Monday, August 10, 2009
Words
After finishing Blood Meridian, I can not help but to wonder what motivates McCarthy to use the type of words he does. I am sure that my vocabulary is not as vivid as many, but there were so many words that I had never heard and had to spend time to look up. It just seems almost like he wants you to disect every sentence, like there is really more meaning there than it seams. Sometimes I felt like I was reading a foreign language or trying to decipher the Bible. The very first paragraph is an excellent example of what I am talking about (scullery fire, hewers of wood, drawers of water, he lies in drink). Ok, so hew means to cut, so hewers of wood must be woodcutters (maybe) so why can't he just say woodcutter? I am really ready for class so that this book will make a little more sense to me!
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So, I take the other path when I read, usually. I just wait to see if there is something in the text a little later that clarifies what something is. Sometimes, that works, and sometimes I have moved on and never do figure out what something was. I wonder if that is the right decision to make or not. Is it better to finish the text or to not finish but understand completely what I did read of it. Would someone please tell me what I should do when I can't finish the assigned text if I spend my time looking things up, but don't maybe understand everything if I skip over the words and phrases I don't understand? I find it to be a frustrating dilemma. Maybe the answer is to tag team read. One person looks everything up and the other reads on for content. That would work, right?
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