Re: the "level of threat" posed by HPL, CAS
Posted by:
Sawfish (IP Logged)
Date: 10 September, 2020 12:55PM
Maybe so. Gets kids, gets everyone.
But then, too, he's good at everything, a sorta polymath, dancer, best fiddler you ever heard, etc.
I tend not to read literature in terms of looking for cultural symbols, but he's definitely more than human, no doubt about it.
I have an aversion from undergrad days. I misunderstood what I was learning. I think that what was intended was that you can *find* evidence of cultural recurrent symbols and themes, but I did not understand that what most of the authors seemed to be doing--except for those marginal wise-guys, like, er, well symbolists, etc.--were merely telling a story, and as products of their particular cultures, these deep-seated symbols sorta bubble to the surface, like artesean springs.
So at that time I thought that these elite authors were send us students clever, winking messages by *consciously* using cultural references for the cognoscenti--ahem!, *us*--to pick up on. But in fact, what was going on most of the time is that they included sequences that were influenced by cultural themes/norms/symbols, but not consciously so. What we did was to *find* these influences, which I mistook to be conscious references.
Man, I could find this stuff EVERYWHERE, and I'm now ashamed of my papers (truly, "undergraduate" in the worst interpretation of the term--I figure that Dale knows *exactly* what I'm talking about ;^) ), because I now think that the way to interpret it by default is that the authors seldom consciously intended to put them in, but in creating the narrative, they fell back on their life influences, which included central cultural motifs.
And to make matters worse, it's entirely possible that some of them *did* consciously inject these references in just the manner I believed as an undergrad, but now I would tend to think of this as a sign of a tender ego.
Back to Holden...
Do you think it's kinda jarring that Glanton, and not he, is the leader? I mean, in every way he makes better sense as the leader of a bunch of--face it--psychotics (stronger, more ruthless, smarter, superhuman strength etc.), but he is not.
Now there's one written account, in a sort of memoir by an alleged gangmember, that verifies the existence of Holden (maybe), so perhaps McCarthy felt constrained by the historical record--but the written account, while making Holden remarkable, does not go so far as to make him mythical--which McCarthy certainly does.
Odd stuff going on with that character, for sure.
Fun discussion, Cathbad!
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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