Cormac McCarthy, Author of ‘No Country for Old Men,’ Dies at 89
www.hollywoodreporter.com
He won a Pulitzer for 'The Road,' had his first best-seller with 'All the Pretty Horses' and wrote the screenplay for Ridley Scott's 'The Counselor.'
  • sin_free_for_00_days@lemmy.oneEnglish
    6·
    2 years ago

    I’ve been an avid reader for my life. Hell, way back decades ago, when I went to University, I majored in English Literature. For whatever reason, I’ve been scared of reading his books. I’ve just read/heard too many “It was great, I’ll never read it again” type reviews. Made me think that reading one (or more) of his works would be similar to watching Graveyard of the Fireflies.

    • dave_r@reddthat.comEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Start with Sutree. It’s laugh out loud funny in places, and doesn’t have any of the existencial dread of The Road or exquisite horror of Blood Meridian.

      The Border Trilogy next, then No Country.

      I’ve read Blood Meridian 3 times - waiting to get my book club hooked for the 4th. It’s… Amazing.

      I don’t think I’ll read The Road again.

    • coldredlight@beehaw.orgEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      Blood Meridian is absolutely incredible. If you love literature it’s worth the suffering for sure. The audiobook version is a great experience too, the narrator completely nails it and brings the dense language alive.

      • Numba2Thrilla@beehaw.orgEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        definitely worth the suffering haha. My suggestion to anyone who wants to read his material, specifically the Border Trilogy or Blood Meridian, read them on an eBook reader. Something that you can copy/paste the parts that in spanish. I did a re-read of his work a few years ago this way, and it made his already difficult reading experience much easier being able to Google search the non-English portions

  • Numba2Thrilla@beehaw.orgEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    Damn, sad to hear. Incredibly unique writer. Heard he was working on the screenplay for Blood Meridian recently with John Hillcoat, I hope they were able to get some good work done on that, I would love to see that book attempted on the big screen. RIP

    • Faceman🇦🇺@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      There have been many attempts to adapt blood meridian, I still cant see how it would work unless it was like 6 hours long but I would love to see it given a real, high budget, big name attempt.

      It would be a very difficult watch, but sometimes thats a good thing.

      • Numba2Thrilla@beehaw.orgEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        Absolutely, I don’t know how it could be crammed into a single film. Maybe a two-parter, but even then it seems too ambitious. That’s why its such a tragedy, as the original author was working on a screenplay for it. He’d be the man to get the job done. And John Hillcoat directed the film version of The Road and he also did The Proposition, so I feel like with the two of them working on it it’s closer than ever before to being a reality. Here’s hoping for a good film outcome to arguably his best work.

    • rycee@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      Blood Meridian is a pretty unforgettable read. I didn’t really know anything about it when starting it beside it being a western and known as a book worth reading. Let’s just say that it was quite different from the stereotypical western that I expected. It’ll be very interesting to see how the movie turns out.

      Also read The Road a long time ago and for whatever reason I never realized that he authored them both, although I should have expected based on the bleakness of them both.

  • Gilsman@beehaw.orgEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    Such a shame, I read the road years ago and it still haunts me. Terrific writer. Not been able to bring myself round to watch the film adaptations