McCarthy I like a lot, esp. the border trilogy. I appreciate well written novels and those are. If they end up on the desks of thousands of college english and writing students, so much the better.
Speaking as one who was trained and educated for many years to be an English teacher, I find this prospect to be sad, very sad. His turn of phrase and use of the language are both quite good but IMO no better than many others, and apparently his plot development and details are not pleasing to some folks for various reasons.
Literary criticism sometimes reminds me of oenophiles and art critics. The cognoscenti have a language all their own with all sorts of obfuscations and oh-so-obscure cutesy-pie references and if the rest of us ordinary mortals don't automatically appreciate and immediately embrace their overwhelming brilliance, well, then, we must be ignoramuses!
My yardstick is simple and easy to read. If the story is interesting TO ME then I'm interested even if the writing isn't the best. If the story isn't interesting TO ME then I'm not interested no matter how 'good' the writing may be according to someone else's yardstick.
I'll get down off my soapbox now, regards, Joe
