11:51 AM Philip: Hey, Tom. How are you?
me: doing well. Yourself?
Philip: Not bad, except I seem to have given up on sleeping. :)
me: ha!
Join the club.
Well, I forced myself to get a good 10 hours Sunday night before returning to work.
Philip: That's good!
11:52 AM me: Seeing as that's about the sum total I got between last Thursday and that Sunday night! :)
Philip: I tried to get a little caught up over Thanksgiving but not very successfully. :)
me: My mind kept saying, "you're on holiday! You can stay up late and sleep in!"
11:53 AM in reality, Campbell and my body clock would wake me up by 8am regardless of how late -- or how early I had turned in.
:P
I did get three novels in.
Philip: That's nice! What novels? Anything particularly great?
me: Uh, No Country for Old Men.
Philip: Oooh
11:54 AM You know I love the Cormac
me: Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons. Crazy biography!
And a junk food novel, F. Paul Wilson's The Keep.
11:55 AM Philip: Sounds good.
me: The Keep was a quick read, and about what I expected -- not much.
Had some interesting notions, but Mr. Wilson isn't a good enough writer to do anything very satisfying with them. Philip: I've been re-reading Beloved for my African-American Lit class. We're kind of rushing through it which doesn't help with my lack of sleep. :P me: Ah.
11:56 AM Glad you're still enjoying your Af-Am Lit.
Philip: Very much. But also looking forward to doing my last paper for it (one on Beloved due next week) so I don't need to worry about that any more :)
me: Doesn't help that I read that stupid paperback after McCarthy. It's like eating a hot dog after a particularly good Chateaubriand.
11:57 AM :P
Philip: haha
me: And every metaphor connected to "eating a hot dog" applies.
And was intended. ;)
11:58 AM Philip: haha
me: Mr. McCarthy is one of our best contemporary prose stylists.
I wonder at the spareness of his diction.
He's all nouns and verbs. They get you there.
11:59 AM Philip: All I've read so far is The Road, sadly. I've been told Blood Meridian is a must-read.
me: He's like a literate Peckinpah of prose.
Very basic, very male.
12:00 PM Obsessed with conflict, not just as narrative force, but as physical effect.
At least his blood-soaked set pieces go somewhere.
12:01 PM They serve to illuminate his Manichean world view.
Philip: I'm not 100% sure I know what Manichean means
12:02 PM me: Manichaean |ˌmanəˈkēən| (also Manichean)
adjective chiefly historical
of or relating to Manichaeism.
• of or characterized by dualistic contrast or conflict between opposites.
adjective chiefly historical
of or relating to Manichaeism.
• of or characterized by dualistic contrast or conflict between opposites.
12:04 PM He brings into question some VERY LARGE themes of the nature of good versus evil.
Philip: Ah, that makes sense. I just haven't heard the term very often
me: I think he very much believes in True Evil. But not in the traditional religious sense.
12:05 PM Philip: I agree.
me: The disturbing part is, I don't think he believes in True Good.
At least, even the most noble of his protagonists are profoundly flawed.
Philip: Hmm... I think you're probably right, but I also think it's important that despite that and despite his stories being sort of depressing, they certainly are not hopeless.
12:06 PM me: Not at all!
The nobility of the exercise is that being good is so much more difficult than being bad.
That anyone tries at all...
That is the wonder.
12:08 PM He's such a recluse.
I haven't found many interviews or public record of him.
Philip: Yeah
12:09 PM I saw a picture of him from the '70s in an Ebert article!
me: Though I'm not sure it's necessary. Any literary critic who'd ask the obvious questions surely has to have read his novels. Which are more than clear and consistent on the themes which consume him.
I think he probably is consumed.
12:10 PM He couldn't write that way if he wasn't.
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