The Boss is playing at this year's Glastonbury Festival. I've been a fan of him now for a couple of years but I've only really got into him in the last three months. My love of him started with Born to Run (1975). After that, I fell in love with Nebraska (especially with the songs Nebraska and Atlantic City).
In 1984, Born in the USA was released. The title song instilled in many fans the idea that Bruce bore some vague sense of conservatism when in fact the song was dedicated to all the freedoms America enjoys which a large portion of Americans have forgotten - or whose values have become somewhat sidetracked over the past eight years (ahem, Bush).
In 1995, he demolished the idea of his conservatism with The Ghost of Tom Joad - an indictment of US foreign policy. The album is played out as a story involving the struggles of Mexican immigrants seeking solace in the USA via the crossing of the Mexico-Texas border. The name of the title track is derived from a character in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
After searching on the internet for a live version of the song, I came upon a version in which Bruce is aided by Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine fame. Check out the video. You'll crap your pants.
This song is about the history of Youngstown, Ohio - a mining town founded in 1803 which used to have one of the biggest coal industries in the world. (It's also, of course, about migrant workers who'd travel there to find work.)
Showing posts with label Profiles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Profiles. Show all posts
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Saturday, 20 June 2009
On Cormac McCarthy.
Cormac McCarthy is considered one of America's most prestigious writers. His accolades include 10 best-selling books and a screenplay. Two of his novels - All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men - have been made into films, with his latest, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Road, having just been made into a film for a 2009 release.
I own six of his books but I've read only two. I found No Country for Old Men gripping and I thought The Road to be pure poetry. Cormac's turn-of-phrase is succint, poignant and colourful.
There's one thing that I don't like about him, though, and that's his use (or misuse) of punctuation. He doesn't use speech marks, nor does he use semi-colons or apostrophes. He also rarely uses commas - except when absolutely necessary. One of the authors he models himself on is James Joyce, who was renowned for his peculiar writing style which saw little use of punctuation and oft convoluted passages. Cormac is similar to him, with the exception that he writes in short sentences. He usually employs the use of subjectless sentence fragments.
He explains that there is little need for speech marks as it's quite straightfoward which character is speaking. Often, when writing as illiterate characters, he uses phrases such as 'could of' and he often uses double negatives. That's a bit of an unfair comment, though, as most of his novels are Westerns of sorts - with the exception of The Road. I find that said technique of characterising characters with the use of non-standard English is brilliantly effective.
He is often labelled a 'working man's writer' as his characters are often working men facing substantial challanges with regard to the changing circumstances of the times in which his novels are depicted. He says that he finds women very mysterious - even after three marriages - which is why he tends to focus mainly on male characters. I do worry about how his style may affect potential readers who aren't clued-up about punctuation and grammar. He has no obligation to explain his style - because the onus is on the individual - but I worry that some writers may adopt his style for the worse, and may not be able to pull it off in the way Cormac does (through ignorance rather than choice).
I personally could never imagine writing like him as my style is one which is peppered with punctuation - maybe to an excessive degree which is unnecessary. Nevertheless, he's a brilliant author and there are many things to say about both his character and writing style - as well as historical matter about which he writes (such as the trade of Navaho scalps in Mexico in the 1830s - this takes place in the novel 'Blood Meridian'). I find his style riveting and, if he is the exception to the rule, I'm more than happy to entertain his prose with interest and gusto.
I own six of his books but I've read only two. I found No Country for Old Men gripping and I thought The Road to be pure poetry. Cormac's turn-of-phrase is succint, poignant and colourful.
There's one thing that I don't like about him, though, and that's his use (or misuse) of punctuation. He doesn't use speech marks, nor does he use semi-colons or apostrophes. He also rarely uses commas - except when absolutely necessary. One of the authors he models himself on is James Joyce, who was renowned for his peculiar writing style which saw little use of punctuation and oft convoluted passages. Cormac is similar to him, with the exception that he writes in short sentences. He usually employs the use of subjectless sentence fragments.
He explains that there is little need for speech marks as it's quite straightfoward which character is speaking. Often, when writing as illiterate characters, he uses phrases such as 'could of' and he often uses double negatives. That's a bit of an unfair comment, though, as most of his novels are Westerns of sorts - with the exception of The Road. I find that said technique of characterising characters with the use of non-standard English is brilliantly effective.
He is often labelled a 'working man's writer' as his characters are often working men facing substantial challanges with regard to the changing circumstances of the times in which his novels are depicted. He says that he finds women very mysterious - even after three marriages - which is why he tends to focus mainly on male characters. I do worry about how his style may affect potential readers who aren't clued-up about punctuation and grammar. He has no obligation to explain his style - because the onus is on the individual - but I worry that some writers may adopt his style for the worse, and may not be able to pull it off in the way Cormac does (through ignorance rather than choice).
I personally could never imagine writing like him as my style is one which is peppered with punctuation - maybe to an excessive degree which is unnecessary. Nevertheless, he's a brilliant author and there are many things to say about both his character and writing style - as well as historical matter about which he writes (such as the trade of Navaho scalps in Mexico in the 1830s - this takes place in the novel 'Blood Meridian'). I find his style riveting and, if he is the exception to the rule, I'm more than happy to entertain his prose with interest and gusto.
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