In the last three months I’ve plowed through the last 6 of Cormac McCarthy’s 10 novels. Before I give my impressions I’d like to point out that my time for books not directly related to school is precious, so to dedicating this much time to one author should suggest how I feel about his work right off the bat. Couple that with the fact that had the semester not started I would have gone on to read his first four novels, and I think it’s safe to say that I believe McCarthy deserves all the attention he’s gotten. I keep thinking, “When I teach a McCarthy class…”
For starters, I can’t get Blood Meridian out of my mind. I found some critical articles on the book over winter break which have stretched and deepened my understanding of this complicated, haunting story and I simply can’t wait to read it again, though I’d be the first to say it’s not for everybody due to the lack of a definitive plot and the extreme violence. This is right up there with my all-time favorites and is McCarthy’s best for my (and many others’) money.
The Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain) is also very good but a bit more work to get through, especially as All the Pretty Horses takes awhile to get going and The Crossing meanders a bit too much. Still, McCarthy is always dealing with borders in interesting ways. The physical border between Mexico and the US is the most obvious, but also the fuzzy borders between cultures, races, languages, relationships, man and nature, truth and fiction, fate and free will, etc. Many of the elegiac passages of ATPH and The Crossing bowled me over, but not so much in COTP. There are some critical books written on the trilogy that I’d like to read to see what I might of missed, but I felt COTP was a bit underwhelming compared with what came before it.
I was amazed how much the film version of No Country For Old Men followed the book, but reading it strengthened my feeling that McCarthy doesn’t translate all that well into film. NCFOM was a great adaptation but there’s a strange power to McCarthy’s writing style that gets lost on the screen. I still have questions about the range of a transponder and the film felt too spread out, but the book condenses the geography and timing of events which makes the pursuit of Llewellyn more realistic, and the philosophical parts resonate more in the text as well. The final image in Bell’s dream, his father carrying a horn of fire into the wilderness, is a perfect segue into…
McCarthy’s most recent novel, The Road. Overall, I thought this book was pretty good but I think my reading definitely benefited from having read a string of McCarthy’s novels (and even some of the criticism of those novels) going into it. If anything, the metaphor of the unnamed man (being the old world that’s fallen) and the boy (being the new world being born) was a little heavy. The man trusts no one, tells fanciful stories to comfort the boy, and doesn’t believe in God; the boy is the opposite of all these things. The boy “carries the fire” of the belief that people aren’t all bad, something the man cannot accept after what he’s seen.
Some critic (can’t remember who at the moment) has written extensively on McCarthy’s implicit critique of late capitalism; though it was written before The Road, the novel would undoubtedly strengthen this argument. In the wake of the apocalypse, the survivors are entirely dependent upon processed foods and goods as the natural world can no longer sustain them. In a world where God has been replaced by plastic, concrete, and other false idols, there’s nothing left when that material world goes by the wayside. The open question is who is right: the man, who assumes everyone is out to harm them, or the boy, who thinks that everyone needs to help each other. The ending is ambiguous, as you might expect. But NCFOM and The Road ought to be read back-to-back with the ideas of “fathers and sons” and the question of where the world is heading kept in the front of the mind. I think both of them are stronger when read in that context.
Overall I find McCarthy easy to read but challenging to interpret (in a good way), and I love his writing style. I didn’t think I’d be a fan of his oft-unpunctuated “muscular prose” but that wasn’t the case at all. The best part is that all of these books are dense with meaning, but the bigger question is “Meaning about what?” The answer/s are not at all clear and these complicated novels invite multiple readings.
And really, is there any higher compliment than that?
Current Mood: A Bit Tired | 
Currently Listening To – Wilco – “A.M.”
6 Comments
my time for books not directly related to school is precious
Ah, isn’t that the truth.
By the way, I’m still dilligently working on the collaborative story. I haven’t forgotten about it. It’s just taking me a lot longer than I’d like, but I think I’m moving it in some interesting directions. It should be interesting to see what you think and what new additions you’ll add after mine.
Great thoughts on McCarthy. I once owned his first novel (I think it’s The Orchard Keeper?), but sold it online before I’d read anything by him. Of course, I’ve never seen it turn up again…
I think you’ve hit on something: The people that haven’t read No Country think the movie is brilliant. Don’t get me wrong, I think the movie is very good, but yes, there are aspects of McCarthy that do not translate as well visually. Plus you’re correct in pointing out the problems of the transponder, etc. (One character also mentions an ATM, which, if they existed in the early 80′s weren’t called ATMs as far as I can remember.)
Maybe you can tell me if this scene is in the book – without writing too much of a spoiler for those who haven’t seen the movie – the “event” that happens just before the kid gives Chigurh his shirt. (I skimmed through the book but couldn’t find the scene.) To me that scene didn’t ruin the film, but really hurt it. I hope it’s not in the book, but again, it’s been awhile.
Well, I’ll skip down and write my SPOILER in italics. If you don’t want it, don’t read it!
I think you’re talking about Chigurh’s murder of Carla Jean. The scene in the book and movie are different, but the scene in the book ends with the definitive statement “Then he shot her.” I think it’s interesting that Carla Jean is far less defiant in the book; she actually calls the coin and cries when she chooses wrongly. The movie gives it a different spin as though her refusal to choose somehow is more noble; I think McCarthy didn’t care so much about this change as long as Chigurh killed her in the end, which he of course does.
The biggest questionable change between the book and movie is the scene in the Eagle Hotel where Llewellyn senses Chigurh has entered the building. In the movie, he waits for him and loses the initiative in the encounter when the lock from the door strikes him in the chest, surprising him. I kept thinking in the movie “why he doesn’t he hide?” and in the book, he does. He waits for Chigurh to enter, and then he gets the drop on him. He walks Chigurh at gunpoint down the stairs and then, crucially, Llewellyn runs away without shooting Chigurh in the back.
To me, this is huge. A lot of people say the fateful moment in Llewellyn’s life was going back to the scene of the shootout to give water to the dying drug dealer. There’s little doubt about that, but had he blown Chigurh away in the Eagle Hotel, which he had the opportunity to do, things would have turned out differently. I don’t think he would have gotten away because it’s the Mexicans that kill him in the end, but Carla Jean would have at least lived. Bell even says to Carla Jean that Llewellyn was going to have to kill someone to get out the mess, but when the moment of “truth” comes, he doesn’t do it, even though ostensibly he killed people from a farther range as a sniper in Vietnam.
Is that what you were talking about?
Eric, I look forward to it! No problem, and take your time with the story. I’m in no rush.
SPOILER!
Actually I was thinking of the moment where, for no plausible reason whatsoever, Chigurh gets broadsided in the car near the end of the film. I just thought it was an incredible cheap-shot. If that’s in the book, I’d completely forgotten about it.
As far as the murder of Carla Jean, I was hoping that would be longer as it was in the book. Yeah, I remembered her cringing and pleading more in the book, a more drawn-out scene. I may be mistaken, but it seems that the book shows us a little more of Chigurh’s character with each coin toss/confrontation. In the movie, the scene with the fat guy store clerk is the first and longest of such direct encounters that include dialogue. We get less with the Woody Haralson character and even less with Carla Jean. I thought it should have been just the opposite.
I couldn’t remember the sequence of events at the Eagle Hotel. Looks like I’ve have to read the book again :)
Yet another NCFOM SPOILER!
Yes indeed, Chigurh gets broadsided by three stoned Mexican teenagers. That scene is identical to the book, except that Bell tracks down the boy who gave his shirt and finds that he can’t give any telling description of Chigurh, i.e. Chigurh looks normal, could be anyone.
The interesting thing about the Eagle Hotel shootout is that Moss gets the drop on Chigurh, lets him go, and gets shot a couple times while fleeing. Chigurh’s big battle is with the Mexicans who are also hot on Moss’s trail, whereas in the movie it’s a shootout between Chigurh and Moss in the street.