Cormac McCarthy – Part 2

Several posts ago I copied some thoughts of mine regarding Cormac McCarthy’s nihilistic Blood Meridian. This is meant to continue that discussion…

McCarthy has been getting a lot of attention lately, mostly due to the imagining of his fiction in the eyes of the Cohen brothers’ No Country For Old Men, and now more recently with Vigo Mortensen leading in The Road. My interest in McCarthy, however, began as a suggestion from my father, who is a voracious reader, and who described Blood Meridian and the most violent, disturbing novel he had ever read. At the time, I didn’t realize McCarthy’s influence in recent cinema, nor could I have guessed what I was truly in for.

But, my real fascination with McCarthy lay in the fact that he sets many of his novels in the Southwest, and in the case of No Country and Blood Meridian, much of it takes place in the Chihuahuan desert…where I grew up. The Southwest, and particularly West Texas, rarely gets the attention it deserves, so being partial to it, I am bent to explore those nuances of the Humanities which seek to illuminate its heritage. That is not to say that McCarthy’s novels are necessarily historical in nature, although they are to a certain degree, especially Blood Meridian, but more to the point, the geography of West Texas, Northern Mexico, Southern Arizona, make for exceptionally interesting settings.

In addition to this, I found in Blood Meridian a gut wrenching literary tale that undoes any notion of the mythological Western Frontier. There is no romance in the novel that harkens to those 19th century pioneers and sun worn warriors, which we sometimes carelessly project our own fantasy’s and day dreams – perhaps even believing a bit too much  the early to mid 20th century’s depictions of this era in film and literature. The reality was much more bleak, more depraved, more violent than we care to imagine.  And, the taming of the West remains one of the most interesting topics I have yet to explore in depth.

In many ways, we still feel the repercussions of the actions taken by Anglo, Mexican and Native. The resentment is palpable to those who care to pay attention to it, especially on the border towns. Racism is still very much alive. But there is something else that we civilized people tend to ignore to the point of absurdity, that is the marginalizing of the Native to the fringes of society. All it takes is a drive from El Paso to Santa Fe, crossing the Indian Reservations along the way, to be witness to the hopelessness and despair that exist in the tribes presently. Is it any wonder that alcoholism and drug abuse are rampant among these populations when in the span of 100 short years their way of life was stolen out from under them?

I appreciate McCarthy for his candor, because it is easy to fall into the trap of the “White Man” perpetrating all kinds of evils at the expense of the poor natives. I do not hold to this presupposition, and I do not believe McCarthy does either. At least, I do not see that in Blood Meridian, and there are solid historical evidences to believe that the Natives were in fact more brutal than the Anglos and Mexicans in every way. What I do see, though,  is depraved white “Christians”, and I would use that term more than loosely, and even more depraved Native “pagans” killing each other in horrible ways. Everybody hates everybody else, and fear is the driving force for much of the violence – fear and greed. I do not doubt that, during this time in history, these types of evils were perpetrated by all sides.

There is no point in trying to point the finger and blame someone for the hardships now experienced by those who were displaced. What’s done is done and “Manifest Destiny” has run its tired course. As a musician, I feel compelled to capture this time in history in a way that can speak to the imagination in the way only music can. That is the reason I wrote …And The Horses Were Screaming, and is the reason why I hopefully will have the opportunity to work on a full-scale project, using McCarthy’s book, along with some other historical and literary texts and inspiration. Who knows…perhaps McCarthy would endorse such a project.

 

My Fascination With Cormac McCarthy

Below is a blog post that I authored for another blog of mine back in August. This is a preface to a discussion I’ll be posting regarding McCarthy’s novels and my music:

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I recently finished Cormac McCarthy’s violent epic, Blood Meridian. There is not enough time to even begin to unpack the density of this novel into something categorical that would do it justice, especially in this format, but I wanted to try and put down some of my initial thoughts.

The first palpable characteristic of the novel is McCarthy’s prose, which is largely void of punctuation and certainly archaic, even ancient in voice. He does not use quotation marks to denote a character speaking, he does not use commas or anything of the sort. In fact, the only punctuation that he uses at all are periods. As I have searched the Internet for commentary, some suggest that what McCarthy is trying to accomplish, and alluding to, is the Bible – especially the Old Testament and Hebrew syntax, where the use of “and” and repeating ideas is present, rather than precise punctuation and subordination in prose. As such, McCarthy’s very structure is an allusion in itself, and is the canvas on which he paints his nightmarish depiction of this world.

Literary allusions are frequent throughout this book, and McCarthy relies heavily on great authors such as Milton, Melville and Wordsworth. Milton’s Satan, Melville’s Ahab, and Wordsworth’s poetic imagery are all present, yet changed somehow. As if, when entering McCarthy’s world, they morph into something unrecognizable from the former, while still needing them to exist, but being wholly and completely their own. The author even suggests that his character, the judge, cannot be divided back into his origins, as if to say the predecessors no longer matter and what has been created rests on a fundamentally unique foundation. And, in the Epilogue, McCarthy seems to acknowledge the fact that all that is relies on what has come before, that there is no great work which does not, and the man that digs the hole and draws the steel out of it and moves on is as much in debt to the one who dug before, just as we who are privy to these fires of creation are in debt to those who put it through the refining process for use as spectacle, utility or whatever need or want we have in our mind for it.

The fact that McCarthy can acknowledge this is a testament to his own maturity as an author. For, truly, what original work has ever been written in the history of literature? It could be argued that Scripture stands fully apart from this category. While its books maintain aspects of certain literary faculties present at the time, the content of it is profoundly unique. Peter Mansfield recognized this in his book A History of the Middle East, that the ancient Jews had the most complex and evolved moral system of any known civilization. Certainly, that was not by accident, nor by natural anthropological means as some might suggest. But, I digress on this point.

McCarthy also relies heavily on Sam Chamberlain’s  My Confession and by doing so also alludes to history, as well as literature. Certain characters in Blood Meridian share the same names, which has a dual effect that are not so clearly delineated when reading. Is McCarthy commenting on literature, or history? I think the answer is both. They are the tools by which McCarthy builds his sub-text and anti-plot. In fact, the absence of a hard plot structure allows the reader to take more notice of the literary and historical allusions that meld together in a forge of amoral fire, emerging as a new entity, baptized by the ponderous excavation of purposely imprecise and fantastical language.  Similar, yet foreign at once and ultimately associated with only those fringes of our reckoning. Like Ishmael on the deck of the Pequod and privy to the madness of the crew at the prompting and prodding of their maniacal, persuasive captain.

The moral ambiguity of McCarthy’s novel is elevated to a position of authority and thereby comes into an immediate conflict. By doing this, the question of morality becomes the primary question that the novel investigates. The nature of man and of his relationship to others, man and animal, are on display in a grotesque reality. McCarthy never states anything, but his lack of statement suggests the point in a somewhat nihilistic manner. Life and death are juxtaposed with similar whim, where one seems just as cheap as the other, and there is no preference. Death comes in passing in Blood Meridian, almost as if we are on a weekend stroll and notice scenes of decimation, blood and gore and continue on with no second thought to its wrenching nature. Of course, the scenes are enough to give the reader pause, but not the characters. This speaks to McCarthy’s ultimate quest. It gives us pause, and perhaps that is the point. Is McCarthy asking the larger moral question of “Why?”

My question is whether or not McCarthy’s novel is the greatest of the last two decades. With his references to literature, history and claims of having created something beyond them, that can not be simply divided back into the sources of its origin, McCarthy has made some bold claims. He delivers, however, and scholars are not lost on the depth of his fiction. He presents us with a stark non-reality that challenges our notions of right and of history. As a South-westerner and one raised on a border town, I find his exploration of the interaction between Anglos, Mexicans and Indians disturbing alternative to the popular mythology of the wild west. I think McCarthy’s novel not only cuts to the heart of the fundamental human problem, but also helps to see more clearly the truth of a romanticized period in history, where resentment and anger fester to this day because of actions taken on all sides.

By the way, two video posts by Yale’s English Lit department discuss McCarthy’s book in detail and is where I found a majority of commentary on his work. There are some other helpful resources, but the videos are a good intro.