The tale of the enemy padrino | From Cormac McCarthy’s novel Cities of the Plain
Why would a man want an enemy for a padrino? For the best of reasons. Or the worst. This man of whom we speak was a dying man when his lastborn came into the world. A son. His only son. So what did he...
View ArticleAll games aspire to the condition of war | From McCarthy’s Blood Meridian
The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Suttree, Cormac McCarthy’s Grand Synthesis of American Literature
In his 1992 interview with The New York Times, Cormac McCarthy said, “The ugly fact is books are made out of books. The novel depends for its life on the novels that have been written.” McCarthy’s...
View ArticleSelections from One-Star Amazon Reviews of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian
[Editorial note: The following citations come from one-star Amazon reviews Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian. I’ve preserved the reviewers’ original punctuation and spelling. More one-star Amazon...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Books are made out of books”| Blood Meridian and Samuel Chamberlain
In his 1992 interview with The New York Times, Cormac McCarthy said, “The ugly fact is books are made out of books. The novel depends for its life on the novels that have been written.” McCarthy’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A life obscene | On Cormac McCarthy’s early novel Child of God
Overflow, 1978, Andrew Wyeth In ancient Greek drama, acts of violence or sex were “ob skena,” relegated to offstage. Thus, the horrific violence of Oedipus gouging out his eyes is not shown, but rather...
View Article“It was a lone tree burning on the desert”| Blood Meridian’s Moral Core
Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian begins as a strange, violent picaresque bildungsroman, detailing the adventures of a teenage runaway known only as “the kid.” When the Kid falls in with John Glanton’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Riff on the death of Cormac McCarthy
We were about an hour north of the border, driving a rented car from Quebec City to a hiker hostel our friends own in Maine, when I got a text from my uncle: “It seems your favorite author has died…”...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Illustration for Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses — Marshall Arisman
An illustration by Marshall Arisman (1937-1922) that accompanied a March 1992 excerpt of Cormac McCarthy’s novel All the Pretty Horses that appeared in Esquire.
View ArticleClik here to view.
Books acquired, 13 Oct. 2023
I couldn’t pass on a used copy of the second edition of Steven Weisenburger’s A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion even though it ate up most of my trade credit. I used the first edition of the Companion...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Illustration for Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses — Marshall Arisman
An illustration by Marshall Arisman (1937-1922) that accompanied a March 1992 excerpt of Cormac McCarthy’s novel All the Pretty Horses that appeared in Esquire.
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Questions for the quaking ovoid of lamplight | Passage from (and a little...
A clear night over south Knoxville. The lights of the bridge bobbed in the river among the small and darkly cobbled isomers of distant constellations. Tilting back in his chair he framed questions for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Suttree steals a police cruiser
Somnolent city, cold and dolorous in the rain, the lights bleeding in the streets. Cutting through the alley off Commerce he saw a man huddled among the trash and he knelt to see about him. The face...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Biblioklept Does Atlanta (Books acquired, some time last week)
Last week, the wife and I drove five hours north to Atlanta, Georgia where we stayed five days in the Cabbagetown neighborhood. Our ostensible purpose was an anniversary trip focused around a Slowdive...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Scalphunters | An excerpt from an early draft of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood...
The Spring 1980 issue of Northwestern University’s literary journal TriQuarterly included an early version of a chapter from Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian. The TriQuarterly excerpt, published...
View Article