Maybe there’s more going on in McCarthy’s work than just world-weariness, whereas Mutis is focused on that sense of superficiality and jadedness to the point that it excludes other details and depths? Thanks for the thoughtful analysis, this was interesting to read.
Wow, fascinating to hear. Again, haven’t read the book, but it seems to me that you’re pretty clear-eyed about the ways in which it doesn’t work for you. It all just has me curious (like you) about how so many people can be so enchanted by it—a quick Google reveals very positive reviews from some major heavy hitters in literary critique.
I do think that the academy/literary establishment tends to privilege disenchantment and jadedness to a very high degree (so much so that it’s almost integral to literary realism), so maybe that’s the disconnect? I know personally that I also dislike totally jaded writing, and so am turned off by a decent chunk of well-regarded literature because it strikes me as almost disingenuously cool and detached and disbelieving. Like, some works attempt to be so clear-eyed about the human capacity for evil and self-interest that they actually become almost cartoonish, no longer reflecting the positive valences of real lived experience.
Are there any other books with that kind of jaded, detached narrator that you do enjoy? It sounds like this could have been a perfectly bad combination for you of rambling Quixotic travelog and falsely worldly self-affectedly jaded protagonist.
I have not read the book, but I did enjoy the video clip! I can’t imagine anything wrong with a book in which a man claims to invent the question mark, for example…/j
But seriously, most of the praise I see for the book is comparing it to Don Quixote, so I have to assume it’s one of those works that aims for intentionally overwrought satire, which I feel like either lands (if you find the material funny) or is totally unreadable (if it’s meant for other people’s senses of humor).
Do you agree with what the positive reviews point out as being assets, or do they seem to be receiving the work really differently? Definitely this description doesn’t make me want to go searching for a copy.
I love this perspective. It’s true that it would be useful to know, for example, how much horror fans enjoy a horror novel vs. people who “don’t usually read this.”
At the same time, I can see how those reviews are useful for people who are looking to branch out from their usual genre, and tastes are not static across genres (or subgenres within those genres). A good reminder of how important it is to actually read individual reviews, as one reader’s two-star may arise from the exact same evaluation as another’s three or one-star review (or even wider margins of personal preference for what ratings represent!).