No one's posted the Oprah interview with Cormac McCarthy to uTube. I went to Oprah's site, the interview's sound and vid were distorted, and did not load in a cohesive or orderly fashion. Oh yeah, then there's the annoying "registration." Why the hell should I have to give them my email address just because I want to watch an interview with my favorite author or access any of Oprah's other fascinating topics? Tell us why, marketing luminaries. Is it because you went to a seminar where someone in an expensive suit told you you might be able to indirectly squeeze a few more dollars out of your target audience by insidiously gathering personal data? ...Go to bugmenot.com when they tell you need to "register" or "sign in."
Ahem. Anyways here is a McCarthy-esque thread that came up when a friend asked what Cormac McCarthy book to get for an inlaw for Xxxmasss. My bud was like "hey what is the best Cormac McCarthy book?"
It's so strange how dark this stuff is, and how gripping somehow.
No Country for Old Men, btw takes place in 1980, yes, 1980. The Cohen brothers did a good job with it, but it was more like a filmic exercise- they got everything down and it worked pretty good- especially the complexity of the plot.
I think as far as handling the odd zen questions of McCarthy they depended on the photography to handle it more than the conflict of the central character. That worked, but still, other characters were developed more thoroughly in the book, and in the book their conflicts meshed with the odd, lifelike, roaming central questions of the book.
What the Cohen bros. faced in the movie is what you face when you turn a book into a movie, typically. You try to have a film that says what the author said but works as a film too, and can be gripping the same way most films are gripping. Nice effort, you should go see this, just go get Claire and just go see it.
Best...Hmm...best.... hmmmmm....
The border trilogy is probably considered his most important work- it's really just 3 books written several years apart that have an interlocking storyline and message. I'd say of all the tough questions McCarthy asks, they are all encapsulated in their most stunning, thought-provoking, disturbing form in the Border Trilogy, especially in All the Pretty Horses.
Blood Meridian would have to run a close second, even compared to the trilogy.
I think the strangest and most puzzling thing about this guy is that his books describe a world that is so beautiful, but there are these dark and random doings going on at the hands of people. You read one of his books and you feel like you've been through one of the most beautiful landscapes you've ever seen- the Earth in its cruel, wonderful, merciful, blooming ways. Then the humans come around, and you never know what you're going to witness, the ugly part, or the inspiring part. Dig?
