The Orchard Keeper | Cormac McCarthy | The Orchard Keeper reads like a Faulkner novel.

The Orchard Keeper | Cormac McCarthy | A Twist of Faulkner

books:

The Orchard Keeper

	The Orchard Keeper Cormac McCarthy Vintage, 1993 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

An American classic, The Orchard Keeper is the first novel by one of America's finest, most celebrated novelists. Set is a small, remote community in rural Tennessee in the years between the two world wars, it tells of John Wesley Rattner, a young boy, and Marion Sylder, an outlaw and bootlegger who, unbeknownst to either of them, has killed the boy's father. Together with Rattner's Uncle Ather, who belongs to a former age in his communion with nature and his stoic independence, they enact a drama that seems born of the land itself. All three are heroes of an intense and compelling celebration of values lost to time and industrialization.

for more information click here

The Orchard Keeper reads like a Faulkner novel.

Cormac McCarthy is best known for his later novels Blood Meridian, The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, the Crossing, Cities of the Plain, and No Country for Old Men. Set in a remote Tennessee community, his first novel, The Orchard Keeper (1965), first caught the attention of Albert Erskine (William Faulkner's editor) at Random House with its obvious Faulkner influences. The Orchard Keeper reads like a Faulkner novel, and will appeal to anyone who enjoys Faulkner. It tells the simple story of John Wesley Rattner, a teenage boy, and Marion Sylder, the outlaw who killed Rattner's father, Kenneth Rattner. Both characters are oblivious to this connection. The novel follows the evolving dynamics between these two characters, and not only reveals the early genius of Cormac McCarthy, but promises his much greater work still to come.

G. Merritt

for more information click here

A Twist of Faulkner

Other reviewers have noted the extent to which McCarthy owes a debt to his forebear William Faulkner. While he has expanded and extended this into his own style over the course of his career, the obligation is most clear in this, his first novel. THE ORCHARD KEEPER derives its mometum not from plot--which is thin though not entirely inconsequential--but from the depth of characterization and descriptions of nature and the community and from the constantly shifting points of view and occasional italicized forays into memory. While each new section begins with a non-specified "he," this confusion does not last long and serves to unify a sense that all three major characters are operating within a large construct in which their individual identities are smudged. A powerful book about the integuments that underlie our connections.

for more information click here

a great beginning

Beautifully written prose. McCarthey says more in one sentence than most any other writers say in pages. It's a small book, but not a quick read. I appreciate the language, words and his amazing style, but I found find the book a bit unsatisfying. Perhaps I enjoy more plot driven books. Often the characters muddled together and in general I felt a bit in a haze while reading, not completely understanding what was being conveyed. I've enjoyed other works by McCarthey more than this one.

Mixed Reviews

I must be reading McCarthy in the wrong order. Started with No Country For Old Men and loved it, his earlier books are much darker. Content was a bit confusing to me but the style makes you keep coming back for more.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

products you might be interested in