When I saw that there was an article about punctuation, I immediately selected it; I love punctuation! The first thing that surprised me in this article was McCarthy’s stylistic choice to not use quotation marks, but because he is dubbed as a “disciple of William Faulkner,” I understand why and how he is able to get away with no quotation marks. His choice to not use quotation marks goes back to his minimalist approach to punctuation inspired by James Joyce. I appreciate that McCarthy chooses to avoid semicolons in his fiction because I personally don’t love them or try to use them often (despite using one at the beginning of this commentary). Semicolons should be quite sparse in writing and not overused as they sometimes are.
After reading and reflecting on this article, I am inspired to use fewer unnecessary punctuation marks. I sometimes find myself trying to insert unnecessary commas in my writing, but after being exposed to McCarthy’s minimalist style, I feel like I will be less inclined to mark up all of my essays with extreme amounts of punctuation. I also don’t feel as obligated to try to make use of semicolons in my essays because McCarthy avoids them entirely. Thank you, McCarthy!
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