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The Orchard Keeper

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The Orchard Keeper

By: Cormac McCarthy
Narrated by: Ed Sala
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About this listen

One of America’s most celebrated novelists, Cormac McCarthy announced his towering presence on the literary stage with his first novel, The Orchard Keeper. Within the pages of this classic work, John Wesley Rattner, his uncle Ather, and bootlegger Marion Sylder find their lives dangerously entwined in pre-World War II Tennessee. There, the men’s tragedies and struggles are mirrored by the looming specter of industrialization.

©1965 Cormac McCarthy (P)2013 Recorded Books Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Small Town & Rural

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All stars
Most relevant
Even by McCarthys standards, this feels hard on the reader, he gives you nothing, it's fragmented, and tough to follow the plot (is there even a plot?).

but, as would expect, it is beautifully written, and feels intimately of a time and a place.

hard work, worth it

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The discomfiture of three men, against the backdrop of industrialisation and institutionalisation of their once simpler worlds is depicted, tellingly, during the interwar years of 20th century rural America.

Each character represents one of three generations, who’s stories converge and then part again, as they each grapple in their own unique ways with new and unfamiliar regulations and technologies that bear an unwelcome influence on their ways of life.

Amidst the violence and mayhem a fourth character emerges from the background, Nature herself, introducing an somewhat supernatural element, suggesting greater forces at work.

It is one of McCarthy’s better respected novels, certainly more easily digested than some of his earlier works. And it is quite brilliantly structured, especially if the reader goes in knowing that Nature is a patient, dispassionate character, bearing humanity’s assaults with equanimity, gradually reclaiming losses, on her own indifferent terms.

Rather moving and sad, as opposed to the simply dark and cruel.

Sadly, the narration is halting and frequently just plain bad.

It can be difficult to follow McCarthy’s breaks in narrative thread and timelines, at the best of times. But this narrator’s continual pauses in the wrong . . . places of a sentence, as though he’s figuring out how to read on the spot, or discovering a word for the first time, really takes one out of the experience. I wish Richard Poe had done this book.

Nature’s Rage Against The Machine

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I know its his first book and I can imagine he was typing away with his thesaurus clutched well worn in his other hand!
I read this because I had experienced his other, much better works and was quite disappointed.
I don't recommend

Poor

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I didn't really rate this, it seemed to lead nowhere. Shame as some other Cormac McCarthy books are among my favourite books of all time.

Not impressed

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This is Cormac MaCarthy's first novel and it is a very beautifully written book. His landscapes are vivid and the beauty of nature is celebrated here. The passages of the woodland, stream and the wildlife are some of the best I have ever heard. The problem for me, and it is my problem, is that I could not make head nor tale of what exactly was going on. There are some very tense and well written scenes, for instance the tension between one of the main characters and an unwanted threatening hitchhiker is told by the thoughts of the main character and the seemingly bland conversation between the two. But that is one of the highlights, unfortunately so much seems to be leading nowhere. Ed Sala gives a really good performance, and captures the dialect so well. Having written all that, I will definitely read/listen to more books by this author, but maybe not for a while.

BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN BUT ALMOST INCOMPREHENSIBLE.

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