The Style Is Father of the Man
harpers.orgDon't care for the style of this article
The way Harold Bloom talked about him, there must really be something there. But I'm squeamish. What to do?
My first introduction was The Passenger, which I greatly enjoyed. Actually it was probably some HN comment that finally got me to buy it. Obviously I followed it up with Stella Maris and his article The Kekule Problem, also great.
Then I started Blood Meridian and DNF’d it, which I almost never do. I’m sure it pays off etc. and maybe I’ll come back to it eventually, but I just didn’t see the point and decided it wasn’t for me at the time. It’s obviously entirely awful in the wanton cruelty and violence, but more importantly I found it very tedious as a non-native speaker. I respect McCarthy’s style and the details were clearly well-researched, so it’s totally on me, but between the extremely specific vocabulary and the confusing paragraphs that require a good amount of concentration and thought, the difficulty wasn’t worth it for me. I’m sure I’m doing the book injustice and maybe some interesting character or great revelation or deep connection or romantic sensibility was just waiting in the next chapter, but you know…
I do have All The Pretty Horses lying around, might actually get to it soon.
Anyway, unless maybe you’re already super into the setting, I would probably suggest not starting with Blood Meridian.
All The Pretty Horses is probably the most approachable and satisfying of the trilogy. But also—McCarthy is not easy to read. It's not terribly difficult either if you proceed slowly and look up words you've never encountered, but you are correct it takes a great deal of concentration.
The violence of McCarthy is so structural that to me it loses some of its luridness. I struggle through violence in other works, but with McCarthy it presents like a function of the landscape he's exploring. Not that it isn't shocking. Maybe to say that it is purposeful and worthwhile, rather than played for titillation?