Recent Reading

[njhorror]

Harking back to McCarthy for a moment...one thing that has puzzled me is that I don't know if I've ever run across another reader of CHILD OF GOD who's recognized the weirdness and creepiness that I have in that story. Some of the images and scenes are downright bizarre and frightening in their implication.

[njhorror]

I just noticed that a movie was scheduled to be released on August 31, 2013, directed by James Franco, based on the McCarthy novel. If done right that could be a fascinatingly dark movie.

[Murony_Pyre]

Child of God---though I enjoyed the conceit and enjoyed the images that NJ mentions--didn`t do very much for me. It is easily McCarthy`s weakest book from what I`ve read. I should mention the fact that I had already read NCFOM and Blood Meridian--both pretty much masterpieces of their kind--by time I came to read CoG, so that may have have colored my reading of it. Maybe I`ll read it again one day and change my mind, it wouldn`t be the first time.

[njhorror]

Yes Murony_Pyre, I've heard that from others, so I understand that I may be amongst the few who found it to be more than the sum of its parts. McCarthy was difficult for me when I began reading his work, and more than once I've thrown one of his books against the wall in frustration, and that includes Suttree. It took some patience and commitment for me to continue retrieving those books and painstakiningly continue the journey. I seem to have a love/hate relationship with his work that causes me to think more than with any other author that I've experienced, or want to for that matter.

[Druidic]

You probably know this story but…Nick Cave was approached to do the screenplay for a McCarthy book. He passed, saying he didn’t want to be known as the man who ruined Blood Meridian.
No doubt they approached him because of his film The Proposition...a decent enough piece of work in itself.

[waffles]

Quote Originally Posted by Druidic

You probably know this story but…Nick Cave was approached to do the screenplay for a McCarthy book. He passed, saying he didn’t want to be known as the man who ruined Blood Meridian. No doubt they approached him because of his film The Proposition...a decent enough piece of work in itself.

I always wondered if The Proposition was a McCarthy tribute. I think Nick Cave would have done justice to McCarthy.

[Karnos]

Nick Cave's novel And the ass saw the angel is a very good southern gothic novel, for anyone interested.

I've also read Child of God. Even though it is not as powerful a novel as Blood Meridian, I still think it is a very good little novel. I really like the description of how the medical students opened up Ballard's body and what they found there. The language and symbols definitely foreshadow the apocalyptic and biblical images found in latter books, specially Blood Meridian

[Murony_Pyre]

Druidic, Do you get the Centipede newsletter? Today's had an interesting list of Michael Cisco's top 20 horror novels. Some "usual suspects" on there but some hidden gems to be had, too. Even though I can't read Cisco's novels (listening to him read them is a great help I've found), I can still appreciate his short stories and these recommendations of his.
On Cisco himself for a moment: There is something about his own novels that make my eyes swim on the page and (so far) I have not found them to be engaging for me, somehow. I have reasoned that perhaps this is because they are very much in his particular voice and I can't get into his head through them for any extended period of time to really hear him at novel length. This is probably the reason I love his short stories which are excellent; some examples which spring readily to mind include his stories "Modern Cities..." which was a clear stand-out for me in Cinnabar's Gnosis and "The Thing in the Jar" which was an exceptional example of experimental horror writing.
Another possibility is that I have not found an environment conducive to the type of mental concentration necessary to read him; don't laugh, I have found this to be the case with various writers/individual books in the past: you need a place to sit where it can all properly sink in.
On McCarthy: I'd also forgotten about Outer Dark which I have here and have been meaning to read. Up to the top of the 'to read' pile it goes (along with everything I haven't yet read by Tony Burgess and Ben Marcus' The Flame Alphabet.
On John (JDATE): It is worth reading and sleazily ends openly-wide openly-for a sequel or sequels. There are 3 books in the series now right? Does the latest end firmly? Does David die at the end? actually don't answer that last.
On Nick Cave "Ass, Proposition, BM" (Not the S&M porno of the same name): Nick Cave is clearly a multi-talented gentleman, but I too think he did the right thing with regard to Blood Meridian. I tried to read "Ass" based on R.B. Russell's recommendation, and found the narration, which is all in dialect, to make it perfectly impenetrable for me. This added to the fact that it is also not exactly a novella, make me quite sure I will never read it. Could anyone who has read it attempt to sway me into a second attempt? I'm talking 'pep-talk' talk here.
On Blood Meridian: The Movie (which, I actually couldn't care less is ever made):
I'm not crazily into the Cohen's but do enjoy their work for what it is (sounds snotty, I know) and greatly enjoyed their No Country for Old Men which perfectly did the movie justice and in so doing gave Tommy Lee Jones at least one movie he can be proud of before he dies. They would, perhaps, be a good choice for Blood Meridian . John Goodman would make a passable Judge Holden and in so doing practically reprise his role as the Cyclops in "Oh Brother Where Art Thou"

[Murony_Pyre]

Thanks to Waffles! Beat me to it! It does seem like a good list, lots to explore (like I don't have a gi-huge pile of books beckoning with skeletal fingers!).

[qcrisp]

This:

http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000352691

And this:

http://pushkinpress.com/book/the-str...th-the-daemon/

I am becoming very interested in what we have buried under our modern mental landscape.