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/lit/ - Literature

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13281572 No.13281572 [Reply] [Original]

Do you agree with Mr. McCarthy?

> His list of those whom he calls the "good writers" -- Melville, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner -- precludes anyone who doesn't "deal with issues of life and death." Proust and Henry James don't make the cut. "I don't understand them," he says. "To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange."

>> No.13281842

>>13281572
It’s pretentious and dishonest.

>> No.13281868

I'm surprised he even did the interview, to be honest. And no I don't agree

>> No.13281884

Henry James is a great writer. And if anything shouldn't strange be a compliment.

>> No.13281895

>>13281572
I think McCarthy has a touch of the 'tism. Despite his mainstream success he still comes across like an outsider artist to me.

>> No.13281981

>>13281895
So did every great writer pre-civil rights movement. Cormac keeps his mouth shut and probably has non-mainstream political views.

>> No.13282190

>>13281895
Definitely. I think he sees himself more as a scientist than a writer. Even published this paper a while ago about his thoughts on human evolution and language, kinda whacky but interesting. I imagine him like the judge when he talks about cataloging everything on Earth.

>> No.13282232

>>13281842
You certainly don’t know if it’s dishonest

>> No.13282239

>>13281572
Not really though I do see a distinction. Writers like Faulkner and Melville wrote more about violence, primal struggle, et cetera while Proust and Joyce delved deeply into the psychology if characters in domestic settings. I prefer the Faulkner and Melville types overall but it doesn't preclude appreciation of the latter.

>> No.13282258

>>13281572
The more I read and the more I mature the more goofy I find this fucking guy.

>> No.13282283

>>13282258
Expound my dear anon, expound.

>> No.13282323

>>13282239
>Faulkner
>violence, primal struggle
What, were we reading the same dude?

>> No.13282335

>>13281572
>>13282239
I suppose I agree with McCarthy's sentiment then. Personally, I believe only reading literature of light versus literature of darkness is useful for this world. I have found the Ahura Mazda via picture books and, likewise, I found Ahriman in horror or macabre stories, some of which are similar to Blood Meridian.

>> No.13282338

>>13282335
>literature of light versus literature of darkness is
literature of light and darkness are*

>> No.13282339

McCarthy is a STEMboo savant who is a recluse for the paradoxical purpose of selling a manicured authorial image. Read this garbage and tell me he isn't over the hill
http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-kekul-problem

>> No.13282341

>>13282283
Sure. He’s a very strong writer relative to his contemporaries, but compared to the Greats of the canon he’s more style than substance. And it’s his showy polysyndeton, tryhard masculinity and shit opinions that I find goofy.

>> No.13282375

>>13282341
Yeah I know what you mean. He seems like he’s trying too hard based off of his interviews and photos.

>> No.13282380

>>13281572
>"I don't understand them," he says.
We know.

>> No.13282396

>>13281572
Why does /lit/ hate on McCarthy all the time now

>> No.13282401

>>13282396
Look at the OP pic, this man hasn’t written a top tier book in decades and he’s posing like an actor from Brokeback Mountain.

>> No.13282408

>>13281884
>Henry James is a great writer.
came here to say this. way better than cormhack

>> No.13282417
File: 17 KB, 600x314, 21F3A383-6A6E-49AD-9C43-A22ABA13F944.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
13282417

I am so beastly tired of mankind and the world that nothing can interest me unless it contains a couple of murders on each page or deals with the horrors unnameable and unaccountable that leer down from the external universes.

>> No.13282422

>>13282408
I like them equally, but I've only read The Road and Blood Meridian by McCarthy.

>> No.13282423

>>13282417
Sounds interesting. What’re your top books?

>> No.13282426

>>13281572
It's an opinion that I respect although I don't particularly share. It's not about agreeing.

>> No.13282429 [DELETED] 
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13282429

>>13282417
You must purify your mind of defilement by reading some wholesome picture books. If I could, I would lock you in a cage and force you to read high-quality picture books that express the divine light. I would be doing this for your own good. You resist the cleansing light, for you fetishize the darkness.

>> No.13282431

>>13282423
Fanged Noumena
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
the list could go on

>> No.13282438

>>13282417
how do you feel about Celine

>> No.13282442

>>13282431
please go on, whats your top 10?

>> No.13282449

>>13282442
He means that the list could go on if he reads more books.

>> No.13282452

>>13282431
I recommend Lautremont's Maldoror and Hanns Heinz Ewers' Sorceror's Apprentice because you said, "Nothing can interest me unless it contains a couple of murders on each page or deals with the horrors unnameable and unaccountable..."

However, it is important to also understand the light, no matter how frail it is. Reading high quality picture books or children's literature like Moomins can also point to the light of Ohrmazd.

>> No.13282561

>>13282431
>Arthur Golden Pym
Based & Hollow-earth-pilled

>> No.13282749

>This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.

>> No.13282774

>>13281895
All great writers have autism.

>> No.13282847

>>13282749
unironically true

>> No.13282918

>>13282749
One is vacuous and fleeting, the other world-changing and apocalyptic (in the original sense of the word)

>> No.13282946

tfw too dumb to get Proust

>> No.13283335

>>13282323
I literally finished The Bear right before posting that.

And even when he's writing about the daily lives of rednecks he still can't go two sentences without invoking some grandiose struggle between past and present or whatever.

>> No.13283347

>>13282847
>>13282918
And yet you think about women far more than you think about war

>> No.13283387

>>13282918
the feelings of women in drawing rooms often outlast wars

>> No.13283394

>>13283347
I don't know. The older I get the less I care about the opposite sex.

Thank god.

>> No.13283537

>>13282401
Look at the OP pic, he's too ugly to be an actor from Brokeback Mountain.