This compelling novel has as its protagonist Cornelius Suttree, living alone and in exile in a disintegrating houseboat on the wrong side of the Tennessee River close by Knoxville. He stays at the edge of an outcast community inhabited by eccentrics, criminals and the poverty-stricken. Rising above the physical and human squalor around him, his detachment and wry humour enable him to survive dereliction and destitution with dignity. '"Suttree" contains a humour that is Faulknerian in its gentle wryness, and a freakish ...
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This compelling novel has as its protagonist Cornelius Suttree, living alone and in exile in a disintegrating houseboat on the wrong side of the Tennessee River close by Knoxville. He stays at the edge of an outcast community inhabited by eccentrics, criminals and the poverty-stricken. Rising above the physical and human squalor around him, his detachment and wry humour enable him to survive dereliction and destitution with dignity. '"Suttree" contains a humour that is Faulknerian in its gentle wryness, and a freakish imaginative flair reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor' - "Times Literary Supplement". '"Suttree" marks McCarthy's closest approach to autobiography and is probably the funniest and most unbearably sad of his books' - "Stanley Booth".
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As in the case of all his books, there is a sense of place and a careful drawing of characters. Cornelius Suttree is one of those rare persons who finds the cruel hand of fate draws him into a web of situations from which he cannot emerge without being false to himself. The issue of fate vs free will is everywhere implied but it is up to the reader to ask: What choice did Suttree have? It is our friends, our on the edge associates, or our well meaning family that create the tension. If we abandon those on whose shoulders we stand, it is an apparent disavowal of our roots; on the other hand, if we cannot critically face them and discover those unrealized dimensions within the core of our being, we risk another kind of danger. Highly recommended but it will not be easy for those who wish the feel good kind of books or films that leave you filling good because your hero survived; in reality, those kinds of genres work because they provide cheap thrills that require no comment beyond asking your companion whether they enjoyed the previews or quality of the popcorn.
Selina
Sep 16, 2007
Horrible
I had to read this five hundred page book for class. With no story and an unlikable lead i thought I would never finish. The lead is a complete jerk. The prose the book is written in is well done, but ruined by placing a jerk in the lead. There are some interesting character, including one who gets romantic with watermelons, but nothing worth finishing the mammoth book.