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Aditya

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Aditya is Currently Reading

Aditya is currently reading

Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

by Cormac McCarthy

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in July 2020

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Aditya said: " Did not finish. Quitting 1/3 rd of the way in.

McCarthy writes literature's version of snuff porn. Plain and simple. Sure he sprinkles ten dollar words but you know a snuff porn with Brando is still a snuff porn. This is not bleak or deep just titilla Did not finish. Quitting 1/3 rd of the way in.

McCarthy writes literature's version of snuff porn. Plain and simple. Sure he sprinkles ten dollar words but you know a snuff porn with Brando is still a snuff porn. This is not bleak or deep just titillating. I am dumbfounded that so many readers consider him an original voice. There are two approaches to writing about bleakness. I prefer the first one, McCarthy prefer the second one. Now you decide what you like.

Approach 1 : Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.

Approach 2: Detailed Murder, Detailed Decapitation, Detailed Head Bashing with the butt of a gun. Rinse Repeat. Ohh sometimes for variety's sake detailed head bashing with other blunt objects.

That's the whole book or at least the part I read. No depth in characters, no interesting dialogue, no hint about what characters are thinking. Just pages and pages of descriptive texts about barren landscapes and violence. Not violence as a tool to assist with characterization, not violence as a tool to make the reader feel or relate; because the victim is often a character introduced for the sole purpose of meeting a gruesome death. But simply violence for violence's sake, as an all consuming abstract. Absolute evil is as boring to me as absolute good. So the famous Judge (though I must say he has not come into his own at the point I quit) is as interesting as Superman. Give me moral complexity which McCarthy does not supply here.

It could have worked as a thriller but needed a sense of humor or better plotting. It could have worked as a drama but needed better characters. Now it only works as kindling.

James Ellroy was once quoted saying that he quit McCarthy saying why does this motherfucker not use quotes. And this motherfucker writes pages of Spanish. It is good Elroy quit because if he had continued reading he would have probably asked 'How is this motherfucker considered literature while I am considered a measly crime author?' Read James Ellroy or James Lee Burke (Burke incidentally was also nominated for the Pulitzer which McCarthy won) to see how writers with a much better sense of style (Ellroy) and way better prose (Burke) handle violence. Hint: They don't make it the sole defining feature.

If you want mature bleakness, watch something like The Pawnbroker (1964) or Requiem for a Dream (2000). If you want you bleakness with an air of theatricality/ melodrama chose any of the great modern playwrights from Tennessee Williams to Arthur Miller to Eugene O' Neill to Edward Albee. If that doesn't satisfy you, you want bleakness with a hint of pulp watch They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). Basically don't read this and conclude it says something deep about the human condition because of its bleakness. Because it does neither.

5 years ago I would not have rated a book I did not finish. I would have thought that it is unfair to the author. But I soldiered on for weeks and it is beyond me, I value my time a lot more now and frankly the world is unfair which is something McCarthy would understand. Rating - 1/5 ...more "

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(20%)
"Really struggling with this one, no idea why McCarthy is considered so good" — Jun 29, 2020 03:12AM

Jul 02, 2020 04:19AM · see review

Aditya’s Quotes

“The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.”
― Horace Walpole

tags: comedy, emotions, life, perspective, thinking, tragedy

1608 likes

“Son, never trust a man who doesn’t drink because he’s probably a self-righteous sort, a man who thinks he knows right from wrong all the time. Some of them are good men, but in the name of goodness, they cause most of the suffering in the world. They’re the judges, the meddlers. And, son, never trust a man who drinks but refuses to get drunk. They’re usually afraid of something deep down inside, either that they’re a coward or a fool or mean and violent. You can’t trust a man who’s afraid of himself. But sometimes, son, you can trust a man who occasionally kneels before a toilet. The chances are that he is learning something about humility and his natural human foolishness, about how to survive himself. It’s damned hard for a man to take himself too seriously when he’s heaving his guts into a dirty toilet bowl.”
― James Crumley

tags: cowardice, drinking, humility, morality, philosophy, self-righteousness

297 likes

“But about the gentleman thing.” She waved her glass. “I want to make it plain as the nose on your face. I can stand anything in the book but gentlemen. Because I've spent a lot of time, too much time with them, and I know why gentlemen are what they are. They decide to be that way after they've tried all the real things and flopped at them. They've flopped at women. They've flopped at standing up on their hind legs and acting like men. So they become gentlemen. They've flopped at being individuals. So they say to themselves one fine morning: 'What can I be that's no trouble at all and that doesn't amount to a damned thing, but yet will make everyone look up to me?' The answer's simple. Be a gentleman. Take life flat on your back, cry in private, and then in a well-modulated voice.”
― Elliot Chaze, Black Wings Has My Angel

5 likes

“You go in through double swing doors. Inside the double doors there is a combination PBX and information desk at which sits one of those ageless women you see around municipal offices everywhere in the world. They were never young and will never be old. They have no beauty, no charm, no style. They don't have to please anybody. They are safe. They are civil without ever quite being polite and intelligent and knowledgeable without any real interest in anything. They are what human beings turn into when they trade life for existence and ambition for security.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister

31 likes