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Super-Literary HF
[quote=""wendy""]Thanks for making me analyse my reaction Leo62! Firstly, I was not sure whether the boy was sexually molested and / or killed (because of all the peodophile hints earlier in the book). Secondly, what connection the Epilogue has to the rest of the story (is "the boy" now "the man" - if so, does "rape" / "violence" represent the price that has to be paid for Manifest Destiny? - if not, what does the coming of the settlers / railroad signify in relation to the rest of the tale?) But mostly I think it was my emotional response. After so much human bloodshed I had become desensitized to brutality until it came to the killing of the bear. Then it felt wrong to react to the killing of an animal while remaining relatively unmoved by all the violence to humans! So I think it was my own response that most bothered me, if that makes sense.[/quote]
Oh yes, I remember now! That weird epilogue... made no sense to me at all, but I kinda didn't mind cos the whole book was so out there
This was definitely a book "about" violence, but in a way that is hard to pin down and analyse such. For me, the landscape plays such a powerful role in the story - it always does in McCarthy - that it's almost like another character. At times, he seems to be hinting that the violence emanates somehow from the starkness and harshness of the landscape itself...it's very enigmatic, and disturbing, but utterly compelling. And often the animals seem to represent the landscape in some way - I'll never forget that scene where all the snakes and lizards gather around the burning tree in the desert...
BTW, the paedophile hints went totally over my head! Is this the boy's father you're talking about?
Oh yes, I remember now! That weird epilogue... made no sense to me at all, but I kinda didn't mind cos the whole book was so out there
This was definitely a book "about" violence, but in a way that is hard to pin down and analyse such. For me, the landscape plays such a powerful role in the story - it always does in McCarthy - that it's almost like another character. At times, he seems to be hinting that the violence emanates somehow from the starkness and harshness of the landscape itself...it's very enigmatic, and disturbing, but utterly compelling. And often the animals seem to represent the landscape in some way - I'll never forget that scene where all the snakes and lizards gather around the burning tree in the desert...
BTW, the paedophile hints went totally over my head! Is this the boy's father you're talking about?
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wendy
- Compulsive Reader
- Posts: 592
- Joined: September 2010
- Location: Charlotte, North Carolina
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[quote=""Leo62""]Oh yes, I remember now! That weird epilogue... made no sense to me at all, but I kinda didn't mind cos the whole book was so out there
This was definitely a book "about" violence, but in a way that is hard to pin down and analyse such. For me, the landscape plays such a powerful role in the story - it always does in McCarthy - that it's almost like another character. At times, he seems to be hinting that the violence emanates somehow from the starkness and harshness of the landscape itself...it's very enigmatic, and disturbing, but utterly compelling. And often the animals seem to represent the landscape in some way - I'll never forget that scene where all the snakes and lizards gather around the burning tree in the desert...
BTW, the paedophile hints went totally over my head! Is this the boy's father you're talking about?[/quote]
Not the father - the judge appears to molest children at various points in the book. But I agree with your comments about the landscape. Interesting read!
This was definitely a book "about" violence, but in a way that is hard to pin down and analyse such. For me, the landscape plays such a powerful role in the story - it always does in McCarthy - that it's almost like another character. At times, he seems to be hinting that the violence emanates somehow from the starkness and harshness of the landscape itself...it's very enigmatic, and disturbing, but utterly compelling. And often the animals seem to represent the landscape in some way - I'll never forget that scene where all the snakes and lizards gather around the burning tree in the desert...
BTW, the paedophile hints went totally over my head! Is this the boy's father you're talking about?[/quote]
Not the father - the judge appears to molest children at various points in the book. But I agree with your comments about the landscape. Interesting read!
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wendy
- Compulsive Reader
- Posts: 592
- Joined: September 2010
- Location: Charlotte, North Carolina
- Contact:
[quote=""Katherine Ashe""]I have quite a problem with excessive violence and the insensitivity it produces. Does it carry over into life though? I think not for people who are of reasonably healthy psyche to begin with, judging from the anguished responses of our young people in Iraq and Afghanistan who no doubt have seen a lot of violence in films before being exposed to the real thing.
Then there are those who may be moved by art to commit horrors in reality. Do we have a responsibility to not provide inspiration? How far toward reducing us to writing pablum could that lead?
For myself, when I find a scene of sex or violence getting just too vile I peek ahead to see where the scene ends and read on from there. Too many of those and the book gets pitched, literally, into the garbage. I will not even donate it to my local library.
Regarding the greater sympathy for animals -- that was expressed brilliantly, I thought, in the film The Queen, where Elizabeth breaks emotionally only in her futile effort to save a magnificent elk. Hemingway loved to ridicule people who had more sympathy for animals than for fellow humans, but I think it common. It was used in the film as the principal link of sympathy between the audience and the Queen. One can learn much from that film to the point of how immense dramatic power can be generated without resorting to sex or violence. Would the power be so great if the subject were not a living person so familiar (superficially) to us? Can what worked in The Queen find adaptation in HF?[/quote]
I guess it depends how relevant sex and violence is to the subject matter. When writing about a female royal a writer has more options that when writing about war or prostitution or piracy. My concern (as a writer who does include s + V) is to make my work realistic to the historical setting rather than adhere to the familiar romantic tradition. But, then again, my subject matter deals with the silences in history - usually the muted female voice - and that often seems to have been censored by sex and violence.
Then there are those who may be moved by art to commit horrors in reality. Do we have a responsibility to not provide inspiration? How far toward reducing us to writing pablum could that lead?
For myself, when I find a scene of sex or violence getting just too vile I peek ahead to see where the scene ends and read on from there. Too many of those and the book gets pitched, literally, into the garbage. I will not even donate it to my local library.
Regarding the greater sympathy for animals -- that was expressed brilliantly, I thought, in the film The Queen, where Elizabeth breaks emotionally only in her futile effort to save a magnificent elk. Hemingway loved to ridicule people who had more sympathy for animals than for fellow humans, but I think it common. It was used in the film as the principal link of sympathy between the audience and the Queen. One can learn much from that film to the point of how immense dramatic power can be generated without resorting to sex or violence. Would the power be so great if the subject were not a living person so familiar (superficially) to us? Can what worked in The Queen find adaptation in HF?[/quote]
I guess it depends how relevant sex and violence is to the subject matter. When writing about a female royal a writer has more options that when writing about war or prostitution or piracy. My concern (as a writer who does include s + V) is to make my work realistic to the historical setting rather than adhere to the familiar romantic tradition. But, then again, my subject matter deals with the silences in history - usually the muted female voice - and that often seems to have been censored by sex and violence.