The Cambridge Companion to Cormac McCarthy

by Steven Frye (Editor)

Overview

Cormac McCarthy both embodies and redefines the notion of the artist as outsider. His fiction draws on recognizable American themes and employs dense philosophical and theological subtexts, challenging readers by depicting the familiar as inscrutably foreign. The essays in this Companion offer a sophisticated yet concise introduction to McCarthy's difficult and provocative work. The contributors, an international team of McCarthy scholars, analyze some of the most well-known and commonly taught novels - Outer Dark, Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses and The Road - while providing detailed treatments of McCarthy's work in cinema, including the many adaptations of his novels to film. Designed for scholars, teachers and general readers, and complete with a chronology and bibliography for further reading, this Companion is an essential reference for anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of one of America's most celebrated living novelists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107487154
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/22/2013
Series:	Cambridge Companions to Literature
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Steven Frye is Professor of English at California State University, Bakersfield, and President of the Cormac McCarthy Society. He is the author of Understanding Cormac McCarthy and Historiography and Narrative Design in the American Romance, as well as numerous articles on Cormac McCarthy, Herman Melville and other novelists of the American romance tradition and the literature of the American West.

Table of Contents

List of contributors; Acknowledgments; Chronology of McCarthy's life and works; 1. Introduction: histories, novels, ideas: McCarthy and the art of philosophy Steven Frye; Part I. Influence and Innovation: 2. McCarthy's heroes and the will to truth Linda Woodson; 3. Modernism, postmodernism, and language: McCarthy's style Phillip A. Snyder and Delys W. Snyder; Part II. Beginnings in the American South: 4. McCarthy, Tennessee, and the southern gothic Lydia R. Cooper; 5. McCarthy and the uses of philosophy in the Tennessee novels Brian Evenson; Part III. The Move Westward: 6. History and the problem of evil in McCarthy's western novels Timothy Parrish; 7. The Border Trilogy, The Road, and the Cold War Pierre Lagayette; Part IV. The Novels: 8. Outer Dark and romantic naturalism James R. Giles; 9. Blood Meridian and the poetics of violence Steven Frye; 10. All the Pretty Horses, the border, and ethnic encounter Nicholas Monk; 11. The quest for God in The Road Allen Josephs; Part V. Themes and Issues: 12. McCarthy and naturalism Eric Carl Link; 13. McCarthy and film Stacey Peebles; 14. McCarthy's heroes: revisiting masculinity John Dudley; Selected bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

'The collection works best when moving beyond the generalities of genre to the specificities of history and the singularities of style.' The Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher