On Feb 5, 10:13=A0pm, calvin wrote:
> > Stop re-reading that stuff, incidentally. Jesus, those books are dour
> > (even the good ones). Take a break and read something by Chester
> > Himes . . . or Douglas Coupland . . . or Dawn Powell (Salinger fans
> > would, I think, actually appreciate her genius). Read Philip Roth's
> > 'The Great American Novel' (my favorite book; fiction or nonfiction).
> > 'Blood Meridian', 'Miss Lonelyhearts', 'American Tabloid.' 'Breakfast
> > at Tiffany's'. Anything!!
>
> It never fails. =A0If you defend a writer here, you are thought
> to read only that writer. =A0Apparently you think I've been
> reading Salinger avidly for the past fifty years. =A0I will look
> at the Philip Roth book - sounds interesting. =A0The Cormac
> McCarthy book , I gather, is an extreme bash-America book.
> I already know the Native Americans were done wrong, so
> I'll skip that
******
No, no. Nein, Nyet.
'Blood Meridian' is governed by no ideology; it is not a simplistic,
'Soldier Blue' retread. It's an insanely violent, almost psychotic
vision of the Indian wars (where the Native Americans are every bit as
bloodthirsty and predacious as the Visiting team) rendered in
ceaselessly majestic prose. F'r'instance:
"He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same
to him. He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to
whatever might follow, for he was complete at every hour. Whether his
history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should
cease. He'd long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as
he did that men's destinies are ever given, yet he usurped to contain
within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the
world would be to him, and be his charter written in the urstone
itself he claimed agency and said so, and he'd drive the remorseless
sun on to its final endarkenment as if he'd ordered it all ages since,
before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go
upon them."
I recommend it.
Tom Sutpen |