Cormac McCarthy: America's Mythopoetic Prophet

Long live Wes!!! Can you do a video on John Barth, specifically Giles Goat Boy

Greeting from Czechia Wes. Listening you from your first lecture on Nietzsche when i work as gardener.

This was excellent. Thank you. Reading John Williams' BUTCHER'S CROSSING presently.

The comments about the lack of female characters are strange to me as I’ve only read three McCarthy novels: outer dark, the passenger and Stella Maris , but all three have central characters who are women. Outer dark has numerous women characters and depicts female society at many levels. The depictions of nature in OD are beautiful and very rich, not a wilderness in any sense. Finally , OD is expressly about community: various people trying to coalesce into groups of support. The two central characters in OD are constantly invited to join families and communities , but the tragedy is that they never do. Having said that, some good points made. I think McCarthy’s work basically lays bare the extreme violence and isolation that US life is based upon. It’s the existential ground for its being. I also find it interesting that McCarthy never seems to tackle issues around race in his work. Or does he do so in any of his other books?

Thanks Wes!

So badass that Wes Cecil is putting out a Cormac video.

Cormac McCarthy was a rad writer.....Love ''Suttree'' & ''Old men''.....W/ PK Dick one of the best American writers of the 20C. Consider doing a video on PKD. Enjoy your work, cheers brother.

You are correct that his work is overwhelmingly masculine, but Alicia Western has tons of dialogue in Stella Maris and The Passenger. Late career correction if you will.

For no reason at all, can we get a lecture on the ethics of protest and of wielding popular power in a democracy?

First like!

Thank you, Professor Wes Cecil, for discussing Cormac McCarthy's great literary works. I have all of his novels. "Blood Meridian" is my favorite. He was an interesting man with great intelligence in various fields. As you also may know, they are doing a film about "Blood Meridian" with Mr. McCarthy's blessing before he passed. This particular director and screenplay writer had done another film of another book of his. He better not screw it up, I dare say. Who cares about historical relevance, it's novel , damn it. As for women, we have always been slaves and second-hand citizens since the Gilgamesh Epic. I am a tortured poet, and alas, we may agree to disagree. What is it that creates violence and chaos? Cultures coming apart, for those who don't learn to think outside of the box. Reality check, welcome to Aldoux Huxley's "Brave New World." TS Elliott, "Waistland" Jacob's ladder with his spiraling staircase? Henry James was an honorable writer. Put this on your book list. Frantz Omar Fanon, "The Wretched Earth," "Black Skin, White Masks." 2 books I have just finished. That be a top of the morning to you. Thank you, Professor Wes Cecil for all I have gained knowledge from you.😊❤

This was a strange review to listen to because it sounds like you're lamenting the fact that Cormac MaCarthy didn't write Moby Dick.

McCarthy's world is one of men without women behaving badly and is rooted in the real world.

This lecture is riddled with unfair mischaracterizations about McCarthy. The section about he wrote a “manly man’s world completely devoid of women” yes women are sidelined but you know what I respect a man who said he wasn’t going to write women because he wasn’t one and he didn’t understand them. I can respect that. There are of course plenty of women in all his novels. They just aren’t assigned this feminist girl boss level of importance and we don’t get to see what’s going on inside them but that’s all his characters. He’s more show don’t tell. Tons of other points in this essay I just don’t really see or agree with.

* McCarthy "isn't funny" ?? .... >>> ASAP; you need to read Suttree! FUNNIEST NOVEL EVER WITTEN.... even the ultra-dark and violent Blood Meridian has a few funny moments. McCarthy is very comical, don't ever depict him as some dry nightmare author only, that's DEAD wrong.

"One of the most interesting things about McCarthys writing is his lack of women, and that leads to unrealistic world building." 😂 its a shame how limited the world view of literary critics is. You read about the world, but its always second hand accounts, and never lived experiences. Im a welder in texas, and have worked in west texas in construction and on oil rigs. Truth is, there just isnt any woman around. You can go six months straight without seeing a single one. Not misogyny, just a stone cold fact, and thats now. If you're a gang of scalp hunters traversing the deserts of west texas, in the 1800's. you cant exactly stop at a wendys and flirt with a cashier.😂 its a catch 22 (another book written with only men, because it takes place in an air force base during ww2...go figure) if a man writes a women's perspective hes a misogynist because he has no place speaking for women. And if he doesn't write about women hes a misogynist for not including women😂 damned if you do, damned if you dont... plus hes even said its not his place to talk on women because hes not one AND sutree and children of god both have female lead characters. So you literally couldnt be more wrong on every front, its honestly impressive. People self indulgently read books and they think it absolves themselves of being ignorant. Lmao id say pick up a book, but that clearly hasn't helped😅

John Wayne 🎉

Keine Frauen. Was ist mit Katzen und Hunden? Es beschreibt auch das kommende Szenarium der Siedler auf dem Mond und Mars.

Neoliberalism, Cultural Appropriation, and Mythopoetics. I'm curious to see where Wes' latest rabbit hole takes him and keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't end with an Alt-Right looney bin.

Blood Meridian is about war, murder, violence, power, a critique and argument against reason, against the enlightenment… So many things. The war of nature and nature of war. Yes very male dominated themes and yes in a world of brute struggle women become commodities as history shows. So that is their place in the world of Blood Meridian. Also his descriptions of nature are beautiful but death and the primordial struggle through violence is all pervasive and ever present which is the true harsh reality of closeness to nature. And the gnostic themes questioning good & evil. Painting a picture that nature may itself be evil and that within us is this alien spark that drives us towards morality even against better judgement. Possibly even to our own detriment. Why do we even bother to love at all in a world so cruel. Is war God or is God moral? Free will vs determinism You missed so much and this lecture is just simplistically dismissive. Thanks for the video all the same.