What are the syntactical features of McCarthy’s writing? He definitely has a distinctive sound, but I don’t know how to describe his syntax and diction. I have to write a “McCarthy-esque” sentence about a football game…
Also, how does McCarthy’s writing style contribute to his book All the Pretty Horses…What difference does it make?
Answer
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It’s been more than a few months since I put All the Pretty Horses down, but I would say that McCarthy’s style is often comprised of the following elements (in my opinion…and, again, from memory):
. Digressions and meditations on nature and the greater meaning of things. Lots of sidestepping to discuss the land, its history, the significance of the geography, etc.
. These digressions are often injected with philosophical / metaphysical threads that seem to be created with meandering strings of run-on sentences (kinda like how I write – 😉 ) which are then punctuated by terse / final statements.
The effect that I get is a dichotomous ebb and flow cycle of describing the very nature (often via historical context) of the environment that the protagonist is in. This description is woven as the continuous tapestry on top of which the actual events of the story unfold.
Make any sense?