Cormac McCarthy's definition of literature.

[jesse_custer]

From a New York Times article (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DA163EF93AA25757C0A9649582 60&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all) on Cormac McCarthy:


His list of those whom he calls the "good writers" -- Melville, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner -- precludes anyone who doesn't "deal with issues of life and death." Proust and Henry James don't make the cut. "I don't understand them," he says. "To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange."

The implication from this quote is that McCarthy defines literature as writing that deals with issues of life and death.

First thing's first: McCarthy's writing suggests that he lives up to what he believes. Blood Meridian is a commentary on how people live off the deaths of others. The Road attempts to give us a reason to continue living even when death is all around us. No Country For Old Men follows a Sheriff whose life is a failure in a violent postmodern world.

When I first read McCarthy's idea, I started thinking about all the literature I love. Edgar Allan Poe. Ernest Hemingway. Hunter S. Thompson. Irwin Shaw. Every writer I love seems to fall under McCarthy's definition of literature.

I have two questions for everyone.

1. What do you think about McCarthy's statements?

2. Can you think of any "literature" you enjoy that McCarthy would not consider literature?

[Slam_Bradley]

1. He sounds like a pretentious git.

2. The vast majority of what I read wouldn't meet his criteria. I suspect I'll still sleep at night.

[Agent Helix]

I find whenever you ask a writer to define literature, he'll give a definition of literature that no one else would use.

So whatever.

[Michael P]

Well, his definition is pretty damn vague, and I have a hard time seeing where writers like Proust and James don't fit into it.

Also, I think it's pretty specious to base the definition on subject matter rather then on the quality of the writing.

[Agent Helix]

And yeah, that is pretty pretentious, not to mention presumptuous. I like McCarthy, but he's not the be all and end all of prose.

[jesse_custer]

Well, this isn't about McCarthy being the Ultimate Authority anyway.

My feelings are somewhat in line with Michael P. I'm not sure how most writing wouldn't fall into McCarthy's definition.

But Michael's post brings me to another question: Is literature defined by quality?

[jesse_custer]

2. The vast majority of what I read wouldn't meet his criteria. I suspect I'll still sleep at night.

But would you consider the vast majority "literature" or just fun reading?

[Grazzt]

Well, his definition is pretty damn vague, and I have a hard time seeing where writers like Proust and James don't fit into it.

Yeah, I mean didn't James write "The Turn of the Screw", a story dealing with ghosts and a governess' attempts to protect her charges? How does that not count as dealing with life and death?

[Gothos]

And yeah, that is pretty pretentious, not to mention presumptuous. I like McCarthy, but he's not the be all and end all of prose.

I don't think he's being pretentious as long as he's saying that James and Proust are simply "strange" to him and that they're not writing about what he considers important.

It depends what you look at too, since DAISY MILLER does certainly involve life and death.

[Slam_Bradley]

But would you consider the vast majority "literature" or just fun reading?


That kind of brings us back to what is literature? Is it simply the art of expression through written word? Is there some connotation of quality? Both are dictionary definitions of the same word.

Overall, yeah, they're probably just fun reading. But how many critics have to dance on the head of a pin before Dashiell Hammett becomes "Literature?"

[Sound Silence]

"Issues of life and death" is kinda broad.

I mean, I'd be hard pressed to find a book without someone living or dying.

Maybe "Toy Story" if you took out the real people.

[jesse_custer]

That kind of brings us back to what is literature? Is it simply the art of expression through written word? Is there some connotation of quality? Both are dictionary definitions of the same word.

Overall, yeah, they're probably just fun reading. But how many critics have to dance on the head of a pin before Dashiell Hammett becomes "Literature?"

I am aware of the two definitions, but your last sentence seems to say that it's neither, which I can agree with. Literature often means what a bunch of scholars have jacked off to.

[Sound Silence]

I am aware of the two definitions, but your last sentence seems to say that it's neither, which I can agree with. Literature often means what a bunch of scholars have jacked off to.

I hate making accusations of pretention, but you pretty much summed it up.

I still can't discern my professors' distinctions of "literary" fiction and "genre" fiction (like, wtf, everything has a genre, guys).

I mean, there's an obvious difference in quality between say, the kind of books they teach in your English classes, and some cheap romance novel, but what irks me is when you have a work of fiction that has just the same qualities, the same depth of character and theme, or even more so, but it's not considered "literature" because it's got "spacemen and giant robots", or because it focuses primarily on being a source of comedy or entertainment.

I don't want to say that the term literature is pretentious and boring, because a lot of stuff the scholar jack off to is really good.
But I'm just saying that the common folk's entertainment fluff novel is no less capable of being literature in the hands of a good writer.

[Bradley]

Well, I do think there's a distinction to be made between literature and other forms of writing (like genre fiction), but I still don't care for McCarthy's definition. It seems to me that any type of writing is going to be about life-- assuming there's a narrative inhabited by characters or people. It won't all be literature, though. On the other hand, literary writers may choose to not write about death-- nobody dies in "Hills Like White Elephants" or "The Lady With the Dog" or The Tempest, but these works are still "literature," I think.

Of course, it's possible I'm being too literal in this understanding of what McCarthy means by "matters of life and death." Maybe he's just suggesting that literature needs to have something to say to and about people who actually live and die in the real world, and the literature that he doesn't like is stuff that's too mannered or experimental or that has a style that calls attention to itself at the expense of such insight. I could kinda get behind that definition of literature, I think. But then, what's "too mannered" or "too experimental" is entirely subjective.

[jesse_custer]

Maybe he's just suggesting that literature needs to have something to say to and about people who actually live and die in the real world, and the literature that he doesn't like is stuff that's too mannered or experimental or that has a style that calls attention to itself at the expense of such insight.

Yes, he could have meant that. The idea that literature should connect humankind through that which we all experience: life and/or death.

And couldn't a mystery fall under that? Couldn't a western? Sure, those types of stories are characterized by specific themes and archetypes, but they also deal with life and death.

[Tobias March]

Well it's a fairly personal definition. He's looking to identify the traits he can relate to in other writer's work and how that applies to his own books. The Henry James example is telling. James uses highly condensed, decorative language. Reading Portrait of a Lady felt like wading through molasses. I enjoyed it though, because of the sheer density of structure which could be felt in every sentence. It's about form and style.

I imagine McCarthy would also dislike Nabokov or Martin Amis. It's just what floats his boat really.

[Paul McEnery]

That kind of brings us back to what is literature? Is it simply the art of expression through written word? Is there some connotation of quality? Both are dictionary definitions of the same word.

Overall, yeah, they're probably just fun reading. But how many critics have to dance on the head of a pin before Dashiell Hammett becomes "Literature?"

A more interesting question is "why does anybody consider McCarthy literature or indeed anyone worth paying any attention to at all?".

Take the passage quoted with approval by the NYT:

"The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was."

In the first place, leaving out necessary punctuation doesn't make you comparable to Joyce, it makes you comparable to SuperECWfan on one of his bad days. Many people think of Joyce as the man who wrote without punctuation. They are ignorant morons. That's true of one piece of writing that he did -- the final chapter of Ulysses. And even then, there was a point to it. And it's still not without punctuation anyway. So screw the writer of this stupid article.

In the second place, look at the mess of that first sentence. If it were punctuated correctly, it would become clear that McCarthy has buggered up telling us the action.

After that, there's a lot more of the literary equivalent of truthiness.

"Exploded soundlessly" is an ugly construction -- why "soundlessly" rather than "silently"? -- but in any case what does that actually mean? If they exploded at all, they'll have made a noise, and I'm pretty sure that a mule falling down a ravine and bouncing off the sides makes plenty of goddamn noise.

"it fell through sunlight and through shade" -- well, so what? I guess this is supposed to be poetic and deep or some shit, but does it actually tell us anything at all?

"turning in that lonely void" -- how is a void lonely? For that matter, how is a ravine a void? And if the mule is skittering down the side, he's not turning in a void, is he.

"a sink of cold blue space" -- McCarthy seems to think the mule has fallen upwards into the sky.

"that absolved it forever of memory" -- do what? That just doesn't actually mean anything at all.

"in the mind of any living thing that was" -- as opposed to any living thing that wasn't, I presume. And how on earth is a ravine something that swallows not only the mule but also all memory of the mule, because it just bloody isn't.

I'm pretty sure Hammet never wrote a paragraph as bad as this.

[Sally Sensational]

I think McCarthy's definition of "literature" is a bit like Joyce's definition of "art"; it makes for interesting speculation, discussion, and probably will turn into a great jumping-off point for scads of doctoral theses in modern lit.

I don't think, though, that McCarthy truly intends to change anyone's definition of literature.

Is he being artsy? Yes. A bit pretentious? Absolutely. Does he expect that his views will change those of the mainstream literary community? Nah. His ideas will join the great stream of ideas, for a bit, and then be subsumed into that great stream, resurrected only occasionally by some English grad who's desperately searching for a thesis that EVERYBODY hasn't already written on.

[Tobias March]

See I have the problem that whenever I think of Cormac McCarthy I'm reminded of Owen Wilson in The Royal Tenenbaums.

This definition can only be applied as his own personal criterion as to what is 'literature'. It preconfigures his own sense of what is writing. Any discussion of it should focus on how successful he has been in applying its strictures to himself and how he sees himself in relation to the more 'stylistic', writers.

See also Richard Rorty's argument that all writing must have 'moral content'.

[Bob Violence]

A more interesting question is "why does anybody consider McCarthy literature or indeed anyone worth paying any attention to at all?".

Take the passage quoted with approval by the NYT:

"The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was."

In the first place, leaving out necessary punctuation doesn't make you comparable to Joyce, it makes you comparable to SuperECWfan on one of his bad days. Many people think of Joyce as the man who wrote without punctuation. They are ignorant morons. That's true of one piece of writing that he did -- the final chapter of Ulysses. And even then, there was a point to it. And it's still not without punctuation anyway. So screw the writer of this stupid article.

In the second place, look at the mess of that first sentence. If it were punctuated correctly, it would become clear that McCarthy has buggered up telling us the action.

After that, there's a lot more of the literary equivalent of truthiness.

"Exploded soundlessly" is an ugly construction -- why "soundlessly" rather than "silently"? -- but in any case what does that actually mean? If they exploded at all, they'll have made a noise, and I'm pretty sure that a mule falling down a ravine and bouncing off the sides makes plenty of goddamn noise.

"it fell through sunlight and through shade" -- well, so what? I guess this is supposed to be poetic and deep or some shit, but does it actually tell us anything at all?

"turning in that lonely void" -- how is a void lonely? For that matter, how is a ravine a void? And if the mule is skittering down the side, he's not turning in a void, is he.

"a sink of cold blue space" -- McCarthy seems to think the mule has fallen upwards into the sky.

"that absolved it forever of memory" -- do what? That just doesn't actually mean anything at all.

"in the mind of any living thing that was" -- as opposed to any living thing that wasn't, I presume. And how on earth is a ravine something that swallows not only the mule but also all memory of the mule, because it just bloody isn't.

I'm pretty sure Hammet never wrote a paragraph as bad as this.
Hammet wasn't striving to use language to serve as a special effect. These examples you cite all serve to create the effect of the mule falling. The lack of punctuation provides the rush of the falling mule, the light and sky suggest the camera angles, and the last stuff, well, the mule falling off a canyon, not down a simple flight of stairs.
I've read some of MCarthy's stuff, and it's not all so fancy. I really liked 'The Road', about a man and his son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.
Anyway, if you want real, genuine gobbledygook, try Pynchon.. there's a guy who's in love with the sound of his own typing.

[Tobias March]

Anyway, if you want real, genuine gobbledygook, try Pynchon.. there's a guy who's in love with the sound of his own typing.

Ah but the sequence in Against the Day when Wade's son comes to find his body outside the town of Jehenna is filled with such debauchery of evil and menace.

[Libaax]

To me its all about quality.

Mainstream lit isnt automaticly better than the great authors of genre fiction. Thats only hype of the mainstream papers.

Everything is literature, there are bad lit,good lit.

Sure reading a great wordsmith,prose writer is special.

But thats not only in mainstream lit. There a great writers like that in genre fiction too. Raymond Chandler for example deserve all his rep for his writing ability. Only one example of many.

Also good light,fun reading are important too. I would never read as much as i do if i read heavy literary writers all the time.

[Bradley]

Anyway, if you want real, genuine gobbledygook, try Pynchon.. there's a guy who's in love with the sound of his own typing.

Oh, come on! Pynchon may be dense, but his work is hardly gobbledygook (and it's consistently better-written than the passage Paul referenced, regardless of aesthetic intent). If you had said David Foster Wallace or Jonathan Franzen, then I could have agreed with you (though I think they're both good writers, I can also see how their work seems to reveal a certain smugness), but not Pynchon. No way!

Seriously, the first time I read V. was also the first time I found myself getting noticeably smarter for having read a single book.

And he was great on a mediocre episode of The Simpsons, too.

[Paul McEnery]

Hammet wasn't striving to use language to serve as a special effect. These examples you cite all serve to create the effect of the mule falling.

Oh no they don't. In fact, they do the exact opposite, because I'm left scratching my head as to what exactly is supposed to be happening at all.



The lack of punctuation provides the rush of the falling mule,

Nice try, but no. The lack of punctuation in the first sentence is there to obscure the lazy vagueness of the writing.



the light and sky suggest the camera angles,

No again. If that were a camera angle, we'd be below the mule, and it would be falling out of the blue void rather than into it.


and the last stuff, well, the mule falling off a canyon, not down a simple flight of stairs.

Did the mule skitter down the side, or did it topple into the so wonewy void?



I've read some of MCarthy's stuff, and it's not all so fancy. I really liked 'The Road', about a man and his son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.
Anyway, if you want real, genuine gobbledygook, try Pynchon.. there's a guy who's in love with the sound of his own typing.

Not a fan of Pynchon myself, but you can't say that his use of language back in the day was imprecise.

His dialogue in Vineland though was utter crap.

[Infra-Man]

While I certainly enjoy Cormac McCarthy's work, his definition is pretty vague, though it seems to apply to him and what made him a writer or informed him as a writer. Prior to the quotation cited in this thread, he speaks about how his books are made up from other older books which he read; that, essentially, his work is indebted to the works of others which he very much enjoys, which in his case are ones that deal with issues of life and death.

Like writers' thoughts on what makes a writer, writers' thoughts on what comprises literature seem to speak more about the writer himself or herself, his or her own work, and what is the ideal condition or preoccupation of his or her own work.

Though I do wonder about the idea of life and death as it pertains to this definition of literature. Does he mean it in the urgent sense (i.e., the "Help me, it's a matter of life and death" sense), or that there is some implied or inferred life and death issue or struggle involved in the writing he likes? Is it life and death taken in tandem; that the one ain't literature on its own without the other? It's almost like the phrase needs to be capitalized to impart the importance of the phrase.

I mean, one of my favorite short stories I've read in the last few years is "Builders" by Richard Yates, and that that story isn't about Issues of Life and Death, if I'm thinking about it in some grand sense. It's more a story about hopes and disappointments. John Cheever's "Reunion," another fav, is about fathers and sons (though there is, at least I infer, an unspoken death that would be the triggering event for the narrator of the story to share his story). A lot of Raymond Carver's stories tend to be more about damaged domestic lives rather than Issues of Life and Death. Donald Barthelme's work seems playful and about a lot of things, and his work is definitely literature, but something McCarthy would consider strange (and rightfully so). And yet, John Irving's novels, which I unabashedly love, are a lot about issues of life and death, though they're also about lust and parent-child relationships, and surrogate parents. So I guess, yeah, the definition is vague, but the definition is also solely McCarthy's.

But in a larger sense, literature's a weird thing, really. Some works are born literature, some achieve literatureness, and others have literatureness thrust upon them. In the long run, quality seems to be a major signifier of what is or will be literature, though not necessarily that it will be read or remembered.

[Infra-Man]

On the other hand, literary writers may choose to not write about death-- nobody dies in "Hills Like White Elephants" or "The Lady With the Dog" or The Tempest, but these works are still "literature," I think.

I'll be that nerd who points out that while no one dies in the story, given what the American and the girl discuss, there is something involving life and death to consider.

[CaptainCanada]

"a sink of cold blue space" -- McCarthy seems to think the mule has fallen upwards into the sky.

Isn't that water, not sky?

[CutterMike]

A more interesting question is "why does anybody consider McCarthy literature or indeed anyone worth paying any attention to at all?".

Take the passage quoted with approval by the NYT:

"The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was."

In the first place, leaving out necessary punctuation doesn't make you comparable to Joyce, it makes you comparable to SuperECWfan on one of his bad days. Many people think of Joyce as the man who wrote without punctuation. They are ignorant morons. That's true of one piece of writing that he did -- the final chapter of Ulysses. And even then, there was a point to it. And it's still not without punctuation anyway. So screw the writer of this stupid article.

In the second place, look at the mess of that first sentence. If it were punctuated correctly, it would become clear that McCarthy has buggered up telling us the action.

After that, there's a lot more of the literary equivalent of truthiness.

"Exploded soundlessly" is an ugly construction -- why "soundlessly" rather than "silently"? -- but in any case what does that actually mean? If they exploded at all, they'll have made a noise, and I'm pretty sure that a mule falling down a ravine and bouncing off the sides makes plenty of goddamn noise.

"it fell through sunlight and through shade" -- well, so what? I guess this is supposed to be poetic and deep or some shit, but does it actually tell us anything at all?

"turning in that lonely void" -- how is a void lonely? For that matter, how is a ravine a void? And if the mule is skittering down the side, he's not turning in a void, is he.

"a sink of cold blue space" -- McCarthy seems to think the mule has fallen upwards into the sky.

"that absolved it forever of memory" -- do what? That just doesn't actually mean anything at all.

"in the mind of any living thing that was" -- as opposed to any living thing that wasn't, I presume. And how on earth is a ravine something that swallows not only the mule but also all memory of the mule, because it just bloody isn't.

I'm pretty sure Hammet never wrote a paragraph as bad as this.
Actually, Paul, while I agree with you that that last line is the pits, I have to disagree with much of your criticism, for one reason:

When I read "western rim" and "down the canyon wall" I didn't think "ravine", and I'm not sure where you got that from. I immediately thought about the west rim of the Grand Canyon.

Once you have that image, and the fact that it's evening, then what you have is something falling from the last sunlight of the day into the blue of evening shadow, which is hiding the bottom of the canyon -- disappearing into a featureless blue void.

I suspect that the NYT writer picked a colorful paragraph without thinking about the fact that not everybody would know the set-up.

Which doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't slightly empurpled prose; just that it's equally not necessarily as bad as you're making it out to be.

...Except for that last sentence... THAT one's some bad hash!
--------------------

ETA -- Or, of course, I could be making assumptions and it really IS a little ravine... I dunno... That's just how I read it.

[joe27]

books are hard.

[Infra-Man]

books are hard.

Softcovers aren't

[joe27]

foiled again

[CutterMike]

Ooooohh...!

Foil covers...


...with those rainbow patterns embossed in them...?



I love those.



They're shi-i-i-i-ny!

[Bradley]

I'll be that nerd who points out that while no one dies in the story, given what the American and the girl discuss, there is something involving life and death to consider.

Well, it's not literally a matter of life and death, which was my point. The girl's hesitancy doesn't seem to have much to do with concerns involving physical risk-- I think her line "I don't care about me" refers more to her state of mind than any concern about a botched operation. I think we're to understand that the man's understanding-- "it's an awful simple operation"-- is correct, as far as it goes. But he fails to take into account the pyschological toll it will take on her.

Unless you meant that the abortion itself is a form of death, which I simply disagree with.

[PatrickG]

Well, I do think there's a distinction to be made between literature and other forms of writing (like genre fiction), but I still don't care for McCarthy's definition. It seems to me that any type of writing is going to be about life-- assuming there's a narrative inhabited by characters or people. It won't all be literature, though. On the other hand, literary writers may choose to not write about death-- nobody dies in "Hills Like White Elephants" or "The Lady With the Dog" or The Tempest, but these works are still "literature," I think.


"Hills Like White Elephants" is about an abortion, death before life and the life that follows it.

"The Tempest" is about one man's manipulation of life, about grasping at the reins of life through an alchemist magic. Caliban as chained flesh, Ariel as chained spirit, the daughter and the shipwreck -- all are manipulated by an old man who gives up the reins at the end of his life. In a sense, its a hopeful and whimsical take on the release of death and the grasping need for control that is life.

[jesse_custer]

"Exploded soundlessly" is an ugly construction -- why "soundlessly" rather than "silently"? -- but in any case what does that actually mean? If they exploded at all, they'll have made a noise, and I'm pretty sure that a mule falling down a ravine and bouncing off the sides makes plenty of goddamn noise.

The explosion of the panniers would be muffled by the mule and commotion.


"it fell through sunlight and through shade" -- well, so what? I guess this is supposed to be poetic and deep or some shit, but does it actually tell us anything at all?

It's not supposed to be deep. McCarthy just likes simple natural details like these, a la Hemingway.


"turning in that lonely void" -- how is a void lonely? For that matter, how is a ravine a void? And if the mule is skittering down the side, he's not turning in a void, is he.

A void is an empty space, and a ravine is a deep hollow in the earth. He skitters then turns.


"a sink of cold blue space" -- McCarthy seems to think the mule has fallen upwards into the sky.

It is the evening. Cold blue space is darkness. Obviously the ravine, or whatever, is deep and the men can no longer see the mule.


"that absolved it forever of memory" -- do what? That just doesn't actually mean anything at all.

McCarthy often uses archaic language and cryptic figures of speech. It makes more sense when you read the whole story.


"in the mind of any living thing that was" -- as opposed to any living thing that wasn't, I presume. And how on earth is a ravine something that swallows not only the mule but also all memory of the mule, because it just bloody isn't.

Southern talk, my friend. Again, will make sense if you read the whole story.

[Bradley]

"Hills Like White Elephants" is about an abortion, death before life and the life that follows it.

Well, no. I mean, if we're going to say that there's such a thing as "death before life," then I think we have to agree that McCarthy's original criteria is so ridiuclously vague that it can be applied to any type of writing. Which I don't really have a problem with, but even if we agree on that, I think this story is actually much more concerned with the death of love or the death of a relationship than it is with the potential "death" of a fetus-- the unintended pregnancy has caused their relationship to change, and brought them to a point where they won't be able to reach consensus (like when they would, presumably, debate where to go next or what drink to try). It's the transformed relationship that's the focus of the story, not "Should she get an abortion or not?"


"The Tempest" is about one man's manipulation of life, about grasping at the reins of life through an alchemist magic. Caliban as chained flesh, Ariel as chained spirit, the daughter and the shipwreck -- all are manipulated by an old man who gives up the reins at the end of his life. In a sense, its a hopeful and whimsical take on the release of death and the grasping need for control that is life.

Well, again, no-- but just the very end. Prospero gives up his power at the end of his career as a magician-- not the end of his life. Now, plenty of directors have chosen to interpret the play as a meditation on aging, and I can see how one might conclude that Prospero's "freedom from the Island" can stand for "freedom from this mortal coil," but it's not inherent in the text-- that's just one of several possible interpretations. So, again, The Tempest, as a text, is not concerned with death-- at least not in a literal sense.