No, not that McCarthy, but my man, Cormac of the guts and the blood and the rats.
Crof of Writing Fiction just had to know this would stir me up some:
The New York Times has a piece asking: What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years?
The article is very much worth reading, but I see I’ve read almost none of the books listed. Cormac McCarthy looms large; I think he’s among the very worst writers of the past quarter-century…like an undertaker who puts a mound of Dream Whip, topped with a cherry, on the face of every corpse.
Well McCarthy may not have reached Willie status with me yet, so I’m not ready to take out the gloves, but it is interesting to note the diversity of opinion that certain writers evoke. Just as with Faulkner and Joyce, there is mob mentality, there is educated discourse, there is marketing hype and there is the product itself that all figure into the acceptance or rejection of an artist.
When in truth, all it comes down to is the story and the single reader. I admire certain authors, and I admire even more the reader, like Crof, who decides for himself what he likes.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology