RIP Cormac McCarthy

Contemplating the sale of my Cormac McCarthy collection, some years ago, when my beard was still brown. It's all gone, now, alas, as are most of the books on the shelf behind me. And yeah, that's the US first of Blood Meridian in the bubble wrap, en route to an eBay buyer (I also had the US firsts for Outer Dark, Suttree and Child of God).

I greatly enjoyed some of Cormac McCarthy's novels - some more wholly than others.

Child of God is probably my favourite. It has a very singularly dark sense of humour, as when a sharecropper names his daughters from a medical dictionary ("Git over here, Urethra!"). It is also strangely moving, having sympathy for a character who grows progressively more abased, tracking his descent from dispossessed, angry hillbilly to cave-dwelling necrophile; that's the "child of god" of the title. If people are going to read only one McCarthy, but want to read one of his major works, Child of God is the one. Most people will advocate for Blood Meridian, but it is rather overwhelming, and I'm not sure I fully appreciate the underlying purpose of the novel as much as I do Child of God. In terms of writing, Blood Meridian is his magnum opus, his Moby-Dick, and it is definitely unforgettable, but in terms of themes that resonate for me, Child of God sinks the hook deeper. I've read it twice, and may read it again someday. Note: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a necrophile. 

I don't consider No Country for Old Men one of McCarthy's major works - it's a very stripped-down flirtation with genre, his thriller - but I do love it, and believe I've read it three times, perhaps four. It's the easiest to read of his books, along with The Road, which is also quite spare and simple for McCarthy, if much grimmer and less entertaining. But even if they're easier to tackle, both have content and power. You sense in both he's a bit of a conservative, maybe even a bit of a cranky old man, but his despair about humanity is so sincere and passionate and palpable  you don't mind his occasional asides on topics like abortion, say (which comes up briefly in one of them, for example). If you've seen the film adaptations of these two books, and then read them hoping for more, you may not find either of them shed light on the esteem in which McCarthy is held, because stylistically they're the least McCarthylike of his books, if you will, the ones least likely to overwhelm you with intense description, potent, quotation-mark-free dialogue, or various archaic words and compelling turns of phrase. They're the ones you will least likely be tempted to read aloud to feel the power of the words (there is an essay somewhere from someone who read all of Blood Meridian aloud, some 500 pages, just to feel the language in his mouth). But No Country for Old Men in particular is really a pleasure, and does have great beauty and power at times, simpler prose or not (and who doesn't like a good thriller, even if it subverts the genre for a greater purpose, ultimately?). 

There are some great passages, too, in all three of his Border Trilogy novels; the stuff with the wolf in the first quarter of The Crossing, in particular, is some of his most moving and powerful writing. But the story meanders badly once the wolf narrative ends - that's how I found it on first read, anyhow, and I never went back for a second try. All the Pretty Horses is a bit less sprawling, but to be honest, having read it only once, early in my delvings into McCarthy, I don't recall it well. Cities of the Plain - which takes the lead characters from the previous two novels in the trilogy and places them together, but which can be read on its own, is maybe the most focused of the three, and has a brilliantly funny bit involving jackrabbits... but I've only read each of these novels once, and if I were going to revisit any of them, it would be The Crossing, because I love the wolf section so much...

Outer Dark is the Cormac McCarthy novel that Nick Cave fans should read. It's also pretty grim, in a kind of unforgiving Old Testament way, and more than that, is grotesque, a dark carnival of quasi-Biblical evil. I don't know how I feel about it; it doesn't tempt me to want to return to it; but it does pack a punch. 

Of all of McCarthy's books, though, Suttree is the one I'm most likely to revisit - Jean Harrogate is one of my favourite characters in all of McCarthy, a melon-fucking bat-catching river-dwelling teenager, like a deranged escapee from Twain, who is one of the colourful characters who dwells in the community of outsiders and misfits where the title character goes to escape his moneyed background. Harrogate is so fun to spend time with - at least as a fictional character - that you forgive the novel for having a rather dull main character, essentially a middle-class poverty tourist who has made slumming it a way of life. I don't recall thinking much of him, but I've read the melon-fucking passage aloud. McCarthy could be very, very funny. Especially when you can recognize yourself in Harrogate. He's kind of beautiful.  

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a melon-fucker.

Anyhow, having read several of McCarthy's novels, I can understand why he's held in such high esteem. If you  haven't read any, pick up Child of God or No Country for Old Men - both are fine starting points. Only then, if you feel plugged into what he is doing, attempt Blood Meridian. After that, Suttree or The Border Trilogy might go well. though if you want something lean and mean and evil, Outer Dark is much shorter and maybe best as a dessert, having consumed the meal of all his other works.  

I never did read The Orchard Keeper.  But maybe I'll try the last two novels again soon, in honour of the man's passing. I admit, I find them daunting, and the start of the first - The Passenger, I think - was off-puttingly absurd.. I mean, the Thalidomide Kid? Was he hanging out with Tom Waits? I read a few pages and just set it aside. But not forever. They stare at me occasionally from the bookshelf. 

I wonder what unpublished manuscripts you left us? There is rumour - or at least speculation - of a final novel, not yet published, but...

(What, his screenplay for Whales and Men has leaked online? When did that happen? It gets described as an "abject failure" as a screenplay, but is also, in the same essay, compared to The Sunset Limited, which I found fascinating - essentially a philosophical discussion about suicide. It's a play, not a screenplay, but it has been filmed, with Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson as the men arguing about the pros and cons of killing yourself. It might be an interesting thing to watch, if you've missed it).   

RIP, Mr. McCarthy. I took great pleasure from your writing; you left us a very impressive and singular body of work. Thanks.