Cormac Mac
“Creedless shells of men tottering down the causeways like migrants in a feverland…”
One quote, and you get the hang of Cormac McCarthy’s apocalypse, as captured in his latest novel, The Road. In the space of three pages the wasted world is described as a “cauterised terrain” bathed in the “autistic dark” – or “the grudging light that passed for day”.
Hardly a feel-good movie but a rewarding read nonetheless, if not for the delicious doom then the author’s idiosyncratic vocab. See how many of these words you know:
gryke
riprap
gambrel
firedrake
dentil
sleavings
soffit
Believe it or not, all seven are listed in at least one dictionary (unlike his other curly specimens – pampooties, salitter & patterans). Any takers?
I’ll withhold the enlightenment for a day, giving you the chance to speculate or fossick on what the actual meanings may be. Riprap, by the way, is not a sound effect, but a phenomenon in nature. As for the others, mull on architecture with a splash of geology, and a twist of weaving. Good luck.
Keeping with offbeat vocab, I’ll run several rare words across the next week whose meanings remain in fog despite a trip to the dictionary. In other words, their definitions demand their own definition. Can you think of an example from your own lexicon leafings? Look for half a dozen coming your way.