The Orchard Keeper
by Cormac McCarthy
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 550)
Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone pining for appalachia
Blame it on Faulkner. You can't write a novel nowadays about the South—good country people, grotesque deviants, backwoods hollers, and wide, copper-colored rivers—without being labeled Faulkner-esque, your work derivative of Faulkner, your themes and language descended from a rich Faulknerian lineage. It's some wonder more southern writers aren't trying to flee from under daddy F's looming shadow, the evoked comparison being just as much of a complaint half the time as i...more
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Read in December, 2007
I recently summarized two Uncle Tupelo songs as condensed Cormac McCarthy novels. This novel is more like an expanded Silver Jews track ("Smith and Jones Forever," I'm looking in your direction).
There are a lot of descriptions of body odor in this book. Most everyone so far seems like the kind of old coot you encounter when you get to Fleet Farm a little too early on Saturday morning. Or...more
There are a lot of descriptions of body odor in this book. Most everyone so far seems like the kind of old coot you encounter when you get to Fleet Farm a little too early on Saturday morning. Or...more
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Read in June, 2007
recommends it for:
McCarthy lovers...
A difficult introduction to McCarthy to be sure, but this book shows the origins of the narrative construction he would later perfect, with gaps in time and space filled in as the sections move along. One must be on one's toes to keep characters and plotlines straight, and as the book approaches its end the long indulgent sections begin to break down into plot "tie-ups" but overall a beautiful picture of the Tennessee mountain life and of the morally corrupted.
The attention to the...more
The attention to the...more
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His first book, apparently, and my favorite, probably because of the heavy Faulknerian influence. Less violent and apocalyptic than much of his work, a different kind of dark though possessing a fatherly relationship not unlike The Road. The wooded hollers and bottoms landscape is really a major character, and I'm drawn to it because it reminds me of the landscape of growing up in Kentucky. Though not a major plot point, when I think of this book I think of the boy dragging his mattress o...more
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Read in October, 2007
There's no question McCarthy is a brilliant prose writer. There are times when I stop in reading to marvel at his stunning verbal combinations. However the subject matter of this book just didn't appeal to me and I found the density of description overwhelming to the plot and actual characters. I knew exactly what everything looked like, smelled like, moved like, sounded like, etc, but for a good chunk of it i wouldn't have been able to tell you what was actually going on and how it related to a...more
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Read in December, 2006
I kept reading this book in hopes of figuring out what was going on. I never did. Maybe I could have put two and two two-gether if I paid more attention. I don't know who killed the woman or how they finally found her or what relation this had with anyone else. I learned more about hte plot from the summary on the back cover than from reading the entire book. McCarthy has a real talent for being descriptive, in a long-winded extraneous way. My favorite part was the chapter about the cat wa...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommends it for:
McCarthy fans and hill-dwellers.
In my estimation, The Orchard Keeper is not McCarthy's best book. There were still some old-timey gems of expression in there, but it was not quite dreamy enough for me to justify my need to not even try to follow the plot in order to get through it. After I completed the book, I read a summary of all of McCarthy's books in the back of this volume, and I said "Hmm...so THAT'S what happened". I had just finished it, but I had little idea what happened. Told from the point of view of...more
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Read in June, 2008
recommends it for:
poets
astounding for a debut novel, this book reads like a series of *very* long-form poems. incredible vocabulary, sense of detail. the style is lofty, not for casual reading. operates from a dizzying height of literary sensibility while remaining fairly un-selfconsciously literary. keeps up with what i've found in some of his other work as regards plot -- that is, any greater point or goal is inferred only as an aggregate of the focus on detail throughout. this is a book that creates an emotion...more
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Read in February, 2008
Finished this book this morning b/f work. not sure why it took me so long, but I did start it over the holidaze. His first book. Strange & creepy. Very Halloweenesque. Makes one think of Jack O' Lanterns, cobwebs & Appalachian secrets. This book is completely different from his latest. It's very decsriptive & nowhere near as spartan. The hillbilly language is aplenty. GReat language tho- & WONDERFUL desrciptions of the seasons. Backwoodsee. Almost "country noir&qu...more
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Read in November, 2007
Incredibly well written, though meandering and tiresome. There are passages of great beauty here and melancholy and a variety of wonderful descriptions and it's definitely interesting to see McCarthy for the first time working out many of the themes that he'll continue to explore more thoroughly in later works. Unfortunately, it all feels more like a showcase for technique than anything else.
Maybe in a year I'll give it another read and perhaps it'll have a greater impact on me.
Maybe in a year I'll give it another read and perhaps it'll have a greater impact on me.
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Read in June, 2007
This book is set in Appalachia in the early part of this century and McCarthy is amazing at creating a sense of what it must have been like to live then. There isn't what I would call a traditional story arc here - its more like a description of events as they happened. Things don't get tied up neatly at the end though you do follow the main characters throughout the story. I think that if you appreciate the atmosphere that an author creates on a moment-by-moment basis, you will enjoy this book.
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This is his first novel, originally published in 1965. I put it down about 1/3 through on my first attempt. Not that it was bad, but it was difficult. Dense. Slow going. After reading and loving some of his more recent titles I came back to it and enjoyed it. Good: Suttree-esque humor in places, characters. Less good: a tendency to try too hard, pretensiousness. Worth reading if you've read everything else by him.
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Read in December, 2005
I enjoyed Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, so decided to start with his first novel and work my way forward. Aarg. This was the only book I had easy access to on the plane to Indiana or I wouldn’t have gotten halfway through it.
I am a pretty astute reader, I think, but I couldn’t keep track of the characters and couldn’t find anyone or thing that I liked enough to keep going. Too bad.
I am a pretty astute reader, I think, but I couldn’t keep track of the characters and couldn’t find anyone or thing that I liked enough to keep going. Too bad.
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Read in May, 2007
McCarthy's first novel is almost surprising to read, if you're familiar with his darker works. Of the books I've read, I'd say it's his least bleak. Sure, there's crime. There's misfortune. But at the heart of this story about a young boy who falls in with a rough crowd is a whole lot of innocence. That's what I remember anyway.
A good book. A great debut. Probably one I'll reread someday.
A good book. A great debut. Probably one I'll reread someday.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in February, 2008
recommended to Callie by:
My dad even though I don't think he read it.recommends it for: Fans of William Faulkner
I honestly never really got a good handle on what was going on. I guess the fact that I kept reading anyway is a testament to the wonder of McCarthy's prose. It's so rich with description of a dirty rural Tennessee during the Prohibition era... I enjoyed page after page even though up to the very end, I still didn't quite get it.
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Read in May, 2006
I hate bureaucracy and this is a book about the man who keeps the old orchard, the young boy who learns the mountains, and the bootlegger who bump up against the implacable gears of its engine. It is a goodbye to a different world. It rocks.
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Read in September, 2007
it makes me giddy when i read the first published works of authors who have later in their careers accomplished something greater. it is a reassurance to read and think about the orchard keeper by a young mccarthy. it is encouragement.
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it's rich with seen description, moves in a deliberate pace, captures some of the ordinary but significant activities of a trio of characters, and some of their traumatic experiences as well.
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Again, a little creepy. Keep your eye on the subtle character development in this one- you learn so much about them without realizing he's telling you anything.
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Just getting started. A really strange and difficult contrast from this, his first novel, to his last, The Road, which I recently read.
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