Outer Dark

Rating:
Summary: The Western redone as gothic horror
Review: Cannibalism, incest, violence, shadows and morbidity are not images usually associated with the western genre. Cormac McCarthy combines these gothic horror elements with the "Tale of the Wandering Jew" to craft a novel that, while certainly a genre western in the classic sense (it is filled with outlaws, pioneers, gunfights, horses, etc.) manages to also defy catergorization.

This is not a novel for all readers. McCarthy is an aquired taste. The hope through regeneration and purgation is present but certainly takes a close reading to discover. I am not a fan of dark literature per se, but McCarthy posseses such a unique linguistic style, that he indeed weaves a magic tapestry around his narratives and seduces the reader. He also manages to breathe new life into a classic American genre by throwing a new spin at his audience.

Like the rest of McCarthy's novels, "Outer Dark" is on one hand extremely cinematic with its rich and dense imagery and yet completely unfilmable. In fact Jim Jarmasch's excellent but aquired taste "Dead Man" contains many scenes that could have been taken directly from "Outer Dark".

As with all westerns, McCarthy devotes a large portion of his storytelling to creating a vivid landscape. The natural world according to McCarthy is wide, expansive and filled with great dread and danger. The Wilderness is not a place for the meek- they do not get to inherit the earth according to McCarthy. His view is extremely Old Testement in that regard. The wild expanses of the undeveloped country is, in of itself a scourge angel where wickedness is to be purged.

"Outer Dark" is at times a difficult read. For those brave souls willing to take a chance on a risky work of art, I whole heartedly reccomend this unique novel.

Rating:
Summary: The Outer Dark Relected from Within
Review: Cormac McCarthy excels as an author in his ability to evoke the violent terror and primal corruption that lies just beneath the banal facade of common human experience. Outer Dark is at once ominous, brooding and powerful. It has all the features of the finest and most perverse Greek tragedies, combined with the tacit nihilism of the postmodern condition, in which the concepts of original sin, retribution and guilt have their own redoubled semantic.The story itself has been manifested in varying forms in written literature for ages and finds a correlate in ancient Greek, Biblical and Medieval mythico-religious themes.
It seems also that Outer Dark bears some connection to the literary tradition of Southern Gothic and has more than a slight affinity to the work of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. In addition this book would be especially appreciated by fans of McCarthy's earlier works such as Child of God, Suttree, The Orchard Keeper and his violent historigraphic masterpiece Blood Meridian.
Both in substance and form this book is a beautiful, yet disturbing literary accomplishment, one that succeeds in merging the depravity and horror of human emotions with the elegance and sublimity of humanity's highest artistic achievement.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and terrifying.
Review: Don't be put off by mediocre Matt Damon movie adaptations, Cormac McCarthy is one of America's greatest living authors, and without a doubt the most worthy successor to William Faulkner, his greatest influence. I prefer his earlier Appalachian novels (The Orchard Keeper, Child of God, and this one). Later in his career he moved out west with The Border Trilogy (All The Pretty Horses, Cities of the Plain, and The Crossing). Whichever you prefer, there is no doubt that McCarthy's beautiful, streaming prose masterfully depicts the horrors of the south and the west, and the evil in the hearts of men. In this novel, a young girl is impregnated by her brother, who then attempts to kidnap the baby, taking it out to the woods to dispose of it, all in the first few chapters. What follows are two epic journeys - those of each of the siblings, as they attempt to find the lost child. We follow them through their respective journeys, encountering both the mercy and evil that lie in the heart of man, ending in a bloody and unspeakable climax that will haunt you for days after finishing.

This is one of McCarthy's first novels, and as good as this novel is, he has gone on to hone his talent even further, becoming one of the true masters of 20th century American fiction. I would recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Faulkner, and any of the authors he has influenced over the decades. Like his influences, McCarthy is not easy reading by any means, but also like them, reading him is a substantially rewarding experience.

Rating:
Summary: Jerky, but Worth It
Review: If you're considering buying the Peter Smith "edition" of this book, note that it is NOT a new "edition" in hardcover but the Vintage International edition rebound in red cloth, with the cover of said trade paperback glued onto the front. It looks like it's been rebound for libraries, not for sale to the general public. Amazon haven't seen fit to warn you of this, alas. The book is WELL-REBOUND, and may still be worth it to you Cormac McCarthy diehards out there -- it is for me, and ultimately I'm just gonna keep the copy of it I bought, but it's still quite disappointing. Thought you deserved a warning, hope it came in time.

Rating:
Summary: Jerky, but Worth It
Review: In this book, as well as all his others, Cormac McCarthy's prose is unrivaled. For sheer narrative prose power, this book may be the best thing I've read...ever. But, as superlative as the writing is, it's easy to tell this is one of McCarthy's very early works. Although the book is powerful and haunting in theme and symbolism, it comes up wanting in both plot and characterization.

McCarthy never really lets us get to know his characters or the fears and desires that drive them and that keeps us distanced from them. Sometimes this distancing works to a writer's advantage, but I think The Outer Dark would definitely have been improved had we been allowed to know the characters a bit better.

Plot is where this book really falls apart. Where McCarthy's later books are seamlessly plotted, The Outer Dark contains some jarring jumps and omissions in the storyline that can leave the more discriminating reader in the lurch.

Cormac McCarthy long ago evolved into one of America's finest writers ever. As such, The Outer Dark is a book well worth reading, but if you're new to McCarthy, I'd read his later works first, then backtrack. The final analysis: more than a little jerky, but well worth anyone's time.

Rating:
Summary: Scary...intense...wow
Review: McCarthy's Outer Dark, one of his earlier works, is gothic fiction from the days of Isak Dinesen. A brother and sister give birth to a child, which the brother leaves out in the woods to die, but a midget cobbler comes along and takes the child away. When the mother wants the child back, she goes on a search for it, and is soon followed by her brother and lover.This is a novel that crosses Brothers Grimm with Louis L'Amour. It is a western with the heart of fable and horror and fairy tale. This novel brings out McCarthy in his essence, shows a stepping stone towards his National Book Award, but is well worth a read in its own right.

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Summary: Not Quite What I Expected
Review: McCarthy's writing is mesmerizing. This is my first McCarthy book, and I am hoping that the feel of his other books is the same, but with better character development than Outer Dark. I found this book to be dark (no surprise) but the darkness was without merit. It was senseless confusion, gore and some of the characters were laughable in their supposedly meaningful insights. Many incidents in the book appeared without explanation. None the less, this book affected me and I am looking forward to reading more from this talented writer

Rating:
Summary: Step Outside
Review: This book serves as a perfect introduction to McCarthy's greatest works, particularly Blood Meridian and Suttree. In reading this relatively short work, one gains a sense of what it is like to step into a McCarthy landscape. For reading his works is more like entering some preternatural world than following your typical plot and glimpsing into depths of an individual character. Indeed, it is more like walking straight into some sort of warped medieval landscape, as a picture by Bosch or Breughel, than reading a narrative or following a plot line. One gradually finds one's self engulfed in a visionary realm with tentacles only thinly attached to a "realistic" one. And, as indicated by the title, this world is unremittingly bleak. And this work, like all McCarthy's best, leaves us pondering anew the same question: Why, for what purpose, is man thrown into this nightmare of a world? Or, as McCarthy puts it here, "He wondered where the blind man was going and did he know how the road ended. Someone should tell a blind man before setting him out that way."

Rating:
Summary: Conveying without saying
Review: What most impressed me about this novel was that so many things could be conveyed without even being described. In many scenes, one somehow knows what has happened even though McCarthy has never actually told us so. There are some brilliant examples of communication through suggestion. Here is one example: Near the beginning of the novel we find some horrific descriptions of violence and gore. This primes us to expect more. But for the rest of the novel, the violence and gore are never really stated but only hinted. But after this priming, hints are even better than statements. The hints make the imagination run wild, and turn out to be even more effective than explicit statements. After the early explicit scenes, we are ready to jump or cry at any hint. And I do mean "cry". This is not simply a horror story. There is something heartwrenching about it. I also want to point out that some of the reviewers are mistaken in calling this novel a "western". The way the characters speak is clearly Appalachian.