R.I.P. Cormac McCarthy

[dws1982]

I think McCarthy can be easy to dismiss as nihilistic because he traffics in dark stories and themes. I guess he may be easy to dismiss as well because his stories are often so masculine, but I think it's beautiful in the way he finds small spots of hope and grace notes in a dark world, akin to Flannery O'Connor. Both the dark and the light work together and in conversation with each other in my opinion and one doesn't work without the other.

I listened to the This Had Oscar Buzz episode on The Counselor yesterday, which of course was his only original screenplay, I don't think it's possible to misread McCarthy to a greater degree than they do in that episode, who they dismissed as a Taylor Sheridan-level crime writer who hides behind as dime store philosophy and needs filmmakers like the Coens and Ridley Scott (lol!) to make his stuff really "work". They also try to blame McCarthy for the negative media depictions of Mexico (specifically depicting it as a cartel-land,) and as someone who lives and works in a community with a large Mexican-immigrant population, I am interested in that discussion, but McCarthy is not the person to throw that discussion on, because No Country and The Counselor are the only works of his that deal with cartels, and his depictions of Mexico in The Border Trilogy is written by someone who clearly has affection for it. All of which makes me question if they've ever really read anything of McCarthy's.

[danfrank]

I read The Road when it came out, and I’ve always meant to read more of his works, but have also had some reluctance. The Road’s writing was beautiful, impeccable, but the journey of reading it was incredibly dark. There was also a tenderness and humanity to it that kept me reading, but ultimately I left it feeling like I didn’t want to go back to that place again.

I know The Road is particularly harrowing with its post apocalyptic setting, but McCarthy’s reputation is for being pretty dark in general. What draws you to his work, dws? There’s a part of me that wants nudging.

[dws1982]

I've never seen it, but I know Billy Bob Thornton considered what Weinstein did to All the Pretty Horses the big disappointment of his career. Apparently based on a nearly four hour workprint, Weinstein (who was only supposed to have international rights) took back domestic rights to the film, cut it down to two hours, and fired the composer. Thornton has said he has his cut of the film, which is around two hours, forty minutes and post-Weinstein Miramax offered to put it out on DVD, but he declined in deference to original composer Daniel Lanois who actually owned the rights to the score and was reluctant to license it out.

No Country for Old Men is often considered one of his "lesser" novels, but I read it in about two days, and there's a reason the (great) film follows it very closely.

If anyone wants to read any of his work, I would not start with Blood Meridian, maybe All the Pretty Horses or No Country for Old Men. Not because of their films (All the Pretty Horses was cut into something very different from the novel), but they're probably good gateways. And if you like Horses, you could go the rest of the way into the Border Trilogy, although fair warning, The Crossing and maybe Cities of the Plain (I read them all as one) has a fair amount of untranslated Spanish.

[Big Magilla]

Done.

[dws1982]

This might be better placed the literature sub-forum. He was a giant in American literature. I think I love The Border Trilogy the most.

[Big Magilla]

The No Country for Old Men author was 89.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/book ... -dead.html