Bookshares

Scott Esposito, of The Quarterly Conversation and Conversational Reading (his own blog), wrote this essay on Cormac McCarthy’s body of work — an essay that is so impressive in scope and substance that I feel like a jackass trying to settle on an adequate superlative with which to praise it. I’ll say this: I read it in full, bookmarked it, and printed out the entire 20 pages to keep on my shelf. Then I navigated to Amazon.com and ordered Suttree, in spite of my loud proclamations that, having finished Blood Meridian (as I’ve mentioned a few hundred times on my other blog), I had  “gotten” McCarthy and “really never need to read him again lol.”

McCarthy is a difficult writer, stylistically and philosophically, but when there is such illuminating, thoughtful criticism out there, it’s much harder to give up. If you have any interest in McCarthy (and you don’t mind spoilers) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read this.