Cormac Mccarthy and the writing of American spaces / Andrew Keller Estes.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Estes, Andrew Keller.

Series:

Spatial practices ; 16.

Spatial practices : an interdisciplinary series in cultural history, geography and literature, 1871-689X ; 16

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National characteristics, American, in literature.

McCarthy, Cormac, 1933-2023--Criticism and interpretation.

McCarthy, Cormac.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (233 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; New York : Rodopi, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces Andrew Estes examines ideas about the land as they emerge in the later fiction of this important contemporary author. McCarthy's texts are shown to be part of larger narratives about American environments. Against the backdrop of the emerging discipline of environmental criticism, Estes investigates the way space has been constructed in U.S. American writing. Cormac McCarthy is found to be heir to diametrically opposed concepts of space: as something Americans embraced as either overwhelmingly positive and reinvigorating or as rather negative and threatening. McCarthy's texts both replicate this binary thinking about American environments and challenge readers to reconceive traditional ways of seeing space. Breaking new ground as to how literary landscapes and spaces are critically assessed this study seeks to examine the many detailed descriptions of the physical world in McCarthy on their own terms. Adding to so-called 'second wave' environmental criticism, it reaches beyond an earlier, limited understanding of the environment as 'nature' to consider both natural landscapes and built environments. Chapter one discusses the field of environmental criticism in reference to McCarthy while chapter two offers a brief narrative of conceptions of space in the U.S. Chapter three highlights trends in McCarthy criticism. Chapters four through eight provide close readings of McCarthy's later novels, from Blood Meridian to The Road .

Contents:

Preliminary Material

Introduction

Environmental Criticism and Cormac McCarthy

A Debate in American Literature: The Nature of U.S. Spaces

McCarthy Criticism

Blood Meridian

All the Pretty Horses

The Crossing

No Country for Old Men

The Road

Conclusion

Works Cited

Index.

Notes:

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

94-012-0899-9

OCLC:

831118703

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789401208994 DOI