Jason May 07, 2010

liked it 's review

I met Cormac McCarthy and he transcribed our conversation about Cities of the Plain:



The author asked, Whad'ya think about the book?

The last in the trilogy?

That's it.

It was alright, Jason said.

What was alright?

Cities of the Plain

What specifically?

The simple language and the economy of words and the lack of punctuation, quotations especially. How you made simple things like chores seem interesting and wonderful.

That's fair. It's actually harder to write like that than you think.

I bet.

Was it better than the first two, the first two books I mean?

No.

Why?

I thought the second book was better.

The author shifted in his seat and lit a cigarette and picked musingly at a fingernail with a jag in it. He looked from the cargazón de espaldas of his house and toward the wall of scrub that marked the edge of some New Mexico wilderness. Do you like my polysyndeton?

Polysynda what?

Polysyndeton. It's where I use a lot of correlative conjunctions to string out sentences instead of using commas.

Oh. I reckon.

Only 3 stars. What could I have done better?

Don't figure I'm the best person to ask about that.

You count. I write for people like you.

Still.

No, lemme hear.

Then, I guess you could of jazzed up some of the action especially toward the first half of the book.

The story didn't draw you in?

No sir it didn't.

There was a theme I was huntin' for, that first half. I wanted life to seem timeless and I did that through the sustained description of routine life for several vaqueros.

I understand.

The author exhaled through both nostrils making an opaque column of smoke that stretched uniformly to the wooden cubierta. Were the characters likable?

I liked Billy and John Grady and Mac. I liked the part when they saved them puppies in the traprock escarpment.

That's a critical part. Those boys had to kill the adult dogs in order to save the pups. It was an exchange of life. Those pups woulda likely died out there for want of food.

Yep. They kept having to kill calves to feed the pups. Once them calves got bigger, the dogs would've been outta food.

That's exactly right.

I liked the knife fight too and how John Grady was fallin' so in love with that whore.

Good.

She was very young.

That's right.

And I like when you mash up two words.

You mean when I make one word out of an adjective and a noun?

Yes.

I do that quite often.

You do it on almost every page.

About.

Hey, I understand your writing. It's just, I gave 3 stars because your second book had 4 stars and since I didn't think your third book was better than the second, I couldn't give the same rating.

Okay.

But I did really like the descriptions you made of the environment and the way the sky looked and how a man would have felt looking out across the llanos. And I even liked how you dropped a lot of spanish words in the book, almost as if you was searching for the right word and the absolute right word wasn't an english word but a spanish word. And then you used some big words that I had to look up.

Uh-huh. I did that. He flipped the cigarette in a flection out into the dirt. Is there anything I wrote that you didn't like?

The short dialogue.

How's that?

The dialogue was always so staccato.

That's how they talk. It's realistic.

Yes sir.

But you said you liked my economy of words, earlier you said that.

I know what I said.

Well. That's how I wrote my dialogue.

I reckon you did.

Well, then, what about the dialogue you didn't like?

Maybe it was the lack of quotations. Made it hard to read. I don't know.

That's fair. I done that in most of my books.

You know what Mr. McCarthy? I especially liked the very last part after Billy was grown up and met that vagabundo and he went into that bizarre tirade about the dream he had and what it meant to him and therefore what it meant for all of mankind.

I only did that once in this book.

I know.

You liked that huh? You think I should have done that more?

Yes sir I do.

Hmmm.

When you do that, when you make your characters get all fantastic, those are some good parts.

I try to divine the essence of the human condition, Jason.

Right.

And you liked that?

I liked it very much.

But once wasn't enough?

No. The second book was better.

Because it had more episodes where my characters had fantastic tirades?

That's right.

Mr. McCarthy crossed his arms and put his boots on the barandilla and tipped his chair back on two legs. He looked at the skyline just above the scrub in the distance. The world had a light gauzy dome of high cloud. The sun was getting low in that direction, but the color of the sky was as if it was still sizzlin', a couple of sun dogs on either side. The author asked, Did you like the whore?

She was young.

Yes.

You made her sound pretty.

Yes.

I figure I wouldn't want to marry a whore.

The others tried to stop him.

But they didn't.

No.

I don't think I would have died for her.

You aint John Grady.

No sir.

Would you recommend Cities of the Plains to your friends? He scratched his ankle deep down the inside of his boot.

I would.

Do you think the books can be read individually or should be read as a trilogy?

Well, I can only answer for myself.

I aint askin' anybody but you.

What's the question?

Can they be read separately or should they be read as a whole?

As a whole. Altogether, I reckon.

Do you think I should write a fourth book?

Ever'body's old and dead now.

Kind of a prequel.

Kind of a prequel?

Uh-huh.

No.

You don't think?

No, it's just right now, especially that second book.

Jason slapped the dust off his trouser thighs and stood for awhile lookin' out toward the sun. He took a final sip from the glass of ice lemonade and set it back on the paso among all the other water rings that sweated off the glass. Mr. McCarthy, he said.

Cormac.

Mr. McCarthy, sir, it's been a pleasure.

Pleasure's mine.

Alright, but it's been nice talkin' to you and learnin' what you put into them books.

I appreciate the feedback.

From me?

Yes, you read all 3 books, makes you as close an expert as me.

Uhh, I don't reckon I understand what you just said.

Look, Jason, a writer spends an awful lot of time putting words on paper and figurin' and refigurin' how to change those words so it has an effect on the reader, someone like you.

I understand.

So if my writing doesn't have an effect, well, then...

Then it don't mean nothing.

No, it means something. But then it means something only to me.

I see.

Do you?

Sure.

If my writing doesn't affect you, then my writing is nothing more than a glorified journal entry. If it don't sell, then it stays with me.

So you mean to share it with folks like me.

Correct.

Yes sir.

What's that face your making?

I still don't like the idea of a prequel.

Don't worry 'bout that.

You're not going to write one.

No.

Good.

That story's over.

That's how I feel about it.

The author rose and took Jason's hand in his and shook it and shook it again and when they let go there was an understanding among men that cascaded through all the understandings between men and had arrived at this point firmly, and hung there, deep, like a great granite batholith. Take care reader.

I will.

Bye.

Oh, one last thing.

Anything.

When you transcribe this discussion, would you send me a copy.

For what?

So I can put it on this computer Goodreads thing.

I can do that.

Much obliged.

Take care then.

Bye Mr. McCarthy.



New words: dishabille, peened, niello, fard, replevin, ned, maguey, quirted,





Cool sentences:



There were grounds in the bottom of the cup and he swirled the cup and looked at them. Then he swirled them the other way as if he'd put them back the way they'd been.(p. 138)



Billy flipped the cigarette out across the yard. It was already dark enough that it made an arc in the fading light. Arcs within the arc.(p. 147)



When they reached the trail along the western edge of the floodplain the sun was up behind the mesa and the light that overshot the plain crossed to the rocks above them so that they rode out the remnant of the night in a deep blue sink with the new day falling slowly down about them.(p. 171)



The ceiling of the room was of concrete and bore the impression of the boards used to form it, the concrete knots and nailheads and the fossil arc of the circlesaw's blade from some mountain sawmill. There was a single sooty bulb that burned there with a grudging orange light and a millermoth that patrolled it in random clockwise orbits.(p. 208)



The word polysydeton was given to my by Isaiah H.

