I have more books than my bookshelves can accommodate. Some of those books, I am sure, I will never read again. Yet I keep buying more of them. It’s become inconvenient. So, although I dislike disposing of my papery acquisitions, needs must, and I have decided that the rule for 2023 is that, for every book which I decide is a ‘keeper’, two other books will be given to the charity shop. Thus shall my stacks slowly diminish while my bookwormy appetites remain fed.
But in doing this, I thought, why not make a little noise about the ‘keeper’ books? There is so much good writing out there that is insufficiently appreciated by literary gatekeepers — often because it doesn’t fit the mould in some way. Yet many of us prefer books that don’t fit the mould — well-written, naturally, but also clever, quirky, unique, original, sui generis. Books, in short, which bring life to the shelf. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to dig up literary gems from the great mounds of published soil that are heaped up higher each day . . . but that means that when we do find a Keeper, we should talk about it. It’s a public service. Here, then, is my list of Keepers, with a few notes — deliberately not a review or rating — on each. I hope that this page (irregularly updated!) will result in at least some of the Keepers finding new readers. They deserve each other.
Note: I won’t list all my Keepers; I don’t have the time! For the avoidance of doubt: if a book is not listed here, it does not mean that it is not a Keeper.
Keeper 1: The Inconceivable Idea of the Sun, by Anil Menon (Hachette)
For my first keeper, I am cheating, as (i) I bought it in 2022, not 2023; and (ii) I only have it in digital form, so I can’t really complain about its shelf footprint. However, I don’t like reading in Kindle, which meant that I took a long time to get through the book, and only finished it in 2023; and I will get a hard copy as soon as I can. So I think I can justify its inclusion in this list. (Full disclosure: Anil has helped me tremendously with my own writing, so naturally I am well-disposed towards him; that said, I don’t think my comments below were significantly swayed by gratitude. But what should be disclosed must be disclosed, and now it has been).
What it is:
A collection of sixteen stories, mostly with a speculative / SF bent and an Indian / desi flavour. For the latter reason, those unfamiliar with the subcontinent or its diasporic manifestations may occasionally miss some of the allusions or be tripped up by wordplay — jombie for zombie, for example, in the accent of one character. The book also provides an entertaining preface and some notes on sources and contexts per story (I love it when authors give us this kind of supplementary discourse; it makes the book feel more complete). In a typically clever and individualistic flourish, Menon provides the table of contents as a poem. (And if the sixteen stories’ titles make a poem, then say, O reader, how much poetry is contained in each story?)
Quotes & notes:
“The man embraced his self, his subtlest story, his separation from all, and reminded it that stories are forged as gates, not walls. Open. There is nothing to fear.”
The author’s style is elegant and deceptively simple. You often forget you are reading, which is the effect that all authors (should) aim for, but few achieve. To read Menon, I think, is to feel that you are sitting with an old friend, cradling a G&T while he good-naturedly burbles away at you – and then, suddenly, to realise that you are down to the ice and lime and his polymathic burbling has raised questions for which there are no answers. Anyway, it was great to read intelligent spec fic that has a natural (unforced) subcontinental ‘feel’. If you only read one of these unique stories, choose ‘Into the Night’. Impossible not to be touched; impossible, perhaps, not to gently rage at the good night into which we all must go. Or weep, at least, at the paths some of us must take to go there.
Keeper 2. The Book of Devices, by Ihsan Oktay Anar; translator: Gregory Key (Imprint)
I’d been contemplating this purchase for months; having had a run of disappointing literary acquisitions, I hemmed and hawed longer than I should have, but finally clicked on the Buy button. And I’m glad I did.
What it is:
A short novel (call it a novella if you like), comprised of three sections (call them novelettes if you like) set in Ottoman Turkey. The sections describe the attempts of three individuals to invent and construct extraordinary devices – not least, a perpetual motion machine – and the eventual fates of said individuals.
Quotes & notes:
“On the authority of Basri Effendi the Cymbalist of the notables of the Tatavla lunatic league, it is reported that Yafes Chelebi, wandering destitute in and about Kasimpasa, Galata, and Tophane, after his expulsion from the school of engineering, did not remain idle during this second dark period of his life, but filled two or three scraps of paper with drawings of a dabbaba, and once again began to entertain outrageous fantasies.”
I have had a soft spot for cunning devices, not least for perpetual motion machines, ever since my boyhood, when I myself invented a perpetual motion device. (It involved a series of buckets, if I remember correctly, and was based on the premise that although water usually flows downhill, it might be encouraged uphill — in an eternal, closed-system flow — by means of a clever arrangement of tubing and close attention to some of Escher’s diagrams. I really should dig out the plan and patent it – I’d make a fortune). So that was partly why the book caught my eye, and for once my eye was happy to be captured, for a lovely little book it is. Anar appears to be something of a Renaissance man – not only can he write, but I’m guessing that the design of the devices in the book, and their illustrations, are also his. I like it when authors give readers something more than words. Also, it was wonderful to get glimpses of a time and culture of which I know very little. I don’t know how the writing feels in the original Turkish, but Key’s translation gives us rolling, sophisticated English sentences that are a pleasure to read. I will definitely seek out more of this author, hopefully via the same translator. I suspect and hope that Anar’s other work will be more immersive and ‘novel-like’ than this little trilogy; this is not to criticise ‘The Book of Devices’ — I love it just as it is — just that I suspect Anar has deeper stories and styles to give us, and I look forward to finding out if I’m right.
Keeper 3: ‘Awareness’, by Anthony de Mello (Fount Paperbacks)
Originally, ‘Shelf Life’ was going to focus on fiction, primarily new fiction. But I make the rules for this exercise, and I’ve decided there’s no rule that says ‘Fiction Only’. So I am including this non-fiction book, by the Indian Jesuit priest and psychotherapist Anthony de Mello. It was lent to me by my neighbour (thanks, Steve!), and I enjoyed it enough to want to buy it, at which point Steve just gave me the copy I’d borrowed.
What it is:
A collection of talks by de Mello on ‘spiritual’ / psychological themes, written in a chatty, jokey style that I presume reflects the way they were delivered in person.
Quotes and notes:
“Who’s living in you? It’s pretty horrifying when you come to know that. You think you are free, but there probably isn’t a gesture, a thought, an emotion, an attitude, a belief in you that isn’t coming from someone else. . . And you don’t know it. Talk about a mechanical life that was stamped into you.”
The book encourages some self-reflection, which is always healthy. Well, often healthy. Well, sometimes healthy . . . depends what kind of reflection looks back at you, I suppose . . .
Keeper 4: ‘Confessions of an English Opium Eater’, and other writings, by Thomas de Quincey, Oxford World’s Classics, OUP; editor Robert Morrison.
Another non-fiction Keeper. I’ve been intending to read this for decades; finally got round to it. This edition, with an introduction and set of notes by Robert Morrison, includes not only the ‘Confessions’ (1821) but also ‘Suspiria de Profundis’ (1845) and ‘The English Mail Coach’ (1849). Of these, I preferred the ‘Confessions’; the later works sometimes slip into overblown, florid Victorian sentimentality. But I’d keep them all: apart from the charms of their unique subject matter, they give interesting insights into late eighteenth / early nineteenth century English (and Welsh) life.
What it is:
‘Confessions’ is a description of the genesis and consequences of the author’s opium addiction, including some descriptions of the narcotic / hallucinogenic effects of the drug, in nineteenth century London.
Quotes and notes:
[on “the utter feebleness of the main herd of modern economists”]: “. . . these were generally the very dregs and rinsings of the human intellect . . . any man of sound head, and practiced in wielding logic with a scholastic adroitness, might take up the whole academy of modern economists, and throttle them between heaven and earth with his finger and thumb, or bray their fungus heads to powder with a lady’s fan.”
[describing an opium-induced vision]: “I ran into pagodas and was fixed, for centuries, at the summit, or in secret rooms; I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Brama through all the forests of Asia; Vishnu hated me; Shiva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris; I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried, for a thousand years, in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles, and laid, confounded with all unutterable slimy things, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud.”
They don’t make them like de Quincey any more.
Keeper 5: ‘The Moonstone’, by Wilkie Collins
Recently, for my birthday, my daughter gave me a find from a charity bookshop: ‘The Moonstone’, by Wilkie Collins (my son also got me a book; more of that, perhaps, anon). Clearly, I was honour-bound both to bump this latest acquisition to the top of the TBR pile, and also to actually do some reading, which I haven’t been able to easily do for a long while now. So I did both those things, ignoring the bitter accusations of queue-jumping from the other TBR books and the gnawing guilt regarding all the things I should be doing instead of reading. Anyway, I recently started and finished ‘The Moonstone’. Yup, it’s a Keeper.
What it is:
Published in 1868, ‘The Moonstone’ (like my very own ‘Hangdog Souls’) kicks off (arguably) in the 1799 Siege of Srirangapatnam. In brief, a stolen diamond is stolen again and taken to England before being stolen for a third time. It’s a page-turning story with plenty of twists and turns (and I’ll give out no spoilers!). According to the blurb on the back of my Wordsworth Classics edition, TS Eliot asserted that ‘The Moonstone’ is ‘the first, the longest and the best of modern English detective novels’. I don’t know the field well enough to comment on whether either of the first two assertions are likely to be true, and the third is of course subjective; nevertheless, all three are credible.
Quotes and notes:
‘But it was published in 1868’, I hear you complain; “It must be, you know, etc, etc!’. Yes, I know, given the publication date you might expect the kind of turgid Victorian prose which is almost unreadable – but you’d be wrong. It is true that the book is written in the precise language typical of the period (that is, the kind which is a relief to read in a time when even BBC employees can’t express themselves in correct English). It is, however, also written in a manner which is, without exception, of perfect clarity; not something the Victorians always managed. And if you are expecting stereotypical Victorian prejudices, you won’t find them here, at least not presented in a way which would suggest overt or implicit support for them. In fact, the author seems to have been much more enlightened than many of his contemporaries (if we are to believe all the stories about said contemporaries; however, this is not the place to discuss the biases of historians). Finally, the humour – of which the book is surprisingly full – is also much more subtle, sophisticated and delicate than we tend to associate with heavy-handed Victorian sensibilities. These aspects of style and content contribute to The Moonstone’s surprisingly modern feel; it almost reads like a historical novel written by a modern author (albeit one without any discernible axe to grind). All that said, if you are seeking writing with the kind of poetic undercurrents that flow through the best kinds of fiction, you won’t find it here; it’s just not that kind of book. That’s not a criticism, just an observation.
In any case, overall, I was left with the impression that ‘The Moonstone’ is one of those books that was ahead of its time and therefore one that made its presence felt in many subsequent works. I’m not sufficiently broadly read to categorically make that case; but I do believe that when reading ‘The Moonstone’ I heard notes which echo in the works of PG Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle and Jerome K Jerome. For example:
Influence on Wodehouse: In ‘The Moonstone’, a portrait is described as if it were a character imparting advice to another character wrestling with the temptation of doing something somewhat uncalled for and completely absurd (“The miniature of my late dear uncle, Sir John, hung on the wall opposite the bed. It seemed to smile at me; it seemed to say, “Drusilla! deposit a book.”)* In the context, this is just so Wodehousian, and I can imagine that this kind of Collins drollery contributed to PGW’s characters — not only in unforgettable creations such as The Efficient Baxter and his gleaming spectacles, which were sometimes treated almost as if animate in their own right (“It was his spectacles that struck you first as you saw the man. They gleamed efficiently at you.” : from ‘Leave it to Psmith’) but also in his broader cast of eccentrics with their lunatic schemes. Less obviously, Sergeant Cuff’s interest in roses and his heated discussions on this subject with the gardener can’t help but remind us of Emsworth and McAllister.
Influence on Conan Doyle: The urchin ‘Gooseberry’ is a clear forerunner of the children that Sherlock Holmes would sometimes use as his street-level eyes and ears (“They call the poor little wretch ‘Gooseberry’ at the office,” he said. “I employ him to go on errands—and I only wish my clerks who have nick-named him were as thoroughly to be depended on as he is. Gooseberry is one of the sharpest boys in London, Mr. Blake, in spite of his eyes.”). Similarly, Sergeant Cuff’s gnomic utterances, attention to detail and unassailable logic remind me of the character attributes of Holmes: “I made a private inquiry last week, Mr. Superintendent,” he said. “At one end of the inquiry there was a murder, and at the other end there was a spot of ink on a table cloth that nobody could account for. In all my experience along the dirtiest ways of this dirty little world, I have never met with such a thing as a trifle yet. Before we go a step further in this business we must see the petticoat that made the smear, and we must know for certain when that paint was wet.”
Influence on Jerome: Throughout ‘The Moonstone’, the humour – sometimes gentle, sometimes hardened with a sharp philosophical edge — has, to my mind, a Jeromean feel to it: “The great Cuff, on his side, looked at Superintendent Seegrave in that quietly expecting way which I have already noticed. I can’t affirm that he was on the watch for his brother officer’s speedy appearance in the character of an Ass—I can only say that I strongly suspected it.” Or: “You dabbled in nasty mud, and made pies, when you were a child; and you dabble in nasty science, and dissect spiders, and spoil flowers, when you grow up. In the one case and in the other, the secret of it is, that you have got nothing to think of in your poor empty head, and nothing to do with your poor idle hands. And so it ends in your spoiling canvas with paints, and making a smell in the house; or in keeping tadpoles in a glass box full of dirty water, and turning everybody’s stomach in the house; or in chipping off bits of stone here, there, and everywhere, and dropping grit into all the victuals in the house; or in staining your fingers in the pursuit of photography, and doing justice without mercy on everybody’s face in the house. It often falls heavy enough, no doubt, on people who are really obliged to get their living, to be forced to work for the clothes that cover them, the roof that shelters them, and the food that keeps them going. But compare the hardest day’s work you ever did with the idleness that splits flowers and pokes its way into spiders’ stomachs, and thank your stars that your head has got something it must think of, and your hands something that they must do.”
Finally, a couple of criticisms of the Wordsworth edition, because that’s the kind of guy I am: the book contains at least two typos (‘race’ for ‘face’ and ‘theute’ for ‘the salute’) and a misplaced text note (note 32’s position in the text erroneously implies it refers to medical doctors, not Doctors’ Commons). I suspect the early editions of ‘The Moonstone’ would not have had such errors; why can’t we rise to the diligence standards of Victorian Man? Finally, the cover of the Wordsworth Classics edition is so dire that I can’t bring myself to reproduce it here; I’ve used a substitute from among the early editions.
*After writing the above, I found out that in Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’, published in 1851 — over 15 years before ‘The Moonstone’ — there is a character who seems to be a clear precursor for Drusilla. Just as Drusilla scatters religious pamphlets around a house, hoping to convert its residents to a more righteous way of life, so in ‘Moby Dick’ a pious lady seeks to divert sailors from sea-shanties by leaving booklets of religiously-inspired songs on their hammocks. As I have not read ‘Moby Dick’ (I once started it, but did not finish it; I thought it began well, but lost its way), I don’t know whether the character in ‘Moby Dick’ is portrayed as humorously as Drusilla is, but the broad similarity is clear. So: perhaps Melville influenced Collins who influenced Wodehouse? (Alternatively, perhaps characters such as ‘Drusilla’ were common in Victorian times, such that both Melville and Collins drew on similar experiences of the zeitgeist — that said, I am certain that Collins would have read ‘Moby Dick’).
Keeper 6: If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, by Italo Calvino
“I would like to be able to write a book that is only an incipit, that maintains for its whole duration the potentiality of the beginning, the expectation still not focussed on an object. But how could such a book be constructed? Would it break off after the first paragraph? Would the preliminaries be prolonged indefinitely? Would it set the beginning of one tale inside another, as in the Arabian Nights?”
What it is
What is this book? A metanovel composed of linked/nested metastories? A type of fiction that makes the reciprocal interaction between the reader and the read more explicit, brings it out from the shadows and examines it? A string of cheekily self-referential allusions? A giant tease from an extraordinarily talented author? For me, the best description of ‘If on a Winter’s Night’ may be found between the lines of the quotation above – from the book itself — which typifies (at least, it is by no means the only example of sly self-reference) the reflectiveness and recursiveness of this unique work. Others may disagree, but then reading is, apparently, intrinsically capricious and violent (see below). Anyway, however one wishes to describe the book, God bless the brave, principled, intelligent beings who first published it (I think Giulio Editore in 1979?). I suspect such a book would not be printed today, and the world would be a poorer place without it.
Quotes and notes
My son gave me this book, so of course – like ‘The Moonstone’, above – it queue-jumped the TBR line-up. Good choice, rug-rat – I enjoyed it. It’s the first Calvino book I have read — and wow, he is good. Usually, when one reads things, one sees what the author is trying to do, and in the very act of seeing it one is taken out of the book; the magic is destroyed (again, see below). That doesn’t happen with this book, or if it does, it still works, maybe because what is outside the book (i.e., in the reader) is often a part of the book, in a weird kind of way. It shouldn’t work, as they say, but it does.
Also, one has to just sit back and admire Calvino’s stories qua stories; they really are very accomplished. They brought joy to this jaded reader, anyway. I’m not sure if they would all work if taken out of the context of the book as a whole – I’d have to re-read them to come to any conclusion on that – but in said context they are perfect. Sometimes Calvino addresses the reader directly (but for those who, like me, dislike the idea of this, don’t worry – it’s really not like that throughout), which, in places, gives the book a surprisingly intimate feel. This, together with his other musings and asides, often seems to invite a direct ‘discussion’ between reader and author. For example–:
“Reader, we are not sufficiently acquainted for me to know whether you move with indifferent assurance in a university or whether old traumas or pondered choices make a universe of pupils and teachers seem a nightmare to your sensitive and sensible soul.” – Oh, the latter, Italo, absolutely the latter! I would not go back to academia for a king’s ransom!
“ . . . you are gripped by the fear of having . . . passed over to the other side and of having lost that privileged relationship with books which is peculiar to the reader . . .” – It’s too late for me, Italo, I am already and incontrovertibly on that desolate ‘other side’! Yes, since starting to write books, I can no longer read any book innocently and openly. Nobody warned me about that. Indeed, as you yourself, Italo, say a little later: “How many years has it been since I could allow myself some disinterested reading? How many years has it been since I could abandon myself to a book written by another, with no relation to what I must write myself?” Tell me about it, Italo. Preaching, converted, etc.
“Torn between the necessity to interject glosses on multiple meanings of the text and the awareness that all interpretation is an act of violence and caprice against a text . . .” I know what you mean, Italo, but such capricious violence is inevitable, is it not? There are as many interpretations and reactions to a book as there are readers. I could say more – much more – but let’s leave it at that.
“At times I convince myself that the woman is reading my true book, the one I should have written long ago but will never succeed in writing, that this book is there, word for word, that I can see it at the end of my spyglass but cannot read what is written in it, cannot know what was written by that me who I have not succeeded and will never succeed in being.” I feel your pain, Italo, and you feel mine.
“If I were only a hand, a severed hand that grasps the pen and writes . . . It is not in order to be the spokesman for something definable that I would like to erase myself. Only to transmit the writable that waits to be written, the tellable that nobody tells.” Indeed, Italo; or, to put it another way, we search for the tale that has never been told, and we search in the full knowledge that, even if we were to find it and tell it, it is not really ours to tell. Is this a futile act of generosity or a generous act of futility? Or are we, rather, contemplating a morally justifiable theft?
“ . . . the book should be the written counterpart of the unwritten world; its subject should be what does not exist and what cannot exist except when written, but whose absence is obscurely felt by that which exists, in its own incompleteness.” Exactly, Italo; reality stencils fiction. As Joy Harjo said of poetry: “The great paradox is that poetry uses language to create a place you can go when human words fail.” I think her assertion is related to the point you are making. Oh, you disagree? Well, try replacing ‘book’ with ‘poem’ and ‘poetry’ with ‘books’ in the above quotes. Now – do you still disagree? Ah, only partly – you agree that the poem may be the written counterparty of the unwritten, but you disagree that a book creates a place to go when human words fail. Ipso facto, you say, and leave me to join the dots. Hm. Well, it’s true that not all books can create such places, just as not all poetry can – although, capricious violence, etc — but I suspect the books that best create such places have strong poetic undercurrents in their prose, and that said places would not exist absent said undercurrents. Can we agree on that?
“ . . . I read in a book that the objectivity of thought can be expressed using the verb ‘to think’ in the impersonal third person: saying not ‘I think’ but ‘It thinks’, as we say ‘It rains’. . . Will I ever be able to say, “Today it writes’, just like ‘Today it rains’ . . . ? Only [then] will I be able to hope that through me is expressed something less limited than the personality of an individual.” What a wonderful way of putting it, Italo. My feeling is that the best words bound up unbidden and hide when harried. Which is not to say that editing does not require a bit of harrying – it does – but that’s an entirely different exercise. And even then the writer is often more of a conductor than a herdsman.
“In my case, too, all the books I read are leading to a single book . . . a book remote in time, which barely surfaces from my memories. There is a story that for me comes before all other stories and of which all the stories I read seem to carry an echo, immediately lost. In my readings I do nothing but seek that book read in my childhood, but what I remember of it is too little to enable me to find it again.” Me too! Me too! Although truthfully I only find that joyful, hurtful echo in a tiny minority of the books I read. But this receding, yet undying, bittersweet tolling of a forgotten bell is why I think that the best children’s books are the best books of all; no adult’s book can have such a lifelong impact. Perhaps that’s why good children’s books are so hard to write (conversely, it is very easy to write a bad children’s book — and many people do write them, and many of those people get those books published). Certainly, I very much hope that one day I will be a good enough writer to write a good children’s book. How about you, Italo? Did you ever harbour such lofty ambitions? Ah – you direct me to your bibliography, available, doubtless, on some website or other. Fair enough. Fair enough. In any case, whatever else you’ve done, you’ve written a Keeper here.
Keeper 7: ‘Suttree’, by Cormac McCarthy
Sometimes, I just need a bit of Cormac McCarthy. So I continued to ignore the TBR pile and bought a McCarthy, and read it. Do I feel guilty? Yes; the TBRs continue to sadly gather dust. Do I otherwise regret it? No. Does this mean I endorse McCarthy the man? No; I never met him, and therefore am in no position to comment on his worth as a human being, and in any case I am not interested in him, only in his books, which I like very much. Clear? Good.
What it is
For me, all McCarthy’s books that I have read to date, while being individually unique and not in the least repetitive, are all about the same thing: the struggle to survive in a cruel and pointlessly violent world where life is of little value and death of no consequence. The story of this struggle is told with central reference to the kinds of characters that would have bit parts, at most, in conventional narratives. ‘Suttree’ is no different; the cast, including Suttree himself, eke out somewhat sordid, hand-to-mouth lives by a river in the southern United States, their existences being utterly without point or purpose other than to continue existing. It is somewhat lighter in tone than many of McCarthy’s books – until you hit the last page, which hits you right back, only much harder. One of the best endings to a long novel I have ever read. Those who have stared into the abyss of a life with no support, security or backstop will recognise the eternal truth of the book’s finale; those who have not, may not. Enough said. (Although actually I will say one more thing, because it is easy to miss: the book’s ending is obliquely referenced in a few lines found in its opening italicised beginning, namely: “ . . . but lo the thing’s inside and can you guess his shape? Is he a weaver, bloody shuttle shot through a timewarp . . . Or a hunter with hounds . . . ? Dear friend he is not to be dwelt upon for it is by just suchwise that he is invited in.”)
Quotes and notes
‘Suttree’ does what every book should do: it picks the reader up and places him, immerses him, in a foreign world. The details of period and place are exquisite and of extraordinary depth and breadth; the language is sophisticated and rich; the setting is both uniquely strange and enormously plausible. Typical McCarthy, in other words. And definitely a Keeper.
However . . . yes, I have some niggling concerns which, having festered and stewed, are bubbling up into the rudiments of criticism. Sigh. You see, the thing I have always loved about MCarthy’s work is its apparent uniqueness. It’s as if he was created de novo to write from some broken American heartland in a language that but for him would have been lost to the world. Of course, another part of me knew that was nonsense – we all stand on the shoulders of giants, we are all influenced by others we read, and the impact of (for example) the KJV Bible on McCarthy’s language was always obvious. Nevertheless, he seemed to me (caveat: I am poorly read) to have developed his unique fiction style from a place of almost absolute independence of other modern writers. Had I read none of his books other than ‘Blood Meridian’ and ‘The Road’, I would still think that. But in ‘Suttree’, I believe we see evidence of one of those who modulated the McCarthy style. One of those he probably admired and perhaps tried to emulate. Of whom do I speak? Of Dylan Thomas, with particular reference to ‘Under Milk Wood’. A couple of examples:
McCarthy, opening paragraphs of ‘Suttree’:
“ . . . now in the dusty clockless hours of the town when the streets lie black and steaming in the wake of the watertrucks and now when the drunk and the homeless have washed up in the lee of walls in alleys . . . now in these sootblack brick or cobbled corridors where lightwire shadows make a gothic harp of cellar doors no soul shall walk save you . . . a cat transpires from stone to stone across the cobbles liquid and black . . . over the raindark street . . . ”
Thomas, opening paragraphs of ‘Under Milk Wood’:
“It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent . . . And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now . . . the dogs in the wetnosed yards; and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sly, streaking and needling, on the one cloud of the roofs . . . You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing. Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep.”
Once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it; some of McCarthy’s prose is unquestionably flavoured with Thomas’ poetic language. (As always, when you try to write like somebody else, you don’t do it as well as they do; I think the above two extracts demonstrate that. McCarthy had to develop his own style, which he inimitably did).
Another thing: for me, there is a change in feeling, almost a change in voice – perhaps, rather, a change in accent – over the course of the book, the opening parts being the most Dylan-derivative and the ending being pure McCarthy. This is reflected in my feeling that the earlier parts of ‘Suttree’ would have benefited from better editing, as they include some repetition and one or two extremely clunky sentences. For example (page numbers refer to the Picador edition of 2024):
- Page 11: ‘Suttree rubbed the gently pulsing muscle in his speculative jaw.’
The editor should have had a gentle word with Cormac about that sentence. Yuk.
- Page 4-5: ‘Here at the creek mouth … Old tins and jars and ruined household artifacts … the blown lightbulbs like shorn polyps semitranslucent and skullcolored bobbing blindly down …’
- Page 144-145: ‘When he came upon the river again it was upon a dead and swollen backwater of coves and sloughs where slime and froth obscured the shapes of floating jars and bottles and where lightbulbs peered from the slowly heaving jetsam like great barren eyes.’
There were a few cases like the above, where one reads a descriptive passage and is tripped up, thinking: haven’t I read this earlier? Again, Cormac’s editor should have jumped on these.
Interestingly, after writing the above I looked up the Wikipedia entry for ‘Suttree’. This tells me that the book (published in 1979) was written over a twenty year period (suggesting it was started in the fifties) — which might explain the above-noted change in accent over the course of the book. Note too that ‘Under Milk Wood’ was published in 1954, in both Britain and America, and that Dylan Thomas died in New York a year earlier, in 1953, which would have been newsworthy, especially in literary circles. It seems highly likely then that McCarthy started ‘Suttree’ with Dylan Thomas’ extraordinary language ringing in his ears, which supports my thesis above. But if you are going to be overtly influenced by anyone, you can pick much worse influences than our Welsh genius, and certainly ‘Suttree’, though not McCarthy’s best work, remains a Keeper for me.