The Orchard Keeper | 
 enlarge | Author: Cormac Mccarthy
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $2.49
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Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 18237
Media: Paperback
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 0679728724
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780679728726
Publication Date: February 2, 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: REALLY ACCEPTABLE, WATER DAMAGE. EDGES AND COVER ARE STAINED, IT IS WORN OUT, 100% GUARANTEED, FAST SHIPPER, CHECK OUR FEEDBACKS.
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Product Description
An American classic, The Orchard Keeper is the first novel by one of America's finest, most celebrated novelists. Set is a small, remote community in rural Tennessee in the years between the two world wars, it tells of John Wesley Rattner, a young boy, and Marion Sylder, an outlaw and bootlegger who, unbeknownst to either of them, has killed the boy's father. Together with Rattner's Uncle Ather, who belongs to a former age in his communion with nature and his stoic independence, they enact a drama that seems born of the land itself. All three are heroes of an intense and compelling celebration of values lost to time and industrialization.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Great bar, great dog, great old man... September 2, 1998
Jeff Potter (Williamston, MI USA)
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Rich, biblical prose. Set in the South. The best bar in all literature, set in a Gap, leaning out over a gorge, swaying with the wild partiers in the storm...when the porch starts to give way.... Great old hound: I bet he beats Faulkner's. Great old man: stubborn as a mule, refusing to participate in anything he considers unworthy, unmanly, not right---give me liberty or give me death---it really doesn't go out of style, even though such an orientation might get you labeled as disturbed.
First Rate Work April 21, 1998
Alfred B. Shapiro (Baton Rouge, Louisiana)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Any reader of McCarthy's work knows that he views the human condition as one of substantial adversity, but not without redeeming value. His earlier work, set in Tennessee (including this) seem to have a more affecting quality. Something seems more "true", closer to home. These books evoke an emotional reaction to the characters. His later work set on the border, reflects a world of great natural beauty and incredible human savagery. I prefer the earlier works, although this may just be a matter of personal taste. This is a really fine book, as are most of the works of this excellent writer.
 Not too shabby to be McCarthy's first February 4, 2004
Faulknernut (atlanta, georgia)
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
THE ORCHARD KEEPER, Cormac McCarthy's first novel, explores the nature of new versus old ways of life. It's a novel on nature. It deals primarily with three men: John Wesley, a young man coming of age; Marion Sylder, a bootlegger; and Uncle Ather, a hilarious, elderly man who refuses to take any crap from anyone. While these three run into each other throughout the novel, they are also connected to each other in a way through which none of them are aware--through the death of Kenneth Rattner. McCarthy's novel appears to be more of a character analysis than a plot driven story. While a plot does exist, it is not incredibly strong nor prominent. It's more like a series of anecdotes. However, the character depth and symbolism found in the pages of this book are tremendously wonderful. It's definitely a book worth reading again in order to catch all of these symbols and meanings. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy analyzing works, not someone who is just looking for something pleasurable to read. It's definitely not like reading Harry Potter : ). For example, at the beginning of this work, the narrator jumps from person to person, telling part of each one's story with little or no signal of whom is being spoken of. You have to take your time to figure out who the narrator is talking about. This can be rather frustrating at first, so beware! However, if you can tolerate this writing style and don't expect much of a plot, the piece is rather enjoyable, filled with comic elements and brilliance.
The Orchard Keeper reads like a Faulkner novel. September 4, 2008
G. Merritt (Boulder, CO)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Cormac McCarthy is best known for his later novels Blood Meridian, The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, the Crossing, Cities of the Plain, and No Country for Old Men. Set in a remote Tennessee community, his first novel, The Orchard Keeper (1965), first caught the attention of Albert Erskine (William Faulkner's editor) at Random House with its obvious Faulkner influences. The Orchard Keeper reads like a Faulkner novel, and will appeal to anyone who enjoys Faulkner. It tells the simple story of John Wesley Rattner, a teenage boy, and Marion Sylder, the outlaw who killed Rattner's father, Kenneth Rattner. Both characters are oblivious to this connection. The novel follows the evolving dynamics between these two characters, and not only reveals the early genius of Cormac McCarthy, but promises his much greater work still to come.
G. Merritt
Signs of future brilliance August 18, 2004
A.J. (Maryland)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Cormac McCarthy's debut novel "The Orchard Keeper" is pure Faulkner emulation, from the multiple narrative viewpoints to the impressionistic prose to the laconic, slack-jawed dialogue. This style appeals to me, as it should to all Faulkner fans, but there is a certain sacrifice of substance to achieve the effect McCarthy obviously desired. The small details, the picturesque scenes, the dramatic situations he conjures are the work of a master, but these feel like mere window dressing when the characters are plumbed for depth, only to find the string is barely wet.
The plot could be described in a way that would be immediately enticing to potential readers: A boy named John Wesley Rattner (a Methodist?) growing up in the mountains of eastern Tennessee during the Depression, an essentially good kid who enjoys fishing and trapping, is told by his pious mother that someday he will find and kill the man who murdered his father. One day he pulls a man out of a wrecked car in a creek; this turns out to be Marion Sylder, a bootlegger who, unbeknownst to Rattner, happens to be his father's murderer.
As Rattner and Sylder, each completely oblivious to the other's relationship to Rattner's father, begin a friendship, the novel traces a twisting story among various members of the community, giving a clear view of life in a rustic setting that is well served by McCarthy's style. Looming in the background is a wizened old man named Arthur Ownby whom everybody calls Uncle Ather and who is like a legendary figure of nature, the human soul of the mountains, living almost as a druidical hermit and resenting any intrusion into his privacy.
The elements are all in place, but while I was reading this novel I couldn't help but think of a similar but better one that came out around the same time, William H. Gass's "Omensetter's Luck," which likewise offers a complex story in a shady, enigmatic tone but more distinctive and original characterization. "The Orchard Keeper" falls short of its goal, but it is an admirable effort that portends the brilliance that McCarthy would manifest in "Blood Meridian," possibly the best American novel of the 1980s.
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