Cormac McCarthy: American Canticles

by Kenneth Lincoln

This book is a guide to Cormac McCarthy's canon from The Road to All the Pretty Horses, delving into the dominant themes in his work, his influences from Faulkner to Dante, and the current cultural debates his books have figured into.

Genres: Nonfiction

205 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 2008

Reviews

[C.G. Fewston · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great detailed summary of all of Cormac McCarthy's works, adding specific themes to help better understand the Cormac canticles.

[Honor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Native American scholar Kenneth Lincoln provides a breakneck compilation detailing the themes, influences and debates of McCarthy’s work. A ‘shrewd chapter-by-chapter reading’ of the author’s oeuvre, Lincoln attempts to cover the vast and ongoing division of McCarthy criticism in chapters of less than twenty pages and as such his coverage can only be surface level at best and reductive at worst. His chapter on Blood Meridian is particularly problematic in its cursory discussion of, by any other critic listed, one of McCarthy’s most resonant novels. Lacking footnotes, it can be difficult to differentiate Lincoln’s observations from insights he has loosely sourced in his ‘Selected Criticism’ pages. Save for the occasional astute line (one of Lincoln’s main studies is poetry and as such his analysis can read more purple than clear) Lincoln’s chapters are digested better as whistle-stop summaries than as a source of any original criticism.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't really know what this book was when I got it, but I am glad I read it. I have never read anything like this. It tells a lot about the author himself, apparently a man who is happy to let his writing speak for him, not share the spotlight with his stories. I also now know exactly what each story is about and every possible spoiler. I still want to read his books. I think I will need to balance his books with something happy and silly, he doesn't seem to do happily ever after. These are raw, painful, honest stories that show life's darker side. I can't wait to begin my journey with Mr. McCarthy.

[Abdul Alhazred · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to orient yourself in McCarthy I don't think you could do better than this. It covers nearly all of his work in essays that are short, but cover both the content and talks about the themes and analysis on the stories. If you want to do a deep dive on any one particular book, this won't do it with such limited space for each title (a scant 11 to deal with Blood Meridian for instance). However, it's also an extremely readable overview, which deeper academic work often is not (I've read a few of these now).
The selected criticism reference is useful for deeper research as well.