/lit/ - Literature

That's not fun to read. It's unfocused.

he didn't ruin his brain with 4chan and fetish porn

>>17147517
The fuck is this
This is tedious to read. Impossible.

>>17147590
>>17147597
These people can't see images in their heads

>>17147517
Which book? Looks pretty interesting

This is the equivalent of a movie clip showing 5 different images per second. Unreadable.

>>17147597
>>17147613
Suttree

>>17147517
started reading this last night, its good so far. im sure that ill get used to it like I did with bm, i find that i'll read a paragraph and have no image in my head of whats being described then i have to read it again very carefully and ill get the image. i had to read the intro about three times before i was certain of everything.

to answer ur question u just have to be big brain. look at his head. look at the absolute cliff face that is his forehead, you cannot begin to fathom the sheer brain power contained behind this.

>>17147517
I like this style of writing I find grammar tedious and it ruins evocation

>>17147615
This is actually one of my biggest complaints with prose. People nowadays have such a desire to fill their prose with imagery and complex syntax in order to show off their technical skill that it makes reading tedious. It's a bit like the 80s trend of masturbatory speed guitar. Ok, we get it, you know a lot of words and can string them together to form a bunch of images. Too bad it's unreadable other than as a curiousity at best. Don't get me wrong, there's room for this kind of stuff and these kind of writers, but every speed guitarist isn't interesting, in fact 95% of them aren't. Somebody should tell this to writers as well.

>>17147517
Damn, this is so dense. Each paragraph has so much going on.

>>17147642
>People nowadays
what are you talking about. we are living in a dogmatic LEAN TIGHT minimalist hellscape. we are all hemingways.

>>17147619
Hahaha no surprise. McCarthy to me always seemed the kind of writer that struggles with flowing prose. One cannot shake the feeling that he is literally writing with a thesaurus by his side when writing. Not the feeling you get for example with Nabokov despite complexity.

>>17147593
By the way those lines sound, I don't think that brain was fine.

>>17147651
OP is lean and tight, much like an incredibly accurate 900 bpm guitar solo that's ultimately boring sonically and in nuances of phrasing.

>>17147517
If you wrote this today and sent it to publisher they would laugh this shit off and think the author is a literal schizo and should go to the hospital
And they would be right

>>17147604
He is describing objects by mostly insignificant details instead of describing the objects themselves then enhancing them with the details. He is then moving on too fast like >>17147615 mentioned. He creates a great atmosphere, true, but don't mistake that for a good description of his surroundings. It's mostly personal preference though, I understand why some people would enjoy that.

>>17147662
Let me suck you off bitch. *suck*
oooh nasty nasty cumm
little spermy wermies
yep. time for the egg.
*escorts your semen!! into the DOG . eg..SDFGVlasdfgno;fasdgjklp['adfgsmlp'

>>17147651
I should say maximalism and minimalism are two sides of the same coin often and suffer from the same problem: artifice.

>>17147662
I'm not against speed btw. Contrast a wanker against a true master such as Guthrie Govan. The latter still sounds good, the wanker sounds contrived.

>>17147631
he has a good prefrontal cortex

that boy could channel the logos even if he was trapped in the basement of a synagogue

>>17147517
It is very easy - once you stop using proper punctuation the reader traverses the text more quickly and thus can pay less attention to the quality of the actual devices used, so that even mediocre expressions appear decent - with this simple trick you too can recruit an army of pseuds

>>17147517
Yikes

>>17147667
>He creates a great atmosphere, true, but don't mistake that for a good description of his surroundings.
I dont know if I agree, nearly every sentence in OP picture is a precise description of something in the environment. Also, this opening segment serves as a general introduction to the setting of the book, Knoxville. There is no actual action taking place at this point, just setting the scene.

>>17147710
Describing particular details does not make a setting - have you even read Laocoön?

>>17147680
>Thin dark trees through yon iron palings where the dead keep their own small metropolis. Curious marble architecture, stele and obelisk and cross and little rainworn stones where names grow dim with years. Earth packed with samples of the casketmaker's trade, the dusty bones and rotted silk, the deathwear stained with carrion.
You are entitled to think of this as a "mediocre" way of describing a graveyard, but I would put it to the board you are wrong.

>>17147724
Every setting is reducible to a set of details that are in some way transmitted to the reader. You're being facetious.

>>17147710
I don't know what to tell you but that I disagree. I could argue line by line with you but I really can't be bothered. Going from "Weeds sprouted from cinder..." onwards reads to me like a schizo wrote it.

>>17147517
He only does that for 10 pages though. The rest of the book is not as dense (and more beautiful and pleasant imo)

>>17147517
look at that subtle indention of the font, the tasteful thickness of the page.
Oh god it even has a drop cap

>>17147517
psychiatrist here
It's very common with people suffering from schizophrenia. They don't type like normal people but with their streams of consciousness. They write all words they have in mind. They don't register nor understand them, they just write what they hear in their head at this very moment.

That font is beautiful, which edition is this?

>>17147761
>>17147788
I think you two are confusing your inability to understand the excerpt with an inability of anyone to understand the excerpt. I assure you it is in no way "schizophrenic," each sentence makes perfect sense and is weighed against the others, even the fragmentary sentences.

>>17147654
What have you read of him? McCarthy's prose has brilliant flow imo. There is no thesaurus abuse here at all, this 10 page section is actually satire on Agee's death in the family, the book onwards isn't like that.

>>17147517
>literally the entire thread is people shitting on this beautiful prose
/sffg/ has ruined this board
/pol/ has ruined this board
reddit has ruined this board
I can't believe the majority of you are this tasteless. I can't believe the majority of you use /lit/ and "identify" as a reader. This is sad. This is not how /lit/ used to be. Zoomer brains are truly artless.

>>17147779
>>17147789
this one, publisher is Vintage

>>17147804
Therapy literally consists of learning how to write. I see this shit every day, I know what I am talking about.

>>17147810
>this 10 page section is actually satire on Agee's death in the family
Whoa really? I've never heard this angle before.

>>17147788
>>17147819
hello pseudoscientist ! *infected*

I typed a few posts before scrapping everything, I just think it's hard to discuss anything when the people involved in the discussion aren't in earnest.
This is main flaw I have found when discussing anything with people. Nobody wants to honestly, fairly assess whether or not something has merit or whether it is right or wrong. Everyone has this goal to convince others that the thing is good or right, or that it is not, without ever putting their subjective opinion about it into question, and in most case no issue with bending the truth or lying by omission. Every discussion is completely devoid of curiosity, so it is not a discussion, it's a fight between promoters.
It's really tiring.
Personally I found OP hard to read, but I'm ESL and while I can understand the vocabulary just fine, I don't find that passage very evocative because I prefer a more relaxed and dry phrasing that allows me to imagine things instead of being overwhelmed with imagery. Some of that imagery in the wordplay is fantastic though so I can understand the appeal. To stick with the music metaphor I think this is more like very frantic jazz fusion than 900 bpm heavy metal shredding.

>>17147819
It just sounds like you're unacquainted with literary modernism. I suppose you'd diagnose Joyce and Faulkner as schizophrenic as well, huh?

>>17147819
>>17147853
how do I develop schizo powers to write modernist shit?

Wow two guys said it was bad at the beginning and everyone piled on

>>17147839
I suppose it's inevitable that much of the thread would become about whether or not the writing is Good. I was more hoping we could dig into how exactly he writes that way, because like I said, I cant even pull out one sentence that sounds like most of those. It's not that I dont understand the vocabulary either, it's just never in a million years would I think to say something like "Gray vines coiled leftward in this northern hemisphere, what winds them shapes the dogwhelk's shell." I wish I could tap into whatever the heck his brain is running on. Alas I am a writelet.

>>17147680
>t.pseud
"Past lamps stoned blind" alone is better than anything you will ever write. Then there is the "cloud run before it like watered ink" which is a head turning simile, and of course you ran past that.

>>17147839
My position is simple. I don't find OP's example of prose interesting because it moves too fast between imagery and does so by flinging detail to the reader without any consideration. It is like an assault on my senses and not in a good way.

>>17147788
>NOOO YOU CAN'T WRITE LIKE THAT, YOU MUST HAVE SCHIZOPHRENIA
>NORMAL PEOPLE WRITE "HARRY STRETCHED HIS LEGS GINGERLY"
>TAKE A 1000MG CAPSULE OF RETARDIFY EVERY DAY UNTIL THIS GOES AWAY!

Was getting "cellar door" in the very first sentence a wink and a nod?

>>17147884
>>17147901
I was referring to how people say things like
>anyone reading this must be a pseud
or
>you must have at least 200 IQ to understand this, it's not your fault
it's really tiring to see this angle in most posts, honest opinions are becoming rarer and rarer
All I can think when it comes to the creativity involved is that when you do something a lot and you let yourself get in a state of play, you come up with very interesting things. I know this from other crafts.

>>17147835
Yeah, don't expect the pseud prose analysts here to catch that, but Agee's death in the family was 'The Knoxville novel' before Suttree. The prologue was written in similarly italicized script, so McCarthy opened Suttree with Cornelius taking a walk around with his mind registering the scenery while satirizing Agee's prologue.

>>17147517
Did you go pull out your DSLR to take that pic and post it on 4chan? Try harder faggot.

>>17147884
>I think to say something like "Gray vines coiled leftward in this northern hemisphere, what winds them shapes the dogwhelk's shell." I wish I could tap into whatever the heck his brain is running on.

His brain is running on figuring out how to write in ways that are pleasing to critics. This is what I get out of the prose posted ITT, that it is a clever trick, it feels dishonest. People don't actually form connections between gray vines and dogwhelk's shells. And the way he brings them together reeks of artifice, unnaturalness, rather than a clever genuine discovery between two things. From a more social context, it seems like the prose of a New World author who is desparetely trying to capture that typical grandiosity of style that many (especially Old World) authors had yet in some sense deviating from them in order not to copy to them. It's a prose that screams of an attempt at a Great American Voice, but because it is self-conscious, it always fails to arrive. It is much like a New World wine competing with the French golden standard, not only in quality but in trying to set its own brand, yet because it self-consciously exists in relation to the Old World standard, it always fails to take off, one is left with an aftertaste of artifice, of a wannabe-ness of excess self-consciousness.

>>17147517
I think he tries to channel Blake with a more modern american vernacular. Listen to an Audiobook of his novel and it flows like poetry. It's as if it were written to be spoken

>>17147934
That's cool to know. He also used the italics in Orchard Keeper to separate one of the plot strands, and I think he used them similarly in Outer Dark / Child of God but I can't quite remember. He did the epilogue of Blood Meridian that way also.

>>17147974
This. The opening of Suttree sounds magical when read, especially in Richard Poe's voice.

>>17147604
>Yes.jpg

>>17147948
>People don't actually form connections between gray vines and dogwhelk's shells.
He's alluding to a common chirality, that's why the hemisphere is mentioned.

>>17147901
How is it done "without consideration"?
That would have him write in a very stilted, uninteresting style. Meanwhile, the excerpt here has very interesting phrasing and some really distinctive imagery. I think you are simply going too fast, slow down a bit. McCarthy doesn't use punctuation, doesn't mean he is asking his readers to read whole passages breathlessly.

>>17147884
I notice that CM looks for connections between physical phenomenons and deeper principles. He will pick out a seemingly ordinary thing like the spiral of a sunflower and the shell of a snail and suggest a deeper connection. He doesn't spell out if it is a natural principle or intentional design, and by leaving the implication unaddressed it creates atmosphere of the miraculous. He will do the same with people. A beggar is given backstory that makes him both commonplace and unique. He will place them in a position to receive or ignore insight into the human condition and extend this to all men.

Broken down it seems like a cheap trick but applied across a wide cast of characters and numerous scenes and events it starts to weave a larger meta narrative about the nature of man and his struggle

This is basically the "I'm writing!" equivalent of "I'm acting!" from /tv/. Ooh yeah great similes there, very clever, but instead of evoking the empty hours of the cityscape or whatever all I can think of is an author sitting at a writing desk nodding and smiling.

>>17147948
For all it's critique, I find this post very dishonest. You are projecting your own inability to see the connection and labelling it crass (when the point of a good simile is to connect what normal people usually don't). Further, McCarthy is the worst writer to accuse of writing for critics. The moment the guy went back to his 'Idgaf' style in The Crossing, these critics abandoned him. Blood Meridian wasn't particularly well received at its release either, and ironically enough as he started writing in this minimalist style of prose, he had these critics, their mothers and some acclaimed writers as well, fighting for his cum drops.

>>17147901
"As the narrator let me set the stage for you:

It is a dark night and clouds move through the sky. We move through a spooky cemetary and a spooky train yard to a spooky old city with poor crazy people in alleys. You are now in Knoxville Tennesse in the first half of the 20th century. "

>>17148154
Yeah that's a great observation. He seems to often allude to the materials and fundamental forces that shape things. He often weaves bits of deep history into the narration, like mentioning some trillion-year-old rock formation or that the area was once an inland ocean, or having characters find millenia-old arrowheads. His stories about realistic people doing realistic things, but there's a cosmogonic mysticism lurking underneath it that bubbles to the surface.

>>17148188
>I'm acting from /tv/
What's that?

>>17147517
Sounds really cool but all I got from it was “city bad”. Really cool to read but ultimately they all say the same thing. I think it’s cool when imagery builds on itself and sort of gradually transforms its meaning with every added detail, becoming deeper, more complex, or suddenly more horrible as your mind connects the dots with the last new detail like a literary jumpscare. This doesn’t do that, but it builds a good atmosphere anyways. Definitely like it, but I think if the images in the second half added new context that redefined and caused you to reinterpret the meaning of the earlier images or some building effect of that kind it would be more fascinating.

>>17147889
This is the kind of shit found in John Donne, written to impress rather than inspire, and in the end doing neither
The power of a simile depends not only on similarity of appearance but also similarity of the passion inspired - a cloud may resemble some stained paint outwardly but they inspire completely different ideas in us: the author is not even speaking about those things but rather their cardboard silhouettes
>>17147735
It is very mediocre, there is no singular thought but only the separated accidents, and even those are described very uninspiringly - "small metropolis" is too trite to be a concluding statement, "marble architecture" is bad, names grow rather WORN than DIM with years

>>17148213
I don’t think it saying city bad it is just portraying the dark beauty of ugly place almost non judgementally admiringly

>>17148189
>when the point of a good simile is to connect what normal people usually don't

Yes but there has to be a "release" to that moment that feels genuine. No such thing here

>>17147811
Zoomers are only interested in cooming, I find...

>>17148198
That's precisely what i think he is interested in. Evoking a sense of something divine hidden beneath the mundane. A washed out ravine is an ugly scar on the landscape, a defect to be graded and filled to make room for a housing development, and a stunning view into the agglomerated history of some nondescript field which has witnessed epochs of drama and countless events. It doesn't really accomplish much to observe that unless you find a common thread for all the events of the past and connect them to the men in their earthmoving equipment as the fill the ravine in to make room for a new drama to unfold on top of the now buried past.

Again, it becomes a cheap trick to just break it down like that, but CM is using this device to say something about the past and its relationship to the men who perform the work burying that history to pave the way for the future.

>>17148224
>"small metropolis" is too trite to be a concluding statement, "marble architecture" is bad, names grow rather WORN than DIM with years
I dunno, sounds like you're just trying to be contentious. Sorry. You're entitled to your opinion but I still think you're wrong.

>>17148189
>when the point of a good simile is to connect what normal people usually don't
No, the point of a good simile is to inspire the passions of the reader or illustrate something clearly
A good writer may make connections where others do not but this is a feature of his character not that of good writing

>>17148224
>The power of a simile depends not only on similarity of appearance but also similarity of the passion inspired - a cloud may resemble some stained paint outwardly but they inspire completely different ideas in us: the author is not even speaking about those things but rather their cardboard silhouettes.
This is criticism just for the sake of it. McCarthy doesn't write to inspire, the neutrality in his prose is obvious from the first novel forward. On top of that, this is literally the first page of the book dude! Please point to me a writer who is inspirational without reaching in every page, passage and sentence. You're holding up unreasonable standards here for the purpose of criticism.
You didn't like it, that's enough.

>>17148240
That "release" is as subjective as the adjective can be. CM even weaves some metaphysical tinkerings here, so it'll be entirely dishonest to call it hammed in. It's not to your taste and that's it, i guess.

>>17148213
Any writer that does what you are describing?

>>17148267
Give an example.
Preferably only a sentence long.

>>17148298
Of course Mccarthy writes to inspire emotions in the reader - or I suppose he tries it - if he is attempting to be boring he has a bad end in which he succeeds only too well
I would not have latched onto the simile of it had not been held up as great, but it really is a good example of his defects - just as he makes nothing of the real attributes of the things mentioned, he equally makes nothing of the natural effects of speech by forgoing punctuation: in the end he writes about nothing

>>17148298
It's a similar phenomenon to TDS. People will pick an arbitrary standard to measure a single individual by in the service of justifying their opinion, when they have no history or intention of applying this principle universally. It comes back to aesthetics and personal preference, but they want to rationalize it. I prefer to press people on the matter until they can circle back and admit that they already made their judgement and the justification is secondary to the impression. You don't like it? That's fair. Taste is a personal preference when it comes to aesthetics

>>17147517
By reading a lot of Faulkner

>>17148345
Have you even read this book? To call this book emotionally empty or shallow is factually incorrect. You aren't saying nothing yourself in all these posts, only an argument over some vague metaphysical concept of inspiration, as if it can be measured, or better yet, measured same by all.

>>17148352
TDS?

>>17148352
of course judgement precedes justification in aesthetic matters because the point of aesthetic reflection is to reveal what makes a good effect on us - artistic critique is an attempt to establish the reason WHY a certain impression is made
This would be a valid counterpoint in some other topic but not in literature

>>17148375
Of course I haven't read it nor intend to, this is about the prose of the first page
>You aren't saying nothing yourself in all these posts
I agree
INSPIRATION is hardly a vague concept - an external stimulus, like a sentence, causes you to experience a certain emotion - that is it
Are you new to /lit/? Or reading in general? You have the telltale sings - appealing to personal taste, begging for lenient judgement, and, of course, liking Cormac Mccarthy

>>17147615
yes you're supposed to see the events happening in your head through visualization, that's how it's meant to be read

>>17148447
certainly the words must refer to some image or conception in your mind, which they cannot do if they pass you at lightning speed

>>17147604
This is repetitive, it's like someone painting the same picture over and over again

>>17148506
What do you mean by the same picture? He describes many different things in that opening page.

>>17148513
he throws them at you so quickly that they all remain indistinct sketches of nothing in particular

>>17148411
I have been on /lit/ for 4 years and only started with McCarthy this year, after reading other /lit/ memes like Pynchon, Joyce, Wallace, Nabokov etc. If not obvious, i quite like him.
>INSPIRATION is hardly a vague concept - an external stimulus, like a sentence, causes you to experience a certain emotion
I ask again, a writer who only writes inspirational sentences.
To void all of McCarthy's work only because a certain sentence did not appeal to your unreachable standards, which have curiosly started to seem like an irrational hate for the style itself than anything within it, is very disingenuous imo. And now you are doubling down by patronizing me.

>>17147615
It's not prose. Read slower.

>clockless hours
cringe

>>17148526
I dont understand. Should he spend five sentences describing train tracks instead of one, would that make it better?

>>17147666
Satan marked your post for a reason, you artless, ugly thing, hated by man and God both.

>>17148526
You can always...y'know, read them slowly.

>>17148545
>Not godless
Papa McCarthy will be angry at you now, anon.

>>17147902
Keked

>>17148559
I don't care what McCarthy thinks. I find geese in flight beautiful, but I don't make any effort to seat them at my dinner table.

>>17147517
Holy fuck is that ever aids to read.
>The steel leaks back the day's last heat, you can feel it through the floors of your shoes
This is a nice sentence. Reading 40 words with no punctuation is not a nice sentence.

>>17148531
I repeat again, that the only reason I stuck to the stupid cloud simile was because it was offered to me - that is not his only defect: he is also unbearable to read because of a myriad other reasons already offered here
>And now you are doubling down by patronizing me.
You're right, I'm sorry - you seemed too sincere and well-mannered to be a regular, and I should not have censured you for that - I take back my words
But I really fucking hate Cormac Mccarthy
>>17148536
If the author wants you to read at a certain speed, there are certain marks he can include in his writing. I. Wonder. What. They. Are.

>>17147902
amazing lmao

>>17148619
I wish every author would omit more punctuation. Faulkner's removal of the contractive apostraphe makes words such as dont and cant so much flatter and more beautiful. And McCarthy taking it even further and killing the quotation mark takes the effect to a higher level. It's a shame that if you did the same, people would call you a knockoff.

>the telegraph wires belly across the poles
>you know, like a sagging curve, as in a round belly
>but you see a wire can't have a belly, physically. It's a metaphor.
>I am very smart and literary as are you, dear reader, for understanding each metaphor I use every sentence
>I'M WRITING!

>>17148625
Let me guess, you were considered gifted as a child?
You're unconsciously speed-reading because it lets you chew through textbooks, articles, and Stephen King-style shallow prose. Slow down. Savor the words.

>>17148625
>If the author wants you to read at a certain speed, there are certain marks he can include in his writing. I. Wonder. What. They. Are.
McCarthy uses periods, you're just trolling at this point. At least you do it well.

>>17148639
>It's a shame that if you did the same, people would call you a knockoff
Yeah I agree. I like the effect. I find Middle English similarly liberated

>>17148625
Well, i can sting alright lol. I like effortposting about things i like.
>I really fucking hate McCarthy.
This is completely fine with me. I just can't bring myself to agree with your critique because it has holes that, i think, are only visible on this side of this "taste-divide" we have here.

>>17148639
>I wish every author would omit more punctuation
I don't. English is not my first language, rather Danish is. And in Danish there are pretty strict rules for how to place commas, though most younger people tend to disregard these entirely.
Omitting punctuation most often appears to me like laziness or stupidity, not as an artistic choice. And even it it were an artistic choice, you could easily write nice sentences without much punctuation, without deliberately twisting together words in a way that makes the text cumbersome to read. If you want people to put in an effort to even read you text, you should (in my opinion) be writing poetry, not entire books.

>>17148662
Literature has punctuation marks to indicate where a thought, or one strand of a thought, terminates, or where the reader ought to pause - this is a relic from the period when literary works were read aloud, helping the poet recite his work
Moreover they represent the natural pattern of human speech and thought: our ideas and our conversation are not made out of a continuous stream of images as McCarthy would have it, rather both our sentences and our ideas exist in relation to each other - punctuation also represents this
Cormac can't just throw this all away and demand us to adapt to his ADHD, he is actively making himself more insufferable to read

>>17148703
It seems that your assumption is that people who omit punctuation do it because they dont know the correct rules. But what I'm talking about is authors who omit punctuation knowing full well what the prescribed rules are. The point of language is communication, and no language is ever fixed, they all evolve continuously based on novel usage. Just because we have inherited the semicolon does not mean we are bound forever to use it.

>>17148639
Joyce didn't use much punctuation either. Nothing crazy like McCarthy, but yeah.

>>17148677
All honour to Mr. McCarthy for being conscious the PERIOD, but he has yet to discover the secrets of the COLON, the SEMICOLON, or the HYPHEN, or the fabled QUOTATION MARK

>>17148713
Ironically, based on the sample posted here, this is meant to be ready aloud, the sentences flow really nicely, without much punctuation.

>>17148739
You know, I was actually stunned when I read one of the Nautilus articles that he wrote a couple years ago, and right there in the text were quotation marks leaping out at me like the doubled fangs of vipers. I guess his new typewriter must have come with that key.

>>17148752
You are shitting me, just try to say the first sentence in a single breath
Even the audiobook reads it with pauses as "Dear friend, now in the dusty clockless hours of the town, when the streets lie black and steaming in the wake of the watertrucks, etc."

>>17148793
So you admit that it can be properly read without any need to clutter up the page with little marks. Glad we've resolved this.

>>17148799
As long as you place your own little marks yourself - which is what I am paying the writer to do

>>17147517
>he does it for 471 pages
No he doesn't. It gets a lot more readable after a few pages.

>>17147517
Read Proust if you want some truly mind-blowing sentences.

>>17148739
His first book had all of those, in right places too. Still all the reviews were like "Mr. McCarthy really hates punctuation".
He kinda did away with them in places where they were either obvious or uneeeded. He deliberately writes in a way to minimize punctuation, and then doubles down on that by omitting them altogether.

>>17148816
Only serious literature here please.

>>17148806
Here's another page I opened to at random. Note particularly the third paragraph. Whole book is like this.

>>17147670
Keked

Not for me. I wouldn't say this is bad, but it bores me. Reading blood meridian was fun for some chapters when he decided to have action, but he also likes to torture you in a way that makes you feel what the main characters are feeling. There are multiple chapters in a row on McCarthy describing walking through the desert. I don't want that in a book. Sorry.

>>17147517
Not one single idea in that page

i hate mccarthy. his writing is really tedious and feels so flat to me, like if it was music it would be a dial tone.

>>17148816
"Proust? That's not literature."—Cormac McCarthy

>>17148845
That is a lot more digestible. The "run-on"ness is dialed down a lot, which I think is what the anon was implying.

>>17147517
>wall of text
Why do Americans do this? Pynchon is another example

>>17148894
We're trying to save the trees by not newlining everything.
Dostoevsky does it too

>>17148860
Why are you apologizing?

>>17148894
Proust is well known for this. He is French.

>>17148868
What do you mean by idea?

>>17148845
>their yellow slickers bright with wet

good example of shit i hate. just say water. these faux poetics stink. mccarthy is a fucking phoney, everything about the dude is so curated. you can even see it in his bullshit author photos where he tries to look like he just came off a shift cutting down half a forest while reciting poetry to the other labourers. he loves his own farts. this faggot never wrote a single honest sentence.

>>17148388
Agreed, when we discuss things in term of critique then judgement is the point. My issue with the criticism in this case though is that the critic feels that the prose is contrived or opaque, while the advocates of the same excerpt say that it is crystal clear what the intent is. The author is spoofing/paying homage to the last significant book about this location by writing the prologue in that style but better. So we have two equally weighted opinions. One side doesn't like the style for aesthetic reasons or is unableto parse it. The other does, and sees merit in the choice to open the book this way. So we are left with the choice of prioritizing taste or form. That reduces back to a pure choice of opinion. We aren't comparing Twilight to Moby Dick. A criticism of understanding structure or poor use of language can be somewhat empirical.

>>17148845
Maybe I just got accustomed to the style then because I remember almost giving up at the beginning. But I decided to keep reading and ended up loving the book.

>>17147735
describing a graveyard as "where the dead have a small metropolis" is pretty fucking banal to the point where i would have assumed it came from some /lit/ writing thread if i didn't know you were quoting a celebrated author. and calling a coffin a "sample of the casketmaker's trade" like you're just trying to complicate the sentence by any means necessary is pretty funny too

like isn't it totally like a city... for the dead??? and in there there's a lot of examples of the sort of thing that the guy makes who makes... coffins???

mom have you seen my left sample of the shoemaker's trade? i might have left it in the structure our metal stallion calls its dwelling

>now in the of the when the and in the of the and now when the and the in the of in or and and in the now in or where
English is a disgusting language. Only a monolingual English speaker would call this prose beautiful.

>>17148945
Well, to circle back to my question in OP, I truly wonder how he even thinks to phrase it how he does. Because yeah most of us would probably just say water. If we would even think to say that their yellow slickers were bright due to the specularity of water in the first place. How does he come up with this shit? If it's curated it's a very unique curation. I want to unlock his powers

>>17148972
>describing a graveyard as "where the dead have a small metropolis" is pretty fucking banal
Banal means commonplace, but I have literally never heard a graveyard described in this manner. It actually seems quite creative and unique to me.

>>17148999
Only for the pseuds to shit on you?
For your question, observe things around you, and be talented.

>>17148945
The hands of a spiteful mutant typed this post.

>>17148987
A challenge without proof. Post an example of fine poetry in your own lesser tongue.

>>17147735
How do you read this without wanting to throw up or laughing?
>dark trees through yon iron palings
Can't just say trees, it needs an adjective. "Dark" is too simple but "through yon iron palings" is terse, so it balances out. Perfectly balanced for the midwits this book is targeted at.
>where the dead keep their own small metropolis
The dead are dead so they can't do anything, but I have to make my prose active and "metropolis" is a cool word.
>Curious marble architecture
Not just any marble architecture but curious marble architecture. Truly fascinating marble artifice, much like my prose.
>stele and obelisk and cross and little rainworn stones where names grow dim with years
This would be good if it wasn't for the affectation of writing lists using "and and and and"
>Earth packed with samples of the casketmaker's trade
Can't just say caskets or coffins. That's too simple. So what is a casket? It's a sample of a casketmaker's trade of course. Clearly that's the most symbolic, mos significant characteristic of a casket and the first thing to describe it as.

>>17149024
really? calling a graveyard a city of the dead is unique? is this your first book ever or something? have you ever heard the word "necropolis"?

>>17149111
But necropolis is not the word he used, anon. If he did, I assume you would call that "banal" as well; but the difference is that you might be correct in that case.

>>17148999
If you want to focus the mind's eye on something visually striking, you pick out the most evocative part of the image so that it focuses the imagination and allows the rest to fill in naturally. The yellow slicker bright with wet is not just a man in a yellow rain suit. You see the light shining off the contours and edges of his slicker and the rest of the image fills in with it. For this type of scene you need to construct the image or rather report it with the fidelity needed to understand what the character or narrator sees. It isn't interesting to model a whole environment with words as it sits there static and then walk the characters through the scene. People say CM is cinematic in his prose because he carries his narration through the environment like a camera and frames each action and piece of diagloue in motion

>>17149108
good sample of a postwriter's trade right here

>>17149108
>The dead are dead
>"It is wrong to assume that the dead have no power in this world, for their power is great"
Underread opinion is still bad. Those 2 posted pages are Suttree's inner monologues btw. There are 3 narrators in the book, Suttree, Harrogate and the omniscient narrator. Suttree is a high iq sperg, therefore you have these stylized, "colored" descriptions of landscape.

>>17149085
A тёмныe вocтopги paccтaвaнья,
A пeпeл гpёз и бoль cвидaний — нaм.
Haм нe cтyпaть пo cиним лyнным льнaм,
Haм нe хpaнить cтыдливoгo мoлчaнья.

Mы шeпчeм вceм нeнyжныe пpизнaнья,
Oт милых pyк бeжим к oбмaнным cнaм,
He видим лиц и вepим имeнaм,
Toмяcь в пyтях нaпpacнoгo cкитaнья.

Co вceх cтopoн из мглы глядят нa нac
Зpaчки чyжих, вceгдa вpaждeбных глaз,
Hи cвeтoм звёзд, ни coлнцeм нe coгpeты,

Cтpeмя cвoй пyть в пpocтpaнcтвaх вeчнoй тьмы,
B ceбe нecём cвoё изгнaньe мы —
B миpaх любви нeвepныe кoмeты!

>>17149111
Give an example please.

>>17148912
Quite the tough guy

it would be better with punctuation and there are some really verbose bullshit lines. it’d be more impactful without them. don’t reply to me disagreeing because i am right

>>17149139
Very good poast

>>17147517
What book is this

>>17149134
so you think the word necropolis is banal but you've at the same time "never heard" anyone describe a graveyard as a city of the dead before? how does that work?

>>17149197
Suttree.

>>17149179
of what?

If you can't appreciate the humor of the attack of the Moonlight Melon Mounter, I can't really take your opinion seriously. Humorless little cucks who think you can construct opinions and attitudes with a book syllabus are incapable of having taste. They are constructs, not men. They live by a fallacy that there is a perfect book to he written and the perfect ethos to be derived from their studies and they resent the world for not providing it to them.

>>17149206
He described a graveyard in an original way. You called it banal and you were wrong. That's really all that's happened here. I'm done engaging with your contentious nonsense, because it's much less interesting than discussing how McCarthy achieves the effect that he does.

>>17149218
i hope you niggas don’t actually talk like this

>>17149231
holy shit, it's true. you only just now realized what the word "necropolis" even meant and now you're all "this conversation is over!" to cover it up. thanks anon i really needed the laugh

>>17149209
ty :)

>>17149218
It's definitely hilarious, and there's another great example of McCarthy prose when he gets shot. This is the narrator speaking:
>Finger coiled, bright light, a shadow. Smooth choked oiled pipe pointing judgment and guilt. Done in a burst of flame. Could I call back that skeltering lead.
How does he do it?

>>17149231
Ill throw you something. I notice he picks old romantic period words to evoke something ponderous and steeped in history, so if an alley needs to feel like it has always existed and that every cranny and corner has some scrap of evidence to that history (old coins, matchbooks for defunct businesses, rusted hinges, rumors and stories) he will throw out a " colossal horde of retorts and alembics" not to be pretentious but to evoke something Melville would have read on the shitter, whereas when we are dealing with the present and profane he cleanly describes the event like when that pig got its head stuck in the bucket and the ensuing scene. The verbage evokes the comical and obscene or something steeped in history depending on which kind of vocabulary and grammar is used

>>17149254
You don't think it be like it is but it do

>>17149206
Not him. Necropolis is a defined term for a large cemetery. Here McCarthy (through Suttree, as its his monologue) is suggesting that dead might have their own society below the ground. This is in line with Suttree's character because he is obsessed with death and the transcendent forces that govern our life. If you can, please post an example of a graveyard described as a civilization in its own whose language won't be decipherable to the living.
Simply calling it a necropolis is missing the point hard, or rather not willing to see it.

>>17147735
>stele and obelisk and cross and little
You tell me champ, is a string of 7 words where the word 'and' appears 3 times poetic? Why should anyone rape syntax like this instead of just writing a proper sentence?

>>17149335
>graveyard described as a civilization in its own whose language won't be decipherable to the living

this is a cliche

>>17149085
Niech cię nie niepokoją
Cierpienia twe i błędy.
Wszędy są drogi proste
Lecz i manowce wszędy.

O to chodzi jedynie,
By naprzód wciąż iść śmiało,
Bo zawsze się dochodzi
Gdzie indziej, niż się chciało.

Zostanie kamień z napisem:
Tu leży taki i taki.
Każdy z nas jest Odysem,
Co wraca do swej Itaki.

>>17147517
>I cant write one sentence that sounds anything like this,
Sure you can
1) Eliminate all punctuation marks other than the period
2) Focus on the minutia of environments and attach a metaphor to how they should look
3) Keep a thesaurus handy so you can add the occasional $10 word.
Here's an example:
4) Make what should be two words into compound words (cinderblock, steamshovel)
Here's an example:
>He walks the narcotic dark like a man headed to deathrow. The walls are lightgreen with putrefaction and as he walks he tries to see where he is going and he stops.

Reading the comments in this thread gave me cancer. Y'all know nothing about good writing

>>17149362
You're boring.

>>17149361
Yes, it is poetic. Sorry that you equate a coordinating conjunction with rape. You must be raped quite often every day if this is your view.

>>17149302
>The night is quiet. Like a camp before battle. The city beset by a thing unknown and will it come from forest or sea? The murengers have walled the pale, the gates are shut, but lo the thing's inside and can you guess his shape? Where he's kept or what's the counter of his face? Is he a weaver, bloody shuttle shot through a time warp, a carder of souls from the world's nap? Or a hunter with hounds or do bone horses draw his dead cart through the streets and does he call his trade to each? Dear friend he is not to be dwelt upon for it is by just such wise that he's invited in.
Read it out loud and tell me it's bad. This guy is a prose god. It's only logical then that there are infidels.

>>17147517
Reads like a poem that's been arranged into paragraph form. Write a poem, rearrange, and viola nigga.

>>17149362
POST. AN. EXAMPLE
There are 4 posts asking for examples from people regurgitating shitty reasons to (((rationalize))) why this prose/simile/metaphor is bad. Still nothing.

>>17149386
There's some good comments in here too fren. Dont let the friction posters get to you. It's up to us to make this board better.

>>17149386
>>17149428
Teach us then. Tell me what you think about op's pic.

>>17149421
Its Voila, Dear Friend. Just the friendly neighborhood fisherbum passing by!

>>17149335
necropolis literally means a city of the dead and has referred to a graveyard for thousands of years. "the dead having their own society below the ground" is like the oldest human idea about death i can even think of and features in literally the first preserved work of human literature. this guy did not, you will be disappointed to learn, invent the concept of the afterlife.

i get that you guys like this writer a lot but when you find yourself insisting that even his most banal turns of phrase are actually startlingly unique or act like he's the inventor of every basic cultural notion he happens to reference then you have found yourself very very deep in fandom psychosis. maybe read somebody else for a bit?

>>17149406
Agreed.

>>17149432
Well I am OP, but I'll tell you what I got from the good posts in here so far.
A) References to material, historical, and fundamental forces as having shaped the present situation
B) Cosmogonic mysticism undergirding a realistic setting
C) Choice of diction to emphasize either mundane or mystical qualities
D) Using striking visual elements in isolation to suggest a broader milieu

>>17149448
Thanks love, but I know. Just goofing around.

>>17149477
His most banal simile is all that you seem to want to focus on because the argument against his prose has to be made with a strawman. Why not take the counter argument. Find an exceptional line and deconstruct it and ask why the rest of the book is not this good?

>>17149151
kek

>>17149501
Im glad you got something useful from the discussion. They are all just parlor tricks though, if you dont have something to say. In my opinion, CM is saying something with all his books.

"A man is all men." He constantly hints that the fate and history of all individual men is the fate of mankind and that we all share in the glory and shame of those actions. This is why he has no wholly good or irredeemably evil people. Even the demons are heroic in their struggle. The villain of Cities loves as passionately and fights as bravely as the hero.

That is something to talk about

>>17149395
and and and and and and and and and and and and and.

Can I be a famous novelist now?

>>17149573
You could unironically be a culture critic for Vulture or some other rag that i don't respect. Really good work anon. I hope you make a living of it

>>17147517
>At the end of 2020, /lit/ has now been filtered by even Suttree
I'd hate to see you guys try to read The Sound and the Fury

>>17149572
Please talk about it more, we could all benefit from more thoughtful poasts such as this. McCarthy does seem to have a throughline of insinuating that all people are recognizable in all others, even in the worst and most base. Probably the most straightforward example is "a child of God like yourself perhaps," in reference to a borderline-retarded necrophiliac. I'm sure there's more to say about this theme.
>>17149573
Dont you think earnest effort is more laudable than cynicism? Rhetorical question, you dont have to answer it.

>>17149477
Holy shit! you have some serious comprehension problems. If we go by your logic then literary realism shouldn't even exist as a genre, because it is nothing but 300 pages of banal little shits and their banal lives over and over for 2 centuries.
When Pynchon wrote "A screaming comes across the sky", he wasn't expecting that 50 years down the line a weirdo will be shitting on his intent by saying shit like:
"Trash. The sound a falling rocket makes is well documented and written about. This shitter is trying too hard".
You seem to completely miss the point of fiction. You think Nabokov was the first guy to write about sexual lust for little girls? Is Lolita's opening banal shit for that reason too?

>>17147642
you copypasted the argument of A Reader's Manifesto and passed it off as your own. pathetic

>>17149580
What are you talking about I'm not making a living at anything, this is a NEET board. I don't like your disrespect or your implication that you don't respect me or your sarcasm. I'm gonna kick your ass with my foot and shoe and big toe in your ass and butt and anus.

>>17149599
>earnest effort
is that your smug way of justifying dorky effort-posts by pretentious time-wasting homos with gay AIDS

if you're so earnest and thuper therial why don't you get off 4chan and stop stroking my big fat chungus

>>17149593
Shit's depressing honestly. Suttree was a mainstay on /lit/'s best of lists before the zoomers arrived in 2016. Now we have threads like this, or threads where 80% of posts are "should I read this book?", "Is this good?" etc.

>>17149671
Because I like chan culture, even crabby fellows like you. I forgive all your insults since I know it comes from pain and has nothing to do with me. Be well anon.

>>17148945
once again, it's about flow of speech.

>>17149528
firstly, that simile already comes from a paragraph that a fan of the writer selected as an exceptional one. secondly, multiple issues with that supposedly exceptional prose were then pointed out by myself and others and the reason we're only talking about this one is not because that's the only bit that's bad but because it's the only one anyone even tried to defend. for example, i'm not seeing anyone praising replacing "coffin" with "an example of a coffin-seller's product" or whatever it was

>>17149609
we're talking about novelty because you guys are praising this stuff specifically on the grounds of it being "unique", "original" and so on. if novelty is not where his value lies then why defend him on those grounds? why write ridiculous shit like "i've never seen anyone call a graveyeard a city of the dead before" or "show me another example of an underworld" or whatever?

also, i like nabokov and pynchon and they are both on another level entirely than the stuff being posted itt. if nabby was unironically describing lolita's pussy as her secret garden of desire then i'd be shitting on him too. my impression that this guy only gets mentioned along with the greats because midwits don't know any better is only getting reinforced by you comparing "the dead have a small metropolis" to the opening of gr.

it's totally like a small metropolis, you see.

>>17150044
Nothing here at all.
>Lolita. Light of my life. Fire of my loins.
What's this shit! Just write that teenage girls make me hard.
Ironic that you are talking about midwittery.
>>17149108
>>17148972

Pynchon's prose never reaches this aesthetic level, and every criticism here can very easily be applied to any book by the Pynch.

>>17147671
>suffer from the same problem: artifice
What novel is not steeped in artifice?

>>17150096
exactly what i was talking about! you don't see any difference between nabokov and my brief parody of bad romance writing, or between pynchon and this crap about the small metropolis. it's all the same to you, because you've never developed your own taste at all.

>>17150312
It's futile to talk to you. You are peddling your own midwit opinions on why something is bad purely based on the subjectivity of it. "A screaming comes across the sky" is unique and good because (((((reasons)))) but "dead keeping their own metropolis" is bad because (((((reasons))))). Even though there are 100s of technical documents detailing the screeching sound the rocket makes as it falls, written way before GR. But McCarthy referencing the greek underworld (you still can't find me another instance of graveyard defined as a functioning society in any other work, Hades' Underworld is not a graveyard) is bad and banal?!
Don't like it, that's fine. But don't at least try to rationalize it with literally the worst articulated reasons possible. If McCarthy's writing is bad, i assure you that it is completely beyond your understanding as to why its bad; that much is clear from your posts.
>"Meh, why didn't he write it this way?!. Try hard!"
>"Nah bro, those are good ones."
>"No, it would be bad if it was written this way, but it's not. What's that? Naaah, now you are being purposefully reductive."
>"You guys have no taste of your own! Why yes, i love the most memed authors on the board!"
Never seen a guy with such a blindeye for hypocrisy and equivalence.

>>17150468
oh no. not "subjectivity"

this is just listing adjectives

unironically i end up writing a lot like this, realise i'm bad and stop pretending. i didn't think you could do this.

>>17149361
Can we please not use the word rape out of context like this? It is incredibly offensive to those of us who have been raped and brings back awful memories.

>>17150468
You got wrecked and sound like a tard LOL
>"dead metropolis" is a new idea, it has nothing to do with a "necropolis"

>>17150686
stfu failed rapist

>>17147604
>if you don't like shit writing you lack imagination
Nigga, that page is harder to parse than a scientific paper, and for no good reason: proper use of punctuation would improve it massively.
>inb4 it's intentional
Intentionally shit, perhaps.

>>17150688
>"Ohhhh you got wrecked lol"
>Retard still thinks we are talking about new ideas. Still can't differentiate between new ideas and original way of writing it.
Cry more nigga. Kek. I just want to add that I am now 100% sure you haven't read a page of Nabokov or Pynchon. You just name-dropped them to look smart. Kek.

>>17147938
I took this picture with an Apple iPhone

>>17150710
>that page is harder to parse than a scientific paper,
At last we get to the meat of the McCarthy haters: they literally cant parse what he is saying. This is the filtering effect that every quality author exhibits.

>>17150786
>if you think something is hard you can't do it anyways
That says a lot about you, and none of it is flattering.

>>17150819
I mean, again, you think it's hard... the self-owns keep flowing.

>>17150786
Desu I had trouble at first but the punctuation feels perfect now. It might be the picture, it's taken from too far and people might be looking over some periods like i did.

>>17149599
I don't have the means to go through and reference all this but i think the observations i will make are clear enough.

CM uses one word constantly, which i don't believe is a mistake or lazy writing:

Fate

All of the novels that come to mind deal with fate. He seems to propose that all men are burdened with a destiny, and that their actions and motives are rational in the context of their fate. We should not despise the ragpicker or Harrogate because they are like all men bound to their instantiation and everything that unfolds from the moment of their birth is a choice made of their own volition, but the choice was inescapable. If we, and the narrator, are allowed to step outside of time and view the life of the wretch as God would, we have to have pity on men for their struggles.

I don't believe in predestination, but the notion does give men Grace in the eyes of God if he does exist, because we are fated to suffer and will pay for the sins of our choices.

This is an anti-nihilist opinion, and beautiful because it turns the ugliness of life and mens weakness into a trial to be endured rather than a random meaningless accident

>>17148945
somehow I get the notion that not too long ago you were complaining on /v/ about "fake fun"

>>17149169
A spray of chex mix signifying nothing. Sad!

>>17147517
its good writing, dont know why all the twisted panties

>>17151263
I dont mind all the panty twisting because what people dont like about it still gives us clues as to how it works. This elusive style

>>17147517
ah yes, I'd recognize this beautiful yet pretentious page anywhere. The start of what is not only his best book but one of the best books without a doubt. I always thought he overdid it here but it became much more flowing later on

Where were you when you realized that english is too inefficient to convey a whole idea? I was at home, browsing 4channel.

>>17149367
This is hack garbage. You haven't "cracked the code" of his style, you're just making yourself look bad. Nigger

I've been trying to write a satire of the OP where I start describing his dick and balls in similar fashion for like 20 minutes. This shit prose is not as easy as it looks.

>>17147654
McCarthy blows Nabokov away.

>>17148845
I think he got better when he toned it down.

For me his best books are Blood Meridian, The Road and Outer Dark.

Post examples of elegant writing made with clarity and brevity

>>17152585
Hemingway

>>17150688
It literally doesn't you idiot.
Necropolis is a dictionary defined term for a large cemetery, while 'metropolis of the dead' implies at some order of civilization present within the graveyard. Cool down on the genre fiction and maybe try a new hobby. Fiction seems out of your league.

>>17152629
Is it possible to write an essay in this style

>tfw you write a 471 page book during a manic episode

>>17152705
The book was written over 17 years iirc, must have been a long episode

>giving a shit about muh gud sentences

>>17152780
uh yeah, i'll die on that hill unironically

>>17152786
>replies with a cliche
lol

>>17152820
One post ago you didnt care if sentences were good, now you're about avoiding cliches? Stop being drunk.

>>17152834
>now you're about avoiding cliches?
I'm not, but it seems like someone who is willing to "die on that hill" should be, right?

>>17152906
Hush. Sober up and check in tomorrow.

>>17152674
Yes. If you can emphasize the rhythms, the simple sentences read very pleasant indeed.

>>17152927
I've been sober for 8 years

>>17147517
This is so middle of the road I thought it was Alan moore

>>17152983
Even this isn't verbose enough for the Moore who wrote Jerusalem lol. Besides, old Alan always came across as a grammar nazi to me.