Cormac McCarthy

One of my best friends from college, an amazing American Lit. scholar in her own right, read something I wrote on Facebook about loving Cormac

McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Which I do. More, even, than his somewhat more popular books that have recently been turned into films. "Can't stand it," she said, wondering what on earth I see in it.

To begin with, it should be clear from my BA thesis and dissertation on Dostoevsky that I like novels that capture the fundamental anarchy and less-than-ideal nature of man that I feel define our world. Remember, I read morbid murder mysteries because they're lighter than the fiction I tend to read for "work." The other person who really captures this quality is JM Coetzee--my feelings about whom are deserving of their own post--however McCarthy embraces a complexity of language that ultimately I find more intriguing than Coetzee's (also beautiful) stark simplicity.

Also, McCarthy is Dostoevskian in his handling of the sacred and the profane. He uses sacred language to describe profane images or events, leading one to wonder about the definition of both terms. He also shows fatally flawed men seeking (okay, or at least taking about seeking) the sacred. This is a quality that I've previously discussed in regard to Dostoevsky, and I think it makes McCarthy almost other-worldly.

Finally, McCarthy--unlike Dostoevsky but like Coetzee--pulls no punches. He leaves no doubt that if there is going to be any meaning at all in this mean world, it will be the meaning that we make for ourselves. That's a message I'll take any day. Blood Meridian is especially good on this count because it is the story of an annihilation, and the very obvious conclusion is that nothing, and I mean nothing, constructive is being built in the wake of what came before. Meaning is there for the taking, language, especially that sacred language, gives the world meaning, but we have to take charge of it. Oh so existential, I know, but in the end a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.

Not that any of this makes for pleasant reading, but, well, I can't remember the last time I read a book that made for pleasant reading. That's just not why I read. I read to find things that help me make sense of the world, and these are the authors who do that.