Tag Archives: Cormac McCarthy

McCarthy opens this book with one new, one oft-used technique of his here: movement.  A boy is sleeping, his father reaches out and touches him.  This is unusual tenderness from McCarthy or his characters.   Amid the greyness of a barren … Continue reading → Continue reading →

It’s off the shelf and on the coffee table:  Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I deserve it.  Continue reading →

Yesterday between the pies and turkey, I finished reading Cormac MacCarthy’s No Country.  And I’m still thinkin’ on it. Despite the action of the story, there is some depth of human nature here; as with most McCarthy, it dwells on … Continue reading → Continue reading →

While I shouldn’t complain that McCarthy has decided to use plotting in its simplest form, I’ve got to say that the story the plots lead us through doesn’t quite sit right with me. Of course I’m used to McCarthy enough … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Does this look like Cormac McCarthy to you?  Forgive the fuzzy photo; I couldn’t click fast enough because the pages wouldn’t stay open. But the short sentences?  The loads of white space?  True, this is dialogue and Southwestern talk at … Continue reading →

Yes, I learned that term in new media I’m sure, and have come up against it again in movie-making.  It’s interesting how once you catch the meaning of a term, you begin to notice it all over the place–but in … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Not particularly taken with this novel, though the story works since it’s not all that strange.  A young man, Llewelyn Moss,  comes upon a drug deal gone bad, dead dealers and deader cars, but a stash of heroin and two … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Where he reached the river it made a broad sweep out of a canyon and carried down past great stands of carrizo cane.  Downriver it washed up against a rock bluff and then bore away to the south.  Darkness deep … Continue reading → Continue reading →

McCarthy is a master at piqueing your interest right from the opening line: I sent one boy to the gaschamber at Hunstsville.  One and only one.  (p. 3) This is an intro in first person pov from a sheriff.  Within … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Couldn’t stay away from it, with it’s shades of red cover, crisp white lettering, faded silhouette of a running man…and of course, McCarthy’s like a Willie-fantasy for the literary part of my brain.  So No Country for Old Men will … Continue reading →

For me, the story seems to end here: Neither spoke until they saw the dog and that was very near to the pike, on the last turn above the gate.  They had overtaken it and even in the few minutes … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’m not quite ready to write a finale on this novel.  Perhaps there is a touch of disappointment after having first read McCarthy’s finer pieces.  When finishing Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, I was struck by how cleverly … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In the mountains where Marion Sylder runs whiskey, John Wesley Rattners hunts and traps, Uncle Ather ceaselessly walks to oversee and keep track of changes, there is a painter cat who does what predators do; survives by stalking and killing … Continue reading → Continue reading →

It is obvious that McCarthy uses his extraordinary skill with language to paint the settings of his stories in rich and deeply intense detail that intimates a close love and knowledge of nature. Then he was straddle-legged with one foot … Continue reading → Continue reading →