturbing by far. There are some parts of his other books as intense as those two but they aren't pervasive.
brudgers 4y ago
Suttree is semi-autobiographical. There is less violence and more drinking than his other novels. It doesn’t really investigate morality in the ways most of his novels do. It is the last of his early novels set in Appalachia.

themisto 4y ago

When Suttree found me it was exactly the right time and it left me forever changed. Not a month goes by I don't think of it nearly a decade later. Definitely my personal favorite of his. Wish I was reading it again for the first time :)

marttt 4y ago

I remember a Cormac scholar suggesting "Outer Dark" as a good starting point to his works. Haven't read it myself, though. I finished "Child of God" last year -- definitely worth a read, especially if you're interested in the roots of loneliness. McCarthy's empathy towards complete retards is always compelling to me. Sexual intercourses with dead bodies were nonetheless not that easy to digest, though. McCarthy's sense for capturing dialects is fascinatingly good, really. I remember somebody saying that to a significant part, the phenomenon of Quentin Tarantino's movies lays in his ability to very deeply understand how people actually speak. I'm not from the US, but I would like to say the same about Cormac McCarthy.

bradknowles 4y ago
As a person who was held back in math class due to poor performance [0], I would prefer that you not use the word "retard". [0] Which was later demonstrated to be due to a lack of inspiration from my math teachers, a fact that Mrs. King taught me so well in her pre-algebra class in 9th grade. From then on, I got straight As in math. To this day, nearly forty years later, I still credit Mrs. King for helping me get down the path to whatever success I have had in life.
- marttt 4y ago
  Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately I cannot edit the reply, but I sincerely apologize for my choice of words. I am not a native English speaker, so I was actually using it as a more rough expression for "outcast". People lost or trapped in themselves, possibly due to unlucky past; because of this, they've become antisocial (thinking of Lester Ballard from McCarthy's "Child of God"). Nothing to do with mental performance. A really embarrassing error, entirely due to poor command of English language. Once again, I apologize. I wish you all the best, mate.
  - bradknowles 4y ago
    Understood. I thank you for your response! I confess that when I was much younger, I used that same word in the same way. It was only after my coming to understand how my usage of that word had hurt other people that I came to where I am today. So, yours is a pain that I know well, and I trust that we are both better for this exchange. Thanks!

horns4lyfe 4y ago

I’d recommend reading his Plains trilogy, it starts with all the pretty horses. Fantastic books all the way through.