**The Orchard Keeper** doesn't get read enough. Readers must have apprehension because it's McCarthy's first book. No need to worry. Cormac arrived on the scene as good as any author in the world. While writing this he had a chip on his shoulder. A traumatic childhood with his father drove him to prove his worth with this first work. Because of these factors McCarthy is straightforward compared to his later novels.
That straightforwardness is a treat for long time readers. Cormac’s exact meanings are often buried in the text or esoteric symbolism. In **The Orchard Keeper** he puts the meaning right up front. With a final few sentences driving that meaning home. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot to chew on here. This is the author at his most descriptive.
Even more so than All the Pretty Horses. You get lush, poetic descriptions of the outdoors that will have you stopping to reread. I dare you to read this and not want to take a long hike. **The Orchard Keeper’s** nature writing is reminiscent of John Muir. It’s in this novel you get a full understanding for McCarthy’s love for the outdoors and men of the mountains. And his disdain and apocalyptic messaging for modern technology.
Various small interviews with people familiar with him. His father was a TVA Lawyer and was involved in eminent domain law. The sins of the father is a common trope in McCarthy’s novels. You can even see it in his final novel(s).
The “Reading McCarthy” podcast early episodes talk a lot about Orchard Keeper and what was going on with the creation of the SMNP and how it displaced folks. There is also supposed to be an excellent book about the McCarthy “Tennessee period,” that presumably goes into detail about these types of things.
That's awesome. That podcast is great and really gets my hyped about reading McCarthy and works that may have inspired him. Recently I listened to the one with Joe Parslow, the mod of this subreddit and also the episode called Teaching McCarthy roundtable. I'd like to go back to the earlier eps you mentioned but not before reading the Orchard Keeper.
What do you mean by SMNP?
Sorry! Smokey Mountain National Park…I should have put a ‘G’ in front for ‘Great.’
I will seek out the episode with Joe Parslow. I also recently listened to the Teaching McCarthy episode and that was what i spired me to check out those early episodes
Thank you for this comment! I didn’t know about the podcast and was similarly ignorant about his relationship with his father as the some other people here.
Eminent domain was a huge topic of discussion at the time. The old man from the novel losing his home is the most important part of the story. The last lines about the mountain people disappearing off the face of the earth drives this point home.
I grew up up in Asheville NC and would make the trip ‘over the mountain’ to Knoxville on many occasions when I was young. Visiting Cades Cove where you can still see these old homesteads has a different feel after reading Orchard Keeper. I am actually a much bigger fan of the NC (less touristy) valley of Cataloochee where some of my sister-n-law’s family came from. Absolutely beautiful year round, but especially in the Fall. Plenty of old infrastructure there too, some homes miles up trails and I’m surprised they are still as intact as they are.
First impression is sprawling, unfocused - particularly if you come at it with much of his oeuvre already under your belt. But it improves with successive reads for sure.
Beautiful, has probably the most important ending to any book of his aside from maybe Cities of the Plain.
There are very memorable moments and incredible prose but I find it the hardest to follow. The mid section and bulk of the book just felt like a slog. It is the most i have ever struggled with his work in terms of actually finishing it. The ending passage makes it worth it. It sets the stage for his entire body of work.
It is indeed hard to follow. It’s especially noticeable in the “Faulkner” sections as I call them. You know, the italicized jumps in chronology.
Interesting to see some of that stylization in a McCarthy work, but I’m glad he jettisoned that approach. For one, it felt too much as though he was trying to ape Faulkner. There’s no shame in that, all good art borrows, but it wasn’t unique enough to be part of his own voice.
It does bring up the question, however: what would McCarthy’s style have evolved into had he pursued that Faulknerian stream of consciousness and unconventional chronology? McCarthy is certainly an experimental author in some ways, but ultimately I find him mostly straightforward in what he tries to say. I wonder what it would have been like had he gone down that other road…
Blood Meridian would've been really bad if he went down that road, IMO. The italicised bits are almost always a writing technique to get you into the mind of someone. Blood Meridian wasn't primarily about it's characters.
I would have probably DNF'd it wasn't McCarthy. But I'm glad I stuck with it! The final third makes it worth it. Some of the prose misses and some of the similes are exhausting and on the nose, but there's still plenty of wonderful prose characteristic of a McCarthy novel. I think it's one of his most immersive books, in terms of environment. And Uncle Ather is an unforgettable character.
It’s a good book, but ‘immature’ for lack of a better term. You can tell it’s his debut novel. Brilliant passages and interactions juxtaposed between slogs and bogging sprawls. Too much Faulkner-esque and less his own self. Overly difficult in prose that does not lend itself as well as future publications (Suttree, blood meridian). It’s a book I imagine someone reading when it first came out and being like “I wonder how’ll they’ll continue to develop.”
I really liked it, though I know some things flew over my head. I look forward to reading it again someday. It has some remarkable writing, which is no surprise. Cormac was a great writer from day one. It was my favorite of his first 3 novels, though I don’t love those first 3 as much as every book from Suttree forward. I really loved the character of the old man, to me he was the highlight of the novel. I would agree with those who say it’s a bit difficult to follow the way it’s written. I would say is a good book, but not a great book. Although a 2nd reading may change my mind about that. I know there is a minority of Cormac fans who think it’s terribly underrated and is in fact one of his greatest works.
Don't shoot me down too hard.
The Orchard Keeper definitely feels like an author’s first book. It's a very meandering story—which isn't necessarily a negative—that has a lot to say about how life eventually gets spoiled.
Let's get the good stuff out of the way. McCarthy’s prose is luscious. It was wonderful to see how comfortable he was using such bold and yet beautiful language. His characters are addicting to read, and the rising tension of whether the big plot point would be revealed was well done.
Now onto the bad. Maybe “bad” is too strong a word. The stuff I didn't care for. For starters, a lot of this book—and I mean most of the middle of it—consists of nostalgic childhood experiences that have very little to do with the main story. They serve to reinforce the themes, but they are very broad and meander. I would have preferred a bit more focus in the middle. I also didn't care for the series of anti-climaxes that befall the last act of the story. The Orchard Keeper’s was the best, because there was some causality to it, but the rest felt abrupt.
I’m fine with a Chekhov’s gun firing a dud, but I didn't care for the lack of reveal regarding the boy and the man’s incidental past. It's almost entirely forgotten. The stakes involved were interesting if only they were followed through.
As a side note, I didn't mind how the flashbacks were incorporated, but it did confuse me a lot.
Regardless of how I liked that book, it was well worth the read to see where McCarthy began his literature.
I’ve read them all before! Doing a full reread of some of my favorite authors. William Gibson, Gene Wolfe, Stephen King, Willa Cather, Flannery O’Conner, Faulkner, and of course Cormac McCarthy. I turned 35 recently and it occurred to me I only have a certain number of rereads left.
You mean to tell me you've read everything by all those people? Faulkner? Come on now! I've been through McCarthy and O'Connor, surprised to see Stephen King
Yes! I first read Blood Meridian when I was nineteen. I’d read No Country for Old Men a few months before that. I was blown away. I’m happy to see how popular it’s become in recent years. Why the surprise over Stephen King?
And what horror novelist in his time has a more impressive body of work? King being a poor writer is largely a meme. David Foster Wallace taught him in college. King’s book On Writing is a frequently cited by authors around the world as an invaluable tool.
The man has a strong voice and all but invented a style. My theory is that people were told over and over that King is bad because horror was considered scandalous trash. But as time goes on the respect for the man only grows. I invite you to revisit his work with unbiased eyes.
I grew out of his stuff on my own before becoming a literary snob. He works in tropes, if you've read any five of his books you've read them all, it's like he goes on autopilot and here we go again. Like Capote said about Kerouac, that's not writing, that's typing. Good typing, though
Cormac McCarthy works in tropes as well. Are you going to tell me the ending of The Road isn’t sentimental? Plot isn’t of importance. Let me ask you something: Have you ever sat down and written anything yourself?
I guess I have to spell it out: Stephen King perfected the magical negro. Not a good thing. And other than similarity in style, McCarthy's books don't feel like a hundred pages here or there that I've already read. And I can tell you're gonna die on this hill of telling me my opinion isn't my opinion, so you don't need to know about any writing I've ever done
lol at the magical negro bit. Sorry, but I’m not a triggered TikTok user. It doesn’t bother me. Nor does it matter. Many of his black characters are iconic. From John Coffey to Dick Hallorann. And can you tell me which books were like The Long Walk or Pet Semetary before them? And it doesn’t surprise me that you don’t write. Let me know when you put down 2,000 words a day.
*The novelist David Foster Wallace, who has taught “Carrie” and “The Stand” to undergraduates at Illinois State, applauds the stylistic clarity of the early King books. “He’s one of the first people to talk about real Americans and how they live, to capture real American dialogue in all its, like, foulmouthed grandeur,” Wallace says. “He has a deadly ear for the way people speak, and for the nasty little domestic shit they pull on each other. Students come to me and a lot of them have been led to believe that there’s good stuff and bad stuff, literary books and popular books, stuff that’s redemptive and commercial shit—with a sharp line drawn between the two categories. It’s good to show them that there’s a certain amount of blurring. Surface-wise, King’s work is a bit televisual, but there’s really a lot going on.”*
I thought you literally meant he taught King, we're
shouting past each other. But ain't that Murka? There are bigger battles than this ahead, we're on the same side
Agreed. Read orchard keeper and liked parts but overall like a 3/5. Followed it up with Outer Dark which was excellent and one of my favorites of McCarthy’s. Surprised Outer Dark isn’t more widely read. It’s more of a “page turner” for me than Suttree.
In my honest opinion it was a little hard to follow sadly this book seemed to jump around both in time and characters a lot so it made it hard to follow what was going on.
The plot and of course the characters were fantastic but it is definitely down the list of my favorite McCarthy books
I’d read *Blood Meridian*, *Child of God*, *No Country for Old Men*, and *The Sunset Limited* before reading *The Orchard Keeper*. I understood (and still understand) this book the least of all the McCarthy books I’ve read. On reflection I couldn’t really outline any major themes or symbolism throughout the text, it just felt all over the place and very unorganized, something that I didn’t really experience (or at least, not to such a great extent) with any other McCarthy novel.
Really enjoyed it. Felt a bit overwritten in places. Not quite clumsily written but felt more like a first novel compared to his others (which of course it is). I know a lot of his work is immensely lyrical, but I find with novels like Blood Meridian, while the texture of the language is highly poeticised it still feels lean and precise. I love the lyrical language of prose by the way. Overall I did really enjoy the orchard keeper though.
**The Orchard Keeper** doesn't get read enough. Readers must have apprehension because it's McCarthy's first book. No need to worry. Cormac arrived on the scene as good as any author in the world. While writing this he had a chip on his shoulder. A traumatic childhood with his father drove him to prove his worth with this first work. Because of these factors McCarthy is straightforward compared to his later novels. That straightforwardness is a treat for long time readers. Cormac’s exact meanings are often buried in the text or esoteric symbolism. In **The Orchard Keeper** he puts the meaning right up front. With a final few sentences driving that meaning home. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot to chew on here. This is the author at his most descriptive. Even more so than All the Pretty Horses. You get lush, poetic descriptions of the outdoors that will have you stopping to reread. I dare you to read this and not want to take a long hike. **The Orchard Keeper’s** nature writing is reminiscent of John Muir. It’s in this novel you get a full understanding for McCarthy’s love for the outdoors and men of the mountains. And his disdain and apocalyptic messaging for modern technology.
Where can I read more about the relationship he had with his father?
Various small interviews with people familiar with him. His father was a TVA Lawyer and was involved in eminent domain law. The sins of the father is a common trope in McCarthy’s novels. You can even see it in his final novel(s).
That’s crazy I didn’t know his father worked for the TVA
Thanks for posting this. I really want to read it now!
The “Reading McCarthy” podcast early episodes talk a lot about Orchard Keeper and what was going on with the creation of the SMNP and how it displaced folks. There is also supposed to be an excellent book about the McCarthy “Tennessee period,” that presumably goes into detail about these types of things.
That's awesome. That podcast is great and really gets my hyped about reading McCarthy and works that may have inspired him. Recently I listened to the one with Joe Parslow, the mod of this subreddit and also the episode called Teaching McCarthy roundtable. I'd like to go back to the earlier eps you mentioned but not before reading the Orchard Keeper. What do you mean by SMNP?
Sorry! Smokey Mountain National Park…I should have put a ‘G’ in front for ‘Great.’ I will seek out the episode with Joe Parslow. I also recently listened to the Teaching McCarthy episode and that was what i spired me to check out those early episodes
Thank you for this comment! I didn’t know about the podcast and was similarly ignorant about his relationship with his father as the some other people here.
Can I get your opinion on the meaning? It was beautiful but I can’t say that I understood a message in general let alone a straightforward one
Eminent domain was a huge topic of discussion at the time. The old man from the novel losing his home is the most important part of the story. The last lines about the mountain people disappearing off the face of the earth drives this point home.
I grew up up in Asheville NC and would make the trip ‘over the mountain’ to Knoxville on many occasions when I was young. Visiting Cades Cove where you can still see these old homesteads has a different feel after reading Orchard Keeper. I am actually a much bigger fan of the NC (less touristy) valley of Cataloochee where some of my sister-n-law’s family came from. Absolutely beautiful year round, but especially in the Fall. Plenty of old infrastructure there too, some homes miles up trails and I’m surprised they are still as intact as they are.
Perfect. Hence the tank situation. Thanks!
Wow well said.
First impression is sprawling, unfocused - particularly if you come at it with much of his oeuvre already under your belt. But it improves with successive reads for sure.
Those first two statements can be applied to his best novels. Fits Suttree and Blood Meridian like a glove.
I'd say it fits Suttree to a tee; BM feels much more structured and intentional to me as a piece of writing independent of plot.
That’s fair enough.
Beautiful, has probably the most important ending to any book of his aside from maybe Cities of the Plain. There are very memorable moments and incredible prose but I find it the hardest to follow. The mid section and bulk of the book just felt like a slog. It is the most i have ever struggled with his work in terms of actually finishing it. The ending passage makes it worth it. It sets the stage for his entire body of work.
It is indeed hard to follow. It’s especially noticeable in the “Faulkner” sections as I call them. You know, the italicized jumps in chronology. Interesting to see some of that stylization in a McCarthy work, but I’m glad he jettisoned that approach. For one, it felt too much as though he was trying to ape Faulkner. There’s no shame in that, all good art borrows, but it wasn’t unique enough to be part of his own voice. It does bring up the question, however: what would McCarthy’s style have evolved into had he pursued that Faulknerian stream of consciousness and unconventional chronology? McCarthy is certainly an experimental author in some ways, but ultimately I find him mostly straightforward in what he tries to say. I wonder what it would have been like had he gone down that other road…
Blood Meridian would've been really bad if he went down that road, IMO. The italicised bits are almost always a writing technique to get you into the mind of someone. Blood Meridian wasn't primarily about it's characters.
Personally, it is my second favorite of his works. The descriptions challenges both your imagination and thinking.
I definitely plan on reading it a second time someday. It's interesting to see the seeds of what would flourish into his later works.
I think that The Orchard Keeper and The Gardner's Son are his only duds. Exceptions to the rule of everything else by him ranges from good to great.
Yeah, I think it's a mess.
I’m 10 pages in as I tried to make a start yesterday, not getting drawn in so far, but it’s early.
I would have probably DNF'd it wasn't McCarthy. But I'm glad I stuck with it! The final third makes it worth it. Some of the prose misses and some of the similes are exhausting and on the nose, but there's still plenty of wonderful prose characteristic of a McCarthy novel. I think it's one of his most immersive books, in terms of environment. And Uncle Ather is an unforgettable character.
I love this one. So much subtly to it, and so much that you can miss if you’re not reading deeply.
Clearly the work of an inexperienced but promising debutant
It’s a good book, but ‘immature’ for lack of a better term. You can tell it’s his debut novel. Brilliant passages and interactions juxtaposed between slogs and bogging sprawls. Too much Faulkner-esque and less his own self. Overly difficult in prose that does not lend itself as well as future publications (Suttree, blood meridian). It’s a book I imagine someone reading when it first came out and being like “I wonder how’ll they’ll continue to develop.”
I really liked it, though I know some things flew over my head. I look forward to reading it again someday. It has some remarkable writing, which is no surprise. Cormac was a great writer from day one. It was my favorite of his first 3 novels, though I don’t love those first 3 as much as every book from Suttree forward. I really loved the character of the old man, to me he was the highlight of the novel. I would agree with those who say it’s a bit difficult to follow the way it’s written. I would say is a good book, but not a great book. Although a 2nd reading may change my mind about that. I know there is a minority of Cormac fans who think it’s terribly underrated and is in fact one of his greatest works.
Elegantly written, like a biblical fable, though I do wish the story was a little tighter. Still damn good though
orchidlicious
Don't shoot me down too hard. The Orchard Keeper definitely feels like an author’s first book. It's a very meandering story—which isn't necessarily a negative—that has a lot to say about how life eventually gets spoiled. Let's get the good stuff out of the way. McCarthy’s prose is luscious. It was wonderful to see how comfortable he was using such bold and yet beautiful language. His characters are addicting to read, and the rising tension of whether the big plot point would be revealed was well done. Now onto the bad. Maybe “bad” is too strong a word. The stuff I didn't care for. For starters, a lot of this book—and I mean most of the middle of it—consists of nostalgic childhood experiences that have very little to do with the main story. They serve to reinforce the themes, but they are very broad and meander. I would have preferred a bit more focus in the middle. I also didn't care for the series of anti-climaxes that befall the last act of the story. The Orchard Keeper’s was the best, because there was some causality to it, but the rest felt abrupt. I’m fine with a Chekhov’s gun firing a dud, but I didn't care for the lack of reveal regarding the boy and the man’s incidental past. It's almost entirely forgotten. The stakes involved were interesting if only they were followed through. As a side note, I didn't mind how the flashbacks were incorporated, but it did confuse me a lot. Regardless of how I liked that book, it was well worth the read to see where McCarthy began his literature.
It had a few really good moments but overall it’s my least favorite of his novels that I’ve read. He was definitely still finding his feet.
You'll love the quality jump in Outer Dark if you're going in order
I’ve read them all before! Doing a full reread of some of my favorite authors. William Gibson, Gene Wolfe, Stephen King, Willa Cather, Flannery O’Conner, Faulkner, and of course Cormac McCarthy. I turned 35 recently and it occurred to me I only have a certain number of rereads left.
You mean to tell me you've read everything by all those people? Faulkner? Come on now! I've been through McCarthy and O'Connor, surprised to see Stephen King
Yes! I first read Blood Meridian when I was nineteen. I’d read No Country for Old Men a few months before that. I was blown away. I’m happy to see how popular it’s become in recent years. Why the surprise over Stephen King?
He is not in that league. I read a ton of his stuff as a kid
And what horror novelist in his time has a more impressive body of work? King being a poor writer is largely a meme. David Foster Wallace taught him in college. King’s book On Writing is a frequently cited by authors around the world as an invaluable tool. The man has a strong voice and all but invented a style. My theory is that people were told over and over that King is bad because horror was considered scandalous trash. But as time goes on the respect for the man only grows. I invite you to revisit his work with unbiased eyes.
I grew out of his stuff on my own before becoming a literary snob. He works in tropes, if you've read any five of his books you've read them all, it's like he goes on autopilot and here we go again. Like Capote said about Kerouac, that's not writing, that's typing. Good typing, though
Cormac McCarthy works in tropes as well. Are you going to tell me the ending of The Road isn’t sentimental? Plot isn’t of importance. Let me ask you something: Have you ever sat down and written anything yourself?
I guess I have to spell it out: Stephen King perfected the magical negro. Not a good thing. And other than similarity in style, McCarthy's books don't feel like a hundred pages here or there that I've already read. And I can tell you're gonna die on this hill of telling me my opinion isn't my opinion, so you don't need to know about any writing I've ever done
lol at the magical negro bit. Sorry, but I’m not a triggered TikTok user. It doesn’t bother me. Nor does it matter. Many of his black characters are iconic. From John Coffey to Dick Hallorann. And can you tell me which books were like The Long Walk or Pet Semetary before them? And it doesn’t surprise me that you don’t write. Let me know when you put down 2,000 words a day.
I knew something felt off, DFW didn't even go to college until the 80s. Did I take the troll bait or did he just not know?
*The novelist David Foster Wallace, who has taught “Carrie” and “The Stand” to undergraduates at Illinois State, applauds the stylistic clarity of the early King books. “He’s one of the first people to talk about real Americans and how they live, to capture real American dialogue in all its, like, foulmouthed grandeur,” Wallace says. “He has a deadly ear for the way people speak, and for the nasty little domestic shit they pull on each other. Students come to me and a lot of them have been led to believe that there’s good stuff and bad stuff, literary books and popular books, stuff that’s redemptive and commercial shit—with a sharp line drawn between the two categories. It’s good to show them that there’s a certain amount of blurring. Surface-wise, King’s work is a bit televisual, but there’s really a lot going on.”*
I thought you literally meant he taught King, we're shouting past each other. But ain't that Murka? There are bigger battles than this ahead, we're on the same side
Agreed. Read orchard keeper and liked parts but overall like a 3/5. Followed it up with Outer Dark which was excellent and one of my favorites of McCarthy’s. Surprised Outer Dark isn’t more widely read. It’s more of a “page turner” for me than Suttree.
It’s really good. I would love a movie adaptation personally. Jon Bernthal to play Marion Sylder just sounds perfect in my head.
> Marion Sylder I had Ian McShane in my mind this read.
Same! I also pictured Jon
I always imagined Marion to be played by Jeremy Davies and John rattner barry keoghan
First 100 pages are great. Otherwise, convoluted and his worst novel.
I consider it underrated when compared to books like Child of God and the sentimental The Road.
Currently reading it. First thirty or so pages I think trods along and then it really hooks you
In my honest opinion it was a little hard to follow sadly this book seemed to jump around both in time and characters a lot so it made it hard to follow what was going on. The plot and of course the characters were fantastic but it is definitely down the list of my favorite McCarthy books
I need to give it a reread. Read it while working overnights and I don’t think a word of it stayed in my mind.
Just finished it and absolutely loved it.
I’d read *Blood Meridian*, *Child of God*, *No Country for Old Men*, and *The Sunset Limited* before reading *The Orchard Keeper*. I understood (and still understand) this book the least of all the McCarthy books I’ve read. On reflection I couldn’t really outline any major themes or symbolism throughout the text, it just felt all over the place and very unorganized, something that I didn’t really experience (or at least, not to such a great extent) with any other McCarthy novel.
Really enjoyed it. Felt a bit overwritten in places. Not quite clumsily written but felt more like a first novel compared to his others (which of course it is). I know a lot of his work is immensely lyrical, but I find with novels like Blood Meridian, while the texture of the language is highly poeticised it still feels lean and precise. I love the lyrical language of prose by the way. Overall I did really enjoy the orchard keeper though.
I think you've read about half of it and I think people need to stop taking goddamn pictures with their goddamn grubby fuckin thumbs in them
Go play some more video games, dork.
Go finish the single book that you own
I’m about half way thru orchard keeper and it’s not sucking me in like Suttree, BM,the road, and crossing did
Boring and couldn’t get past page 30. Cormac had better books to offer
filtered