It's all ultimately a matter of opinion, but I think that Absalom, Absalom! is still the great American novel as compared to Blood Meridian. While Blood Meridian is a great lyrical work of philosophy and violence, I still prefer the coalescence that occurred in Absalom, Absalom! rather than the diffuse, picaresque nature of Blood Meridian.
McCarthy is perhaps the best living American author, but Blood Meridian, to me, is a shade below Absalom, Absalom! and Faulkner's masterworks. What do you guys think?
>>7985350
>corncob vs corncob
IMO, Faulkner is better.
I haven't read a more violent book. This shit's brutal.
I don't think McCarthy wanted to write the great American novel.Blood Meridian is a conscious created post-colonial text and a take down of the Wild West and manifest destiny.
While Corncob is Shakespeare but in Mississippi.
>>7985350
Never read faulkner senpai, just started as I lay dying last night, what am I in for?
>>7985429
AILD to me isn't one of his great works, but it's good and may be easier than his magnum opera Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and the Fury.
>>7985430
I think I liked the neatness of the resolution in A,A! despite its avant-garde techniques. I do understand other people's preferences for The Sound and the Fury, since I also like it very much. I think both are better than Blood Meridian, though. McCarthy is great as a verbal illustrator, and this work is overall great, it just didn't really give me the resolution and the sense that I was reading a truly great work of literature that A,A! and SATF gave me.
i thought moby dick was the great american novel
>>7985517
I don't think either is 'American' enough, really. Faulkner's concerns are too southern, and Melville's too universal.
You know I was just talking about the similarities between Faulkner and McCarthy with a friend of mine last night, problem is he only read The Road while now reading Light in August, and I've only perused As I Lay Dying and have read half or more of McCarthy's books. Should get on par with him.
>>7985539
I started with Blood Meridian because a lot of critics think it's his masterpiece. I do see similarities between him and Faulkner, but my problem is the converse of yours: I've read most of his major works except Light in August (but already found a copy of it), and only just read Blood Meridian.
Liked All the Pretty Horses. Haven't read this.
Bumping for Corncob McCarthy
>>7985549
Friendly advice, read Outer Dark and Child of God. They're incredible books, even surpassing Blood Meridian in a few respects.
The Crossing is McCarthy's greatest novel. Unfortunately people don't appreciate it because it doesn't have as much shocking violence or deliberate appeals to the Western Canon
>>7985991
As if. They are crude prototypes for Blood Meridian at best
>>7986008
No. They are different beasts, brusquer and more ferocious at times, less elaborate and poetic, but not wholly inferior.
>>7986014
They're still enjoyable reads, but I can't think of a single way either surpasses BM, unless your sensibilities prefer Southern Gothic. With Suttree or the Road I'm sure an argument can be made, however
>>7985844
I work with a fellow who is a spitting image of what I pictured Blevins to be. It's real charming. Just wanted to share
>>7986004
Thank you. The Crossing is my favorite book of all time.
>>7985350
How do you feel about Sanctuary and Snopes?
>>7985350
>McCarthy is perhaps the best living American author
>not William Gass
>not John Barth
>not Joseph McElroy
>not William T. Vollmann
>not Alexander Theroux
>not Robert Coover
>Tomas Pinkin
I mean, McCarthy is great, but you haven't read much American lit if you think he is the best living American author.
>>7985352
What's with all the corn? Nabokov is the "corn father" and the Gallic commentaries are all about corn. Why are we all so obsessed with corn?
>>7985414
Uhhh hes writing an american bible parable. Mccarthy doesnt care about post colonialism the way youre thinking about it
>>7986280
You just made yourself sound so gay. There's no way you've read all those writers because no one who has been on earth that long would say something so juvenile.
have you guys seen my review of this book. I bring up some interesting thoughts on the books themes and characters. https://youtu.be/dEVX42Pg1xw
>>7986358
You have big hands. Did you write what you wanted to say on the ceiling? of your bathroom? Do one for infinite kek
>>7986280
>not Morrison
>not Delany
there are just so many, Ner is a way better competitor than McCarthy and I wouldnt have even thought of Barth but thank you
>>7986399
yes I did. you probably wouldn't like a review of infinite jest. it will be positive. I enjoyed the book.
>>7986358
yes I saw it and it was not funny or good
Faulkner didn't write with a Roget's thesaurus in one hand and his scabby cock in the other.
Blood Meridian is not a strong novel.
>>7986699
Nor
faulkner mayb e a corncobber but he's a legitimately talented and insightful author
corncob tortillas yecarthy is the definition of a hack.
>>7986865
stop trying to make your shitty video a meme
I saw an interview with Bloom where he said he had to stop reading the book because it was so graphic, i have not felt any sort of uneasyness at all, was he exaggerating?
>>7987319
bloom is a pussy
>>7986238
I absolutely loved the Snopes trilogy, although I didn't really like Hamlet all that much. The Town and The Mansion were so damn good, though. The Mansion was breath-taking to me.
Sanctuary was good, too. Not Faulkner's greatest, but good.
>>7987319
He has a deeper inner life than you, therefore, a greater imagination.
>>7987319
The violence punctuated by more violence was indeed graphic, but Absalom, Absalom! made me stop reading it in awe. BM never did that.
>>7986865
tbqh though, McCarthy seemed to use Roget's thesaurus more freely than Faulkner ever did.
>>7987023
not him.
anyone with a semblance of taste, even someone as autistic as that guy, can tell yecarthy is trash
>>7987799
Sanctuary gets a bad rep but i enjoyed it though and through. especially the bit where the kid steals the beer. it reads like Faulkner on a day off but it's still a swell read. i've yet to tackle the Snopes trilogy. really looking forward to it. Absalom, Absalom! was truly a masterwork.
>>7986280
where should a newbie begin with Vollman? any recs?
>>7987023
lol that wasn't me
>>7986358
kek
>>7987855
Why though?
>>7987023
You sound extremely buttflustered and incoherent. Did mommy forget to clean your underwear?
>>7988053
that's your typical defensive corncobber
>>7988053
He actually sounds like a reasonable guy who doesn't like faggots trying to slide their hobbies into a discussion of literature.
>>7988060
the man has 1 video. hardly seems like a hobby.
>>7988064
Whichever term you like more then, he wasn't bringing much more than Pretension to the discussion anyway
>>7988055
>LE corncob le everything I dont like is le shit
why do people bitch about threads derailing when this is what people expect as standard
>>7987881
That's it. Faulkner on an off day is still other writers' masterpieces.
I think the guy who made that video is a psychotic samefagger who has more autism than the rest of this board combined
>>7988173
no I don't lol
I love cormac mccarthy and I think he's a great writer. Fuck you lit, I cant tell if youre serious or not when hating on him.
I tried to elucidate my thoughts regarding Blood Meridian. Here it is:
(1/2)
Ever since I read Faulkner's Sound and the Fury, I've been occasionally reading novels that have been regarded as in contention for The Great American Novel. I've slowly read some Hemingway, some Steinbeck, O'Hara's Appointment in Samarra, and some more Faulkner.
This novel was among the newer novels I discovered that could pass muster as a great American novel. Whether I agree as to whether it is The Great American Novel, however, will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
I haven't read McCarthy for the longest time because I wanted to begin with his masterpiece, and most critics consider this novel to be his best. I was only able to obtain a copy about a few months ago, however, and were a buyer not interested in this novel I would have damned my copy to either him or to obscurity.
Let me begin by effacing any doubt: Blood Meridian is undeniably a masterpiece. But it's more a masterpiece of writing than or plot or characterization, as all the reader is privy to are glimpses of the novel's characters. I think that all we really wish for are the glimpses, seeing that this novel features unscrupulous and amoral individuals in an even more brutal environment. McCarthy makes up for his shadows, however, by writing so beautifully. He rivals Faulkner in sharp verbal illustration: his words inhabit the anomie of both the characters and the time they're situated in. One example of his writing that stuck with me was his description of a shotgun's barrel as a lemniscate prior to a rider shooting a horse.
His matter-of-fact narration of the most horrific of perversions performed by the inhuman, inchoate posse creates a masterful contrast. In this manner, he subverts the often-cliched plots of Western novels and turns it around by providing not a plot, but a protracted paroxysm of arrant ultraviolence. This subversion is comparable to Clark's Ox-Bow Incident where, instead of focusing on positive, picaresque adventures, the novel instead focuses on the characters and the repercussions they have to face because of their bigotry. McCarthy essentially removes the romantic in his novel by engorging and deluging the reader with arcane and profuse violence.
To me, the novel is nearly perfect.
But it's not Absalom, Absalom! First, Blood Meridian is more fragmented and diffuse than the former. Absalom, Absalom! remains to me the towering work of American fiction because all the asides, all the circumambulations - everything coalesces and makes sense as the novel closes.
>>7988336
(2/2)
I do understand that Blood Meridian wasn't written to be a traditional, plot-based story. From how I understand the novel, it was written to demystify the Wild West and also to illustrate the nadir of man's worst natures. Man, when divested of all the accoutrements of society and civility, can become even worse and even more primal than the creatures we deem to be beasts. This is illustrated when a bear dancing like a human is brutally shot even though it acted with more propriety than most of the heathens inside the bar.
Why did someone shoot a circus bear? The judge answers it in a different section: 'war is god.' Man likes to see blood flow. Goodness is just an artificial construct:
'Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test.'
Sadly, with all the unintelligible murders that occur across the world today, Judge Holden may have been right. He never sleeps, the judge. He says he will never die.
>>7988344
nice reviewpleb
>what is moby dick
>>7988367
what size is moby's dick
>>7988336
I like Sound and the Fury more but I think Faulkner's better than McCarthy.
of course Faulkner is better than corncob tortillas YeCarthy. what kind of stupid question is that..
mccarthy a shit
but at least he's better than pynchon
>>7986008
Suttree better than all three.
>>7987319
He's a jew.
>>7985517
Mason & Dixon is.
>>7985991
Outer dark is arguably the book of his that left the greatest impression on me for some reason. The atmosphere or tone or something really stood out, despite it being not as well written as Blood Meridian.
I started the Crossing and got distracted by a bunch of other side projects. Excited to start reading it again (even if I do start it over).
>>7985350
>Thomas Pynchon
Really?
>>7988516
Absalom, Absalom! is.
>>7985429
I will never understand the hype behind AILD. Read TSATF instead
>>7990351
i see it as TSAF-lite. easily digestible Faulkner given its structural eccentricities. i don't see it as a major work but as a fun read. funny, i've had multiple friends quit reading at the "My mother is a fish." chapter, which i've heard is the part that turns off a majority of its detractors.
>>7988444
Trips of truth
>>7985429
Read The Sound and the Fury instead.
>>7986408
You're the first anon on /lit/ other than me to actually praise Morrison.
Wait, are you talking about Toni Morrison?
>>7990457
I dont get how that could be off putting, its just a kid saying a childish thing. is he supposed to have a mature mind?
>>7986004
The beginning of The Crossing was 10/10 but I really wishthe Wolf was released/had more time
>>7992765
i think not everyone appreciates the structure of the novel and the author dedicating an entire chapter to that single sentence is just too much for them. i don't think it has anything to do with the characters. they simply prefer stories told in the traditional way and any work that veers from that is not viewed kindly. to each their own, i say, but Faulkner uber alles.
>>7994394
HEIL FAULKNER
also, ez Faulkner >> McCarthy
>>7985350
Would agree that McCarthy is the greatest living American author.
>>7994594
>Cormac "The kid walked across the ravaged plain like some speck of nightmare and the Mexicans were assembled on their bellies like congregants of Hell's cathedral and the kid saw they were dead in every manner of slaughter know to man and some which had been forgotten with larvae germinating in every wound and he picked up the tortilla and wiped the rest of the food up in the tortilla and ate the tortilla" McCarthy
>Good
>>7994639
lol this is a joke right? plz be joke.
>>7994674
that's not an actual quote from the book
>>7994692
oh thank God hahaha
>>7990457
Jewel was a young kid from what I remember, and he recalled in a previous chapter all this stuff that made him conclude that his mother was, indeed, a fish.
These were hicks, after all.
>>7986790
So how did he write BM if none of his hands were free?
>>7985350
Absalom, Absalom! fizzled off after Sutpen's story is told. The ending is predictable and over-dramatic, and the prose never returns to the dramatic height it reaches during Sutpen's rise or his death. Blood Meridian is by far more consistent.
>>7996572
Because McCarthy wielded the pale ejaculate oozing forth like some unspeakable groundswell the color of the eyes of Charon's cataracted myriads.
>>7988396
Pay more attention during 'The Cassock' and you would know.
>>7985991
>Child of God
Really good, not much more than a genre piece imo. He's mostly just channeling Flannery O'Connor in this one.
>>7996701
I finished Child of God a few days ago, but I'm a pleb. What was I supposed to get out of it?
>>7996709
Well, I suppose it's the ultimate Southern Gothic novel. Lester's like a hillbilly Dracula living in the mountains in his cave and preying upon women. What I found so striking about it is how McCarthy doesn't try to either justify Lester to the reader and explain him in terms of some kind of relateable backstory, or explain him away in terms of a psychological analysis. The first case allow us to empathize with him, while the second would allow us to comfortably dismiss him as a monstrous psychopath.
Instead, McCarthy challenges the reader to somehow relate to him by stating in the first few pages that "he is a child of God, just like you". I suppose Lester's McCarthy's attempt to create the most evil and inhuman human character. We can't approach Lester as if he's an inhuman monster, we still have to feel a kind of brotherhood with him. Even though the book begins with him being ejected from the social community and placed into the wilderness, we still have to find something of ourselves in him, the fact that like him, we too are children of God. No matter how horrifyingly grotesque he is, he is still part of the spiritual community under God.
>>7985429
Personally I found TSATF too be much better if not brilliant. Haven´t read Absalom yet.
Does anyone seriously think McCarthy is better than Faulkner?
>>7998200
Maybe people who've read Blood Meridian and, of Faulkner, only a turd like A Fable. Anyone who's read Faulkner's finest wouldn't draw your conclusion, though.
