Link for those who don't know... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/ So, I just finished reading this book (on which the film is based) and I note that the author also wrote "No Country for Old Men" Now I like the movie, in an arty sort of way, but my opinion of it was that it was almost PART of a story. It just arbitrarily ends. there's no set up that leads to a climatic payoff. Likewise, I feel the same way about "The Road"....it's an artistic bit of writing to be sure, the format and style is intriguing, but it's just a series of events which...stop. Now, here's my question: is this guy just a successful enough author that he can get away with breaking the normal storytelling conventions like this, or is this some new "cool" trend? The reason i ask is because - while not putting myself on his level - I can write like that! The problem with my writing has always been that there was no big dramatic payoff at the end, no "moment" to which I've been building. More like "a scene from the life" sort of stuff. So, in Macarthy rewriting the rules, or getting away with flaunting them?
By the way, when I read I tend to visualize stories in my head - and this is the first book I ever read which I visualized in animated form. Specifically, a stark black and white anime style (not the corny exaggerated stuff but kind of like "Cowboy Beebop" with a lot of use of grays and shadows and such (since the landscape is often described in those terms) I think it would have worked great like that.
Literary critic Harold Bloom called Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian' (I'm perhaps paraphrasing) the supreme literary achievement of our time. It's a tale of extreme violence in the southwest 100 years ago, almost a western/horror hybrid. I have to say it's challenging reading and I'm not sure I picked up on all the themes, symbols, etc. Extremely vivid in places, though. I'd suggest that emulating McCarthy's writing style is easier said than done. In response to your question--is he breaking the rules or not?--the answer is probably yes. And that's allowed...if it works. Of course, he may be going for some other effect that's not strictly in keeping with classical storytelling ('No Country' is a good one for that). I happen to love how McCarthy's dialog flows with the narrative, such that each person's voice is unique and you're never really confused about who's talking.
WHat Cormac McCarthy is doing is taking the existing "rules" (if you can say there are rules) and turning them on their head. I haven't read "The Road" yet (it's in my queue at home) but you can see this in "No COuntry For Old Men". Take a look, for instance, at the title of the piece. Who are the old men in this story? What is the title trying to say? The story is told from Tommy Lee Jone's perspective. He is the protagonist. Keep that in mind, and you see how the story structure progresses. Because here is a man, an old man, trying to understand the greed and violence of a world he did not grow up in. IN order to save Josh Brolin, Jones has to understand the motivations of both him and of Chigurh, but he is incapable of either. So, essentially, Jones has a Hero's Journey where he tries to save Brolin, and when he comes to the climax that determines if it's a success or a failure, he fails. The story doesn't stop randomly. It's simply that with Brolin dead, the conflict is resolved, and Jones failed. The plot structure is not an easy one to trace because of how the story is told, but it is there.
Don't leave out the epilogue. Sheriff Bell goes to see his father, who explains to him through the story of their Uncle Max that these violent hard times are not new, but the natural state of man. [YT="Can't stop what's comin'"]xIY33GgX3sM[/YT]
I kind of got the same feeling when I first read Hemingway . . . rejection of traditional rigid notions of structure seems to be a hallmark of modernist fiction. I wouldn't expect a postmodernist (post-postmodernist? ) like Cormac McCarthy to be bound for even a second by the idea that there must be some big payoff where everything is tied up in a neat little bow. Simply put, there are no rules left to break.
That's a cool thing if you can sell it I guess. I wonder if anyone is "breaking out" doing it that way or are the established conventionally and then do so on the credit they have gained? Again, I'm not saying I think I can rise to the artistic presentation of Cormac...just saying I'm closer to that than I am to the sort of stuff Patterson or somebody does, even though, IMO, Patterson and his lot are not nearly the artist that McCarthy is.
I got right from the start what the title meant and how it related to Bell. But I suppose I hadn't really seen it as a story who's "payoff" was that the protagonist fails. I just saw it as his retirement being the obvious place to stop. But yeah, and that's unconventional in it's own way. Convention says "the good guy must win" and here he didn't. I think that's the "missing link" I wasn't getting in that story. kind of a now that it's pointed out.
Also consider Chigurh's strange philosophy in light of what happens to him at the end. He said "The coin got here the same way I did". Then he gets T-boned by another car. A random event.
I've read everything Cormac McCarthy has written and IMHO The Border Trilogy is his best work with All the Pretty Horses being my favorite of all his works. OT, his narrative style of writing in The Road was interesting and unique at first but just became irritating towards the end. I much prefer books with traditional grammatical structure which are easier to read, comprehend and just "feel" better when reading them.
