Cormac McCarthy, conservative novelist

Aug 10, 2022

[A rare photo of CM smiling, and probably the only one of him holding a monkey. From source: “Photo taken in Wales about 1966 before Cormac McCarthy and Anne DeLisle were married. The monkeys they are holding were part of an act in a show where Anne worked at the time.”]

This is up in most recent Academic Questions, the journal of the National Association of Scholars.

CM has two new novels to be released in the fall. I’m slated to write about them. I am excited.

A few other things McCarthy-related on this Substack, in case you haven’t already seen them. Yes, I’m kind of a little bit slightly obsessed with him.

All Things Rhapsodical

_Blood Meridian_ and professors of English

This recently popped up on my YouTube list, a good indication that all the tracking activity devices are doing a fine job on me. I teach this novel in a course (the one on death I just discussed last week), and several other McCarthy novels in other courses, so the traces of my tracking things McCarthy are doubtless all over my computer…

a year ago · 1 like · 2 comments · Alexander Riley

All Things Rhapsodical

A brief ride through the evening redness in the West

We just finished reading the book this week. The third time, I believe, that I’ve used it in this course. It is a tough book for students. Why then do I give them this book, which even Harold Bloom, one of its biggest academic fans, admits he had trouble with in the early going…

a year ago · Alexander Riley

All Things Rhapsodical

The principles of Anton Chigurh

We just finished reading McCarthy’s _No Country for Old Men_ in one of my classes. (Yes, believe it or not, I do use some other books from time to time that were not written by him…). Something very troubling happens every time we read this book. Inevitably, there are students—not a majority, certainly, but more than I’m comfortable with—who come away ad…

a year ago · 1 like · Alexander Riley