Suttree

By Cormac McCarthy

Book Overview

From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road, here is the story of Cornelius Suttree, who has forsaken a life of privilege with his prominent family to live in a dilapidated houseboat on the Tennessee River near Knoxville.

Remaining on the margins of the outcast community there--a brilliantly imagined collection of eccentrics, criminals, and squatters--he rises above the physical and human squalor with detachment, humor, and dignity.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679736328
• ISBN13: 9780679736325
• Release Date: May 1992
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

the best

ok...for a brief opinion, i think this is an absolutely amazing work of fiction that ranks up there with the best of faulkner...it ranks up there with the best books ive ever read...the prose really makes me reread passages out loud, just as previously posted by another reviewer... in response to those that deem the work short on plot, i just wanted to mention this....i could be remembering wrong but i am pretty sure that this is a somewhat autobiographical work that focuses on mccarthy quitting the drink and leaving tennessee for texas...so this is not necessarily the same kind of work that the border trilogy or blood meridian are. something interesting for me in reading these reviews is that faulkner suffered from the same kind of criticisms, especially while he was alive...lack of structure and coherent plot... i do believe that he is the greatest living american author...if not, i would love to find the person that beats him.

Suttree

Absolutely exquisite. Perhaps that adjective gets overused nowadays, but here it is appropriate - perhaps even not strong enough of a term. "Suttree" is a must must must-read. It is such a profound indictment of the human race that it could be used as evidence against us if we are ever sued by space aliens. When viewed in terms of "Blood Meridian" and all of C McC's pre-Natl Book Award works, his range as an author is revealed and is humbling. The man is our greatest living novelist. I am grateful to him for having offered this work to the world.

A terrestrial Hell

I have never used this term in a review, but this is a work of genius. McCarthy's Blood Meridian may have a more taut artistic virtuousity to it, but Suttree rings sprawlingly true to life and love while at the same time delivering the poetic lyricism of the arabesques and grotesqueries of life that stamp McCarthy as the greatest and most visionary writer of our time. Here is the pathos, bitterweetness, and comedy (Can anyone forget Harrogate and the bats, much less his getting off the charge of bestiality because "A mellon ain't no beast"?!?) of being human.-All this delivered in the most magnificent sweeping prose since Lowry (A writer I'd recommend to McCarthy fans) and Faulkner. But down to some philosophical nuts and bolts: This is a dark novel displaying a visionary medieval mindset, much like Lowry's Under The Volcano (To my mind, the only other novelist of pure genius of this century..). It is the seemingly effortless interweaving of the visionary with the mundane that make this novel so astounding. We are witnesses to page upon page of brilliant poetic lightenings upon a tableau of "a terrestrial hell" as Suttree puts it, a place which not only he, but we all inhabit.To quote at length: "What deity in the realms of dementia, what rabid god decocted out of the smoking lobes of hydrophobia could have devised a keeping place for souls so poor as this flesh. This mawky wormbent tabernacle." This is the question this brilliant work thrusts before the reader in page upon glowing page.

toil under the sun

Prior to reading Cormac McCarthy's "SUTTREE" (1979), my only experience with the author was with his highly touted work, "BLOOD MERIDIAN" (1985). Although the latter work is a unique masterpiece ( utilizing a lightning pace and truly spectacular language ) the breadth and easy flow of "SUTTREE" is completely true to its own quirky nature. Oddly enough, given the stomach churning violence and ( apparent ) triumph of evil portrayed in "BLOOD MERIDIAN", McCarthy's earlier novel is actually the more profoundly sad ( and certainly more humorous ) of the two. It is fair to speculate that this work was special to McCarthy since he was drawing a portrait of the town and era in which he grew up ( Knoxville, Tennessee in the 1950's ). Others, who are familiar with the work of William Faulkner ( as I am not ) will be better equipped to discuss whether this "southern" novel bears any major resemblance to the late master from Mississippi. My "take" on "SUTTREE" can only come ( as is natural ) from past literary experiences and, perhaps more importantly, a particular "world view". Although stronger and more learned readers will undoubtedly shed more light on the work, I hope nonetheless that the following thoughts will help others reflect on "SUTTREE" and decide for themselves what it's "all about". After a short and soaring descriptive prelude ( a wasteland grotesquerie ), the novel's namesake Cornelius Suttree is introduced. Appropriately enough, this first glimpse takes place alongside the silent and abused Tennessee River, a Styx-like emblem of eternity running through the mid 20th century "Hades" of Knoxville, where Suttree lives on a rundown houseboat. Suttree's desultory "neutrality" towards existence is mixed with hallucinogenic dreams and flashbacks ( a key "vision" in the wilderness is reminiscent of "Snow" from Thomas Mann's "THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN" ). Seemingly carefree, going about his life in moment-to-moment fashion amidst his derelict companions, Suttree in fact lives completely in his past, haunted by ( among other things ) the memory of his patrician upbringing, failed marriage and a mysteriously significant "other". At times he seems an Old Testament prophet, full of insight and sublimated rage ( a contemporary Qoheleth ), his thoughts and actions reflecting the weary ruminations of a man trapped in hopelessness. Suttree's spiritual quandary is in recognizing that while others in his Knoxville circle seem damned by dint of fate, he himself chooses to live in a kind of purgatory, with the possibility of transcending his lot.As opposed to the mythological archetypes displayed in "BLOOD MERIDIAN", the quirky and entertaining lost souls so sympathetically rendered in "SUTTREE" are all too human. There are several laugh out loud scenes in the book, many focusing on Suttree's oddball friend Gene Harrogate. Though the humor is intertwined with immense sadness, this aspect of McCarthy's style is a delightful surprise. "SUTTREE" is a hard but compassi

Beautiful Ugliness

This is a most extraordinary novel, densely packed with dark and dire images, by turns brutal and tender. It is elegant, down and dirty, occasionally shocking and surprisingly funny. I don't know when I have read more beautiful prose describing more debased circumstances than in Suttree. I was introduced to this novel by a close friend who was so slammed by the impact of the first page that she had to put it down for a week just to let it sink in. I have to admit, I re-read the first 3 pages about a dozen times throughout my reading of the novel. They do pack a wallop. Actually, there are several passages in the book that so floored me I had to go back and re-read them. The language of this tale is incredible, carefully wrought, full of fantastic words (keep a dictionary close by.) At times laconic, at times incredibly detailed. And at times so unrelentingly down and out you just have to laugh. Harold Pinter once praised Samuel Beckett saying that he 'leaves no stone unturned, no maggot lonely.' I'd say the same for McCarthy in this novel. Who else could generate so much sympathy for a melon-humping hayseed dork like Gene Harrogate? Or any other of the motley assemblage with whom Suttree inexplicably chooses to fraternize. I don't want to ruin any surprises, so I'll just assure you that Suttree's immersion in debauchery and desolation is not for its own sake. The book has a heart. The book has soul to burn. This is just the best damned novel I've read in years. Maybe ever. Relish it.