1 post tagged “cormac mccarthy”
Ever since Laura Williams suggested I read Blood Meridian I have been a Cormac McCarthy fan. I put off reading "All The Pretty Horses" certain that it was an aberation in an otherwise good man's career. Sort of like when Nick Cave made "Deanna." But like a true fan, I both liked Cave's Deanna and Cormac's Horses.
His writing is sparse and direct. I have a soft spot for the spartan language of Raymond Carver and Jim Thompson. Check out Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" for sparse. I swear there are two-word sentences in there. Like I said, it started with Blood Meridian. A dark and lovely story of ravaging armies in a dying West. The gore and lowly qualities found in Cave's The Proposition are here in spades. The grotesque crimes against humanity - one human's brutalization of another - just keep coming in implausible exaggeration.
And now, The Road. Here's the scary Random House site. I am almost 3/4 of the way through after 2 days or so. It defines darkness as the whole premise captures a scne from my darkest fears. Cormac understands that fear - at least I presume he does and is not some idiot savant who just happens to tap into the root of a father's nightmare. To be trapped in a post-apocalyptic wastelend where every waking hour is spent in a filthy wet struggle to keep your beautiful son from being devoured by savage cannibals - "the bad guys."
His books defy conversion to film. They capture something primoridial, savage and indelibly human. And he reminds us that we while we will never rise up beyond being human, we may, if we are lucky have that moment of grace (even if covered in blood and brain matter at the time).
