Like Leopold Bloom in Knoxville, the protagnoist Suttree, who seems to have grown up in better circumstances, has episodic adventures and encounters with the common people of Eastern Tennessee. McCarthy alternates his stripped down punctuation-less dialogue and detailed listing of simple actions with rich prose poetry that is often describing offal, vermin, decadence, the inebriated and death. All in all, it’s fascinating, inspired and brilliant. McCarthy seems to either understand his talents unusually well or he is very fortunate that his writing style fits and complements his interests perfectly. I must read his earlier novels.
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I’d rather make no negative comment, but in his interview with Oprah, McCarthy mentioned his dislike of dialogue punctuation (stating that there was no reason to blot the page up with weird little marks) and at least one reviewer has stated that there is never any problem with attribution in McCarthy’s work.
Well…yes there is. I often have to re-read his dialogue to see who is saying what, and that is what the punctuation is for.