On the Southern Literary Trail discussion

Comments on this board are made with the assumption that readers have finished the book and may include spoilers.

I wanted to like Suttree but Lordy be, what a hot mess!

This is my second McCarthy. The first was All the Pretty Horses, so this is my first of his "southern" novels.

The book's cover compares him to Faulkner, but reading the intro put me in mind of Thomas Wolfe on acid. And then, all the snippets of people glimpsed while passing by on boats or trains or automobiles--very much like Wolfe to my mind. (Not this Wolfe The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, but this Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel.)

There's lots of juxtapositions in this book. You have descriptive sentences like:

Peering down into the water where the morning sun fashioned wheels of light, coronets fanwise in which lay trapped each twig, each grain of sediment, long flakes and blades of light in the dusty water sliding away like optic strobes where motes sifted and spun.

And then dialogue like this:

Did that girl come out to see you?
Aint been nobody to see me.
I'll talk to her again.
Well. I wish ye'd get ye one of these here taters.
I've got to get on.
Dont rush off.
Got to go.
Come back.
All right.

I understand it took McCarthy 20 years to write this book, which means much of it predates his first two novels. So this is not McCarthy trying to fit an established style to a story peopled with mostly uneducated and inarticulate characters. He means to contrast this dense and often opaque descriptive style with these characters' lack of sophistication. An over-educated style put to the service of undereducated characters. (Suttree himself, excepted, of course.) I think McCarty's telling us, see reader, these poor and ignorant characters are worth it. Worth the ornate verbiage, worth the care with which I wrote it.

Other juxtapositions: The tragic and often horrific tableaus and happenings with a broad and often off-color humor. And the isolation of his characters (almost all of them live alone, in shacks on under bridges) and their organic community, intersecting planets orbiting between bars, cafes, and markets in the down side of town.

Harrogate is such an idiot, not least of all because of his wide-eyed and impermeable optimism. But it's that optimism that makes him so funny, and it's that humor that gives him a perverse dignity. It's his best trait for us, and one of his worst for himself.

The one sentence that seems to best sum the novel up for me: even the damned in hell have the community of their suffering.

I found a great deal of humor in this book as well. I started this twice before I could really get into it, but then ended up being a fan. It's my favorite of his books so far.

I’m just starting. The descriptive language is wonderful.

Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
★★★★★ and ❤

This novel opens in 1951 Knoxville with the fishing of a body of suicide victim from under a bridge. This opening is characteristic of all McCarthy's books. They are all dark and nihilistic. If you are looking for a "feel good" read, please skip his books. However, if you want an example of a master in the manipulation of the English language to tell a story, be sure to include Cormac McCarthy, who is considered by many to be one of the greatest contemporary American writers. For my full review, please click here.

Maybe it's just me, but I found enough humor in this book and situations that it didn't seem all that dark to me. It may be my favorite of his books for that reason. McCarthy can certainly go darker than any other author, but his use of language is genius.

Diane wrote: "Maybe it's just me, but I found enough humor in this book and situations that it didn't seem all that dark to me. It may be my favorite of his books for that reason. McCarthy can certainly go darke..."

My full review indicates these respites of humor, especially, the various schemes of Harrogate, such as his attempt to collect dead bats. I laughed my head off envisioning the next plague.

I started it, but decided I am not in that kind of mood! Maybe so e other time!

This is my favorite book of all time and I have just finished another read of this as my daughter in law bought me a copy of it for christmas because she knew how much I love this book and thought I should own a copy. Love love love it.

One thing I don't see discussed anywhere really and something I have pondered, and don't know if I fully grasp, is the vision Suttree has after injesting Mother She's potion. He goes back in time in his mind to long lost childhood memories. He remembers various wakes and funerals of family members among other things and suddenly remembers looking down upon a tiny baby in it's little casket while being held in his father's arms. Now of course Suttree is tortured throughout his life by the idea of this twin brother of his who died at birth while Suttree lived. He wonders why it was he who survived. He feels guilty and he feels like he was the "bad" one and the good one died, or that he was somehow responsible for that death by his own existance.

But... the existance of this "twin" was revealed to Suttree by his drunkard Uncle John, not exactly a reliable narrator of family lore. I am thinking there was no twin brother at all. There was the "Irish twin" brother, a brother born in the same year 11-12 months after Suttree's own birth. That is what Suttree realizes in his vision. He remembers the scene in the funeral parlor of the sister carrying off the baby from it's casket while he stood there and watched the scene as a walking baby following his older siblings about as a toddler will do. He stood there and watched that scene and was frightened by all the hubbub that ensued. There never was this twin Suttree the thought of which tortured Suttree. That is what he realizes. It was just a premature birth of his baby brother who did not survive. It had nothing to do with his own birth. He can finally let, at least, THAT guilt go (oh but he has others!) and move on. He can see where he is going as Mother She says.

I wonder what you all think about this scene? I think it is a pivotal moment in the book of Suttree's ability to move forward that gets overlooked for the more kind of blatant death and rebirth scene of the typhoid fever dreams.