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The Philosophy and Physics of Cormac McCarthy with Patrick O'Connor

Jun 8, 2022
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ANECDOTE

How McCarthy Hooked A Philosopher

  • Patrick O'Connor discovered Cormac McCarthy after a friend gave him Blood Meridian and later The Road.
  • Blood Meridian shocked him, while The Road pulled him back into McCarthy's work and sparked deeper study.
INSIGHT

Place Over Character

  • McCarthy foregrounds place and geography, letting characters 'float above' setting.
  • Language and landscape often dominate character psychology in his novels.
INSIGHT

Language As Ontological Mutilation

  • McCarthy repeatedly probes language as a tool that particularizes and 'owns' reality.
  • Naming fragments a primordial reality and can amount to an ontological mutilation, in McCarthy's view.
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