I've had the IPad for well over a year now and have to admit to being completely
infatuated with it. So much easier to travel with than a laptop - it does not
need to be removed from a bag during security screening - I find myself
constantly using it. Emails, looking up the news, managing a very small
side-business. It is simply a great gadget, and though it has not happened yet,
if I left home on a trip and forgot the thing, I'd be pretty disappointed for
three days.
One IPad application I wasn't expecting to use as much as I
do is the e-reader. I've downloaded several publications and use the iBooks app
constantly. Like other e-readers it has an on-screen dictionary that allows
nearly effortless reference to definitions and origins of words. Two of my
favorite authors created several of the stories that populate my Ipad library.
They are Jack London and Cormac McCarthy. The extraordinary talent these two
writers exhibit gains even more shine and clarity as I enjoy their work on the
e-reader.
Cormac McCarthy wrote a book published in 1985 titled "Blood
Meridian." It is a story of the American West in the 1850's that will one day, I
think, be considered an American classic. Loosely based on the true story of the
Glanton Gang which roamed and bloodied the borderlands of Mexico, it explores
the nature of violence in some of the most extraordinary prose you may ever
read.
The stories of murder and mayhem are difficult and graphic. The
hardships endured by anyone traveling through what was essentially the last huge
lawless expanse of American territory will leave a reader never thinking the
same way again about a John Wayne movie.
Descriptors in McCarthy's
writing are brilliant, overwhelming but often simply impossible to understand.
Archaic expressions leave you with no conclusion other than the writer immersed
himself in books, letters and meticulous research of the settings in that era.
Or he time traveled to 1851. He did, in fact, learn Spanish when he started the
novel 13 years before publication, and claims to have visited every location
mentioned in the book.
A fair criticism of the novel is that these old
and obscure phrasings weigh down the storyline. The dictionary on an e-reader
lightens that load. Also, characters in this book can tend to sound the same.
They share the same speaking manner - clipped, deadpan phrasings frosted with
irony (Texicon, if you will) that read quickly because the author does not use
quotation marks or attributors such as 'he said'. If you saw the movie "No
Country for Old Men," you know what I mean. McCarthy wrote the original book.
An example: This sure is a mess, ain't it sheriff?... No, but it'll do until the
mess gets here.
With sometimes paralyzing detail, the author brings an
amazing micro perspective on the weaponry, wagons, and everything else that
settlers brought to the lands, as well as what the locals created from it.
Individual and fascinating stories are told and embroidered with descriptions of
flora, fauna, geology, weather and wildlife. My favorite short section near the
end describes the slaughter of bison. It is heartbreaking, beautiful and one of
the best things I've ever read.
Here is a passage from the novel that
takes place after the gang commits one of its final ghastly organized acts of
violence towards the local population. They are now on the run, escaping to the
west:
"...they rode infatuate and half fond toward the red demise of that
day, toward the evening lands and the distant pandemonium of the sun."
At
first, I didn't get the author's use of "fond" in that sentence. The on-screen
dictionary provided an alternate definition, and I was immediately intrigued: to
be foolish or naive. Origin is late Middle English from the word 'fon' - a
fool.
If you are someone who loves literature and can be fascinated with
word origins, then I can't recommend an e-reader more highly. And if you want to
download something great, try Blood Meridian.
