Thread 24727688

>He took out the plastic bottle of water and unscrewed the cap and held it out and the boy came and took it and stood drinking. He lowered the bottle and got his breath and he sat in the road and crossed his legs and drank again. Then he handed the bottle back and the man drank and screwed the cap back on and rummaged through the pack. The ate a can of white beans, passing it between them, and he threw the empty tin into the woods.


Can someone explain what's great about prose like this? To me it reads like it was written by someone with special needs

>>24727688 (OP)
It's not great. Welcome to mass appeal.
Writing for so many and yet to do it still greatly. Few have ever accomplished this. Hemingway did pretty good that communist rat bastard.

it’s rhythmic

>>24727704
Good catch it sort of is. Rythm it has but alas. It sounds as if a child made this. Tip tapping away. Simple words make simple song. I could write as such pages twenty thousand or more. But OP pray tell, why have you posted this poor old souls picture? Surely a man in such a state as he, deserveth not to be shown for pithy sport?

has anyone else noticed that the paintings from Picasso’s blue period use a lot of blue?

>>24727688 (OP)
guess he got the last laugh

>>24727688 (OP)
It’s a minimalistic, simple passage of his, more strictly functional and meant to move the plot along.
Along with this, he has a higher, more poetic register. And then there’s his dialogue. Usually the praise of his style refers to the parts in a higher register.
McCarthy is notable as a stylist, in one way, because he has both this minimalistic register (very similar to Hemingway, down to the use of polysyndeton, or many conjunctions instead of commas, “and…and…and…” as you say), and a more baroque register.

Polysyndeton bro. I haven't read The Road but I've heard it's not great. Really liked The Passenger and Stella Maris, though that was more because of the conceptual underpinnings and the abstractions grappled with than the prose. There were a couple pretty passages here and there, and great conversations. There's one moving dialog where the guy who always calls the protagonist squire talks about the similarities between the two, how they both preferred worlds made of paper over the real one as children, holding in their hearts the words of men long gone. There's also some great stuff about the breakdown of language up to the "judas hole" in Stella Maris. Again, more engaging because of the concepts than the form, which as far as I can tell isn't doing anything super novel or interesting.

>>24727688 (OP)
It's simple. He disliked the comma cause he didn't like how it looked aesthetically.

There's nothing great or even good about it. It's a stylistic gimmick designed to obscure from midwit novelty-addicts the fact that there is no substance to his writing at all.

and is underused by most authors

>>24727688 (OP)
It's a rhetorical device called Polysyndeton, and it's supposed invoke a rhythmical and biblical sound (the King James Bible style).

>>24727688 (OP)
The prose mimics spoken language. The fact that you have your jimmies rustled by merely seeing it in print should be cause for concern.

>>24729938
based, English major know-it-all

>>24729938
People say this all the time but imagine how tedious and boring the King James Bible would be if McCarthy wrote it.

There's nothing great about it but you can still larp about liking it here.

Why the authors that get the most shitposts here are the ones progressives think are fascist dogwhistles?

it's a cool schtick imo. lends the prose a certain coarse, barbaric flavor. which is what his stories tend to ask for.

>>24730170
If I met somebody who spoke like that I would think they're a boring fuck, possibly brain damaged.

>>24730902
>people who don't pause during speech to indicate punctuation are WRONG
You have never left your room I think

>>24730388
His prose isn't like the KJV at all and only retards who haven't read it make that comparison, if anything it's the fucking NJKV (clunky and borderline unreadable)

like bitching about Céline's ...

>>24730910
You have it backwards somehow. People constantly pause when they're speaking and punctuation helps convey that in writing.

>>24728175
>no substance
The whole point of why he’s bad is that the substance of his writing is too unsubtle, too in-your-face obvious. The fact you’ve somehow missed this is fucking hilarious, more embarrassing than admitting to enjoy that drivel.

>>24730914
mccarthy's prose has a bit of a kjv vibe but it's not the "ands" i'm talking about.

he uses commas in the orchard keeper and does that thing where you just use commas with no "and" substituting the last comma in a sentence. and honestly? the and and and thing sounds better.

>>24730923
argue your case. i don't ever find mccarthy inelegantly obvious *or* over-subtle. quote an actual passage and tell us what's so grossly obvious about it.

Piper sit thee down and write
In a book that all may read—
So he vanish'd from my sight.
And I pluck'd a hollow reed.

And I made a rural pen,
And I stain'd the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear

>>24730975
You don’t see what’s unsubtle about jamming literary references in every chapter? If you need to be outright told that the scene of the judge at the volcano was referencing paradise lost, you’re a genuine retard.

The entire book is a desperate attempt to appeal to the western literary canon. It’s obvious to everyone who reads it….and it’s the most common critique of the book and McCarthy in general. You're a retard that gets filtered by run-on sentences and descriptions of corncobby desert.

>>24730997
>the scene of the judge at the volcano was referencing paradise lost

oh. okay. what else?

He went to the catalog and clicked on the post form and then on the get captcha button and began to wait for it to load. While he waited he found a passage and copied and pasted it and found an image of his hated author and attached that to his post also. Then he tried the captcha and it failed for no real reason and so he tried it again and solved it this time and as a final touch he insulted the author like a child and hit post.

It’s meant to imitate the King James Bible which (faithfully translating the Hebrew) uses a lot of conjunctions

>>24731149
lol

>>24731025
He thinks that counts as substance because he's retarded. Pay no heed

>>24731174
Fucking mong.

>>24731149
Actually quite good. Consider as opening salvo in your brutal modern satire.

>>24727688 (OP)

Here:

>zoomba do be dat bap but she thot nah foh sho dis dood blap. motherfuckers. crackerjackaflipabitchastick. piss

Satisfied?

>>24727688 (OP)
Cormac? The greatest

I want to write just like Cormac McCarthy

>>24727688 (OP)
>Can someone explain what's great about prose like this?
easy to read and it perfectly paints the picture in your mind.
it's utilitarian but, thats it's beauty.

>>24727688 (OP)
I've been taught to never write like this.

>>24727688 (OP)
it does sound kinda off but at the same time it has a better flow than when using commas

>>24731149
ok I laughed

>>24727688 (OP)
It’s a stylistic choice making the rhythm of the paragraphs flow in a way that makes the action sound present in the moment.

This focus on the “and” is like a first year drama student telling you Shakespeare had an iambic rhythm. Okay. But he also deliberately breaks that rhythm to change emphasis. He blends it with prose and other modes. McCarthy is trying to achieve an effect with the rhythm of the language, it’s not about “hating commas” or “being like the Bible”.

Faulkner and Hemingway’s battle over the “ten dollar words” has McCarthy landing somewhere in the middle, both using archaic language and obscure words, and simplifying the sentence structure, keeping that terse presence in actions pumping at a steady beat.

Think about why he eliminates the normal “he said” and business surrounding dialogue. What is the /effect/? The simpleton will answer “confusion”, so try a bit harder.

>>24735548
yes yes It IS a stylistic choice we know
Doesn't change the fact that it's a bad choice and reads and sounds and looks like crap