![]() ![]() Werner Herzog Reads From Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty HorsesĬormac McCarthy Explains Why He Worked Hard at Not Working: How 9-to-5 Jobs Limit Your Creative Potential ![]() But lovers of his work may find renewed appreciation for his streamlined syntax. For those who find McCarthy sometimes maddeningly opaque, this statement of intent may not help clarify things much. McCarthy, enamored of the prose style of the Neoclassical English writers but annoyed by their over-reliance on semicolons, remembers paring down an essay “by Swift or something” and hearing his professor say, “this is very good, this is exactly what’s needed.” Encouraged, he continued to simplify, working, he says to Oprah, “to make it easier, not to make it harder” to decipher his prose. Early modern English is notoriously cluttered with confounding punctuation, which did not become standardized until comparatively recently. McCarthy deems most other punctuation uses needless.Īside from his restrictive rationing of the colon, McCarthy declares his stylistic convictions with simplicity: “I believe in periods, in capitals, in the occasional comma, and that’s it.” It’s a discipline he learned first in a college English class, where he worked to simplify 18th century essays for a textbook the professor was editing. The colon, one might say, genuflects to a very specific logical development, enumeration. Like, these are the reasons.” This is a specific occasion that does not present itself often. Of the colon, he says: “You can use a colon, if you’re getting ready to give a list of something that follows from what you just said. Speaking of writers who have imitated him, he says, “You really have to be aware that there are no quotation marks, and write in such a way as to guide people as to who’s speaking.” Otherwise, confusion reigns.Ĭareful McCarthy reader Oprah says she “saw a colon once” in McCarthy’s prose, but she never encountered a semicolon. McCarthy stresses that this way of writing dialogue requires particular deliberation. In his Oprah interview, he says MacKinlay Kantor was the first writer he read who left them out. ![]() So what “weird little marks” does McCarthy allow, or not, and why? Below is a brief summary of his stated rules for punctuation: I mean, if you write properly you shouldn’t have to punctuate. ![]() There’s no reason to blot the page up with weird little marks. James Joyce is a good model for punctuation. Joyce’s influence dominates, and in discussion of punctuation, McCarthy stresses that his minimalist approach works in the interest of maximum clarity. But in his very rare 2008 televised interview with Oprah Winfrey, McCarthy cites two other antecedents: James Joyce and forgotten novelist MacKinlay Kantor, whose Andersonville won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955. Below, we’re revisiting a favorite post from our archive that focuses on punctuation, a distinctive element of McCarthy’s writing.Ĭormac McCarthy has been-as one 1965 reviewer of his first novel, The Orchard Tree, dubbed him-a “disciple of William Faulkner.” He makes admirable use of Faulknerian traits in his prose, and I’d always assumed he inherited his punctuation style from Faulkner as well. Note: Today novelist Cormac McCarthy ( All the Pretty Horses, The Road and No Country for Old Men) passed away at the age of 89. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |