The Bookhouse Boys discussion

Saw that some folks are eager to talk McCarthy, so I thought I'd start a thread for Suttree.

I'm only a few pages in, but it's already pretty different from the other McCarthy I've read. For one, it takes place in the South instead of on the border (I swear I didn't know that ahead of time!). It also seems to involve at least a bit of stream of consciousness writing, which I haven't seen from McCarthy before.

I know McCarthy's known as a depressing writer, but I think he's a fairly Faulknerian writer in a lot of ways. The two things that have stood out about his work to me out of the four things I've read have been 1) his imagery, namely his descriptions, and 2) his sense of humor.

As far as his imagery, this is where I think he gets the most Faulknerian. His descriptions are very often breathtaking, and the way he does is it not to describe in far-reaching or overwrought terms, but to find the exact right words for things. For instance, this passage from Suttree (on page 2):

"Houseboats ride at their hawsers. The neap mud along the shore lies ribbed and slick like the cavernous flitch of some beast hugely foundered and beyond the country rolls away to the south and the mountains. . . . Down there in grots of fallen light a cat transpires from stone to stone across the cobbles liquid black and sewn in rapid antipodes over the raindark street to vanish cat and countercat in the rifted works beyond. Faint summer lightning downriver. A curtain is rising on the western world. A fine rain of soot, dead beetles, anonymous small bones. The audience sits webbed in dust."

See what I mean? Faulknerian. Imagery like that is so precise, with each word calculated for maximum impact. I love the small sentences that cut through like brushstrokes.

McCarthy also has a wicked sense of humor, one of the better ones I've seen in a 20th century writer this side of Joseph Heller or Kurt Vonnegut (or the Coen Brothers, which was why they were such a natural fit to adapt No Country for Old Men). But McCarthy's sense of humor tends towards the Twain side in its raw, wry, droll delivery. It's a wit that exists nearly exclusively in the dialogue, as in this early interaction from Suttree:

"Did they find him?
Yes.
What did he jump for?
I dont guess he said.
I wouldnt do it. Would you?
I hope not. Did you go over in town this morning?
No, I never went. I been too poorly to go.
What's the matter?
Lord I dont know. They say death comes like a thief in the night, where is he? I'll hug his neck.
Well dont jump off the bridge.
I wouldnt do it for nothin."

That's a thousand slow, small-town conversations on a thousand summer mornings. It looks a lot easier than it is to capture that sort of interaction and have it feel genuine. McCarthy's one of the best at it.

Anyway, so that's what I'll be looking out for in this book. Again, I'm early into it, but there haven't been any baby trees yet... just a riverboat pulling a suicide out of a river with a giant hook that's been jammed into his cheek. ;)

Damn, Dave. That was beautiful and insightful.

Those first couple pages were reminiscent of It's Takes a Great Notion. As you said, Dave, very stream of consciousness writing. However, I plan on sticking around for this one!

That scene with the grappling hook, very allegorical, because as the corpse is hooked and dredged from the depths, so am I as the reader, hooked into McCarthy's world and dragged along for the journey.

That is a great description of McCarthy's writing, Dave! I couldn't agree more with your characterization of him as Faulknerian.

I just got Suttree and am looking forward to start reading it soon.

I started Blood Meridian a few days back, so I'll start Suttree when I'm done.

And yes, I've already visited the book club's EOC BM thread, and will be checking it from time to time.
Note: When I cut-and-pasted the link just now, four guests were looking at the Book Club board, of which three people were viewing the same three-year-old BM page. Freaky. Your work lives on, gentlemen.
It just occurred to me... maybe Matt and Dave were the other two?

Weren't me!

Jim wrote: "It just occurred to me... maybe Matt and Dave were the other two? "

Any reason why you wouldn't think it was me, Jim?

It wasn't, but I have re-read some of those old book club threads since we made them. What can I say, I live in the past.

It's actually nice to hear that somebody is reading them. Along with you, of course.

Jason wrote: "Any reason why you wouldn't think it was me, Jim?"
I guess you strike me as the least Southern-gothic-y of the troika, and thus least likely to revisit that particular thread. Also, among the BBoys, you gave the novel its lowest rating.

Obviously, I read those old threads once in a while, too. I just don't expect to have much company when I do.

I did? I would have thought Dave did. It seemed at the time that I liked it more than he.

Great. Now I have to wait all night for brunch.

Matt wrote: "Great. Now I have to wait all night for brunch."

Do they serve watermelon? ;)

Robert wrote: "Matt wrote: "Great. Now I have to wait all night for brunch."

Do they serve watermelon? ;)"

Yes, and they were already balled when I got there. Fantabulous service.

Matt wrote: "Robert wrote: "Matt wrote: "Great. Now I have to wait all night for brunch."

Do they serve watermelon? ;)"

Yes, and they were already balled when I got there. Fantabulous service."

"Balled", eh?

That one-paragraph sketch (pg. 50, in my edition) of the goiter-man to whom Suttree tossed the pack of smokes at the fairgrounds was amazing. McCarthy's few sentences painted a complete, grotesque portrait in my mind's eye. Beautiful, devastating stuff.

Anyone care to decode Suttree's drunk-tank nightmare/vision?
I'm guessing/hoping the imagery will make more sense in hindsight.

EDIT:
I am seeing people say that Eliot's "The Wasteland" figures heavily in this work. The malevolent figure from the prologue/warning may be the surgeon that flays the man in Suttree's nightmare.

"Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?"

—T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922)

I do not have your edition, Matt, nor am I sure of the T.S. Eliot inference, but regardless, it's all very enlightening, and for this I am grateful.

Thanks for that note about Eliot's Waste Land. That makes a lot of sense, actually. Maybe we should make that part of the reading and discussion for Suttree.

Click here to read the (roughly) 430 line poem, complete with annotations.

I downloaded The Waste Land to my Kindle after reading Matt's note... though I haven't actually started Suttree yet. Soon.
Blood Meridian still has me in its grasp.

The show is posted:

You listen to this, Gene?

Yeah, I listened.

And?

Hell fire, Sut, how come them fellers know so much about our business?

They're professionals.

Well.

Professional amateurs, like.

I figured.

What?

I ain't got a perfession, and things would go a might easier if I got me one. You think there's any money in it?

In podcasting? Heaps.

Really?

No.

I aint giving up yet.

You aint podcasting, neither.

Where would a body go to get into that racket?

Web City.

Aw, Sut.

OUTRO: "Ol' Man River" by The Beach Boys

Next month's book: Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

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Excellent episode, gentlemen, and definitely some very sharp insights to the book (which I'm still only halfway through - shame on me!)

But Matt broke my heart when he mentioned "Sartre's Myth of Sisyphus." Confusing Sartre with Camus is like confusing an anti-semitic and self-righteous hack with an overinflated ego with one of the best and most thoughtful French writers of the twentieth century. Oh wait, that's *exactly* what it is.


Okay. Rant over. I still love you all, even though both Jason and Matt are now dead to me.

D'oh! I shoulda caught that. Oh well.

Camus has been on our short list of novelists to read for the podcast for a while now. We should probably boot him up to the top sooner than later. And maybe fit a Gore Vidal book in there, too. And, and, and... so many great books, so little time....

But Matt broke my heart when he mentioned "Sartre's Myth of ..."

Oh, yeah. Duh. I was thinking of Nausea at one point when I was reading this book, I don't know why, and then when the "Myth of Sisyphus" thing came up, I pulled the wrong name out of my brain. I would think I'd get a little leeway since I'm now drinking for 3 on the show, but whatevs...

Fair enough, as a general rule I always accept alcohol assumption as a valid excuse!

How did I "die" again?

Never mind, I just saw it. :)