In my readings of Cormac MacCarthy the two books I learned the most from are The Orchard Keeper and Blood Meridian. The Orchard Keeper I didn’t read, but listened to it as it was included in my Audible subscription. Really because I figured if I was going to sacrifice one of his books to an audiobook experience I might as well choose the least regarded of his bibliography.
I’ve read Blood Meridian and and listened to it many times through.
The first important thing that I learned was from Blood Meridian. I was reading through getting frustrated with the vocabulary, at having to stop and look up so many words, mostly geographical terms, and it dawned on me that I was racing. I just wanted the book under my belt. So, I slowed down and made sure I got it, his rhythm, his vocabulary, and once I did this the book became very visual and beautiful, even with its graphic nature. So I learned to read slow from that book. Lesson: It’s not a race.
More recently when I listened to The Orchard Keeper I noticed the narrator became a person more than in any other book I’ve experienced. It was like I was sitting next to someone who was just bullshitting along, telling the story. I don’t mean bullshitting in the sense of lying, but just the casual inventive nature of telling something he though worth telling. I was amazed. I listened to it for about an hour a night as I lie in bed and at least three times in my twilight haze I got the profound sense that someone was right behind my shoulder talking to me, telling me the story. So what’s the lesson? Give the narrator a personality. Don’t allow him or her to be sterile but tell the story like this is something the narrator has lived through, witnessed and was fascinated by enough to want to share the tale as a meandering series of connected anecdotes.
I always see The Orchard Keeper at the bottom of everyone’s ranking of MacCarthy’s books, so I wanted to share my experience and give the book some love
Comparing it to say No Country. No Country is a powerful story but the narrator is not much of a part of the story other than Ed Tom’s first person narrative. If it’s read after one sees the movie, which is sadly my experience, it reads like a script. This is just my thoughts. Cheers!
by Gur10nMacab33