I'd not read anything by Cormac McCarthy, but decided to give "The Road" a look. I was surprised to find that he uses apostrophes as he sees fit, ignoring convention, and he eschews quotation marks. Certainly not the first with such style, but it nevertheless disturbs me. Is such style now considered conventional?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Asa Lovejoy>,

There are other authors that don't use quotation marks, for instance James Joyce and Laurence Sterne.

Of course, but this latest example set me to wondering if there are criteria for when one can ignore the rules and have it called art. Now if you're a cockroach named Archie, you can't reach the shift key, for example, but what's the deal with humans?

I forgot about Don Marquis!

I haven't read Cormack McCarthy, but I don't see why writers shouldn't be free to write however they want to write. On the other hand, conventions are conventions because many writers follow them. A single writer's style does not make a convention.

boss i am disappointed in
some of your readers they
are always asking how does
archy work the shift so as to get a
new line or how does archy do
this or do that they
are always interested in technical
details when the main question is
whether the stuff is
literature or not

- Don Marquis, Archy and Mehitabel

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

Oh, I love archy and mehitabel! Shu and I saw a wonderful play based on them once.

Marquis even talks about single mother spiders in this verse.

Certainly e.e. cummings has pushed the envelope, too. Does everyone remember this magnificent children's book ?

I suppose it all comes down to which ones connect with readers and which ones don't.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Oh, I love archy and mehitabel! Shu and I saw a wonderful play based on them once.

I'm curious, what was it called?

The Metamorphosis? No, that cockroach was big enough to reach all the keys.

quote:

Certainly not the first with such style, but it nevertheless disturbs me.

Aside from running the risk of disturbing Asa Lovejoy, where is the harm in Cormac McCarthy's experimental style?

Unlike civil and criminal law, there is no specified punishment for violating writing-style conventions.

Cormac McCarthy deserves nothing more than to suffer extreme guilt pangs while reviewing his increasing net worth and his growing "Best Book" awards. More power to him !

quote:

I'm curious, what was it called?

Not exactly a creative, but..."Archie and Mehitabel."

Perhaps I'm an old fuddy-duddy, but I find that writing that doesn't follow the usual conventions puts me off, and I find it more difficult to read. Such conceits tend to distract me from the content. The actual layout of a page should be almost invisible.

quote:

Archie and Mehitabel

I read these back when I was at school. I found them very enjoyable and not especially difficult to read sans capital letters.

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
Such conceits tend to distract me from the content. The actual layout of a page should be almost invisible.

While I do notice the unconventional style, McCarthy seems to pull it off well enough that I'm having no trouble keeping track of who's saying what. Maybe if I read enough of his stuff, I'll get used to it - but not just yet!

quote:

Perhaps I'm an old fuddy-duddy, but I find that writing that doesn't follow the usual conventions puts me off,

I am with you, arnie. It's not a prescriptivist attitude (that is, "you must use capital letters!"), but it's just easier to read.

I'd not read anything by Cormac McCarthy, but decided to give "The Road" a look. I was surprised to find that he uses apostrophes as he sees fit, ignoring convention, and he eschews quotation marks. Certainly not the first with such style, but it nevertheless disturbs me. Is such style now considered conventional?

I note that the style is not McCarthy's per se, but just for the book under discussion (link). Reading about his book reminded me of a science fiction novel I read a long time ago called Riddley Walker by Russell Hobban. It is written in a strange orthography that tries to capture some changes to English after the apocalypse (link).

I know that many (most?) here will disagree with me, but I'm not too much disturbed by experimental or non-standard styles. Joyce's (and others') choice not to used quotation marks for direct quotation, amused me when I first came across it, but I've seen it in other books by other authors since then. Just another style to deal with when reading a literature as vast (in time and sapce) as English Literature.

quote:

I note that the style is not McCarthy's per se, but just for the book under discussion ...

I know that many (most?) here will disagree with me, but I'm not too much disturbed by experimental or non-standard styles.

I don't wish to disparage unconventionality per se either. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The more I read in this book, the more natural the style seems to become. It's a means of mood creation, and NOT a pleasant mood. I see now that it's the mood, not the style, that's bothersome.