Like “genius” or “hero,” the word “reinvention,” lately waylaid by artistic lightweights, has been devalued and is increasingly a cliché in literature, arts and entertainment. Whether it’s a has-been actor turned reality show never-was, or a vapid va-voom starlet famous for being infamous who yearns to write an “as told to” tell-all, everyone — though keeping one foot in the door — wants an out. The rest, seeking a different stint in the same trade, will be all those washed-up actors who really want to direct.
But sometimes it's not the klieg-light acclaim, but the off-stage immaterial accrual that somehow constitutes a tenuous tie to perceived artistic growth. Madonna affects a British accent and myopically chases Kabala-rooted spirituality like a trend-on-a-stick, and - at the drop of a new CD or another concert curtain - proclaims herself transformed, like a virgin no more. Again.
If, to ratchet up the gravitas considerably, any novelist deserves a Reinvention Booksigning Tour of his or her own, it would have to be Cormac McCarthy, who could most certainly reinvent reinvention once again if he had to, restoring back to its former glory the golden substance beneath the stylistic glitter.
With the beginning of his writing career as a Rhode Island transplant to rural Tennessee in 1965, McCarthy distinguished himself as a Southern novelist with a mean Faulknerian streak. But after having moved to El Paso a decade later, McCarthy invented himself anew as a Western writer, marked by touches of Melville and Conrad. With the publication, in 1985, of his dark masterwork Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West — a violently Peckinpah-esque retelling of the Davy Crockett legend — McCarthy decidedly descended into an American-ingrained exploration of thematic and visceral force.
The inconsistent but often striking '90s-spanning Border Trilogy that brought to McCarthy both book awards and mass appeal — All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities Of The Plain — toned down the cinematic brutality by affording, in these affecting coming-of-age stories, more of a John Ford flavor. And last year’s modern-day No Country For Old Men trades in a little literary cache and rich characterization for a more accessible and entertaining capper to his Western phase - at least for now.
With The Road, McCarthy makes a full-tilt departure with a bleakly picaresque post-apocalyptic epic. Though presumably America, the unnamed land of deprivation and “cold autistic dark” here is not only not a country for old men in the Western or even Yeatsian sense, it is, in effect, a no-man’s land unfit for anyone and anything.
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Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
2 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Thank you, Natalie--much appreciated.
3 - Mounty5199
I came to Cormac McCarthy when I first heard about the movie version of "All The Pretty Horses" so I am late to the party. Oh, but what a party it is. This man is today's William Shakespeare, or perhaps he is the God of American modern literature. I read his verse and I am chilled to the bone at his description of people, places, concepts, things... I have been, and remain a great fan of Pat Conroy, an author about whom I have always raved, and yet, Mr. McCarthy is now my hero. I love the ebb and flow of his warmth, and I shudder at his mercilous descriptions of man's inhumanity to man. I read his description of what a man is thinking, and then what another is thinking, and I am amazed at his ability to understand what is in the mind of each, so different, and yet so complete in McCarthy's lyrical explanation which teaches, but never preaches. I love your writing and your brilliance, Cormac McCarthy, and i love what you give me in your books. Thank you.
I have spoken to all my friends about you, and beg them to read and to see what I am trying to explain about your magical and mysterious ability to bring the depth of atmosphere and man together in such beautiful prose. I refuse to loan my books except to my son. I want them here with me, and I know he will appreciate you, and he will return my precious books, so that I can read them again. Scott Mount
4 - Christine Chandler
In the classic fairy tale, The King's New Clothes, a vain monarch is tricked by a wily seamstress into riding naked through the streets of his kingdom. She convinces him that she has sewn the costume he is to wear from magic thread only visible to those who are exceptionally wise and good. Unwilling to admit his perceived inadequacy, the King mounts his steed au naturale in order to display his wisdom and grace. Throngs of onlookers, curious to to view such a speckle begin to laugh and call out what is the truth for them, "I think the King is wearing no clothes!" I long since passed through my DaDa-esque period in the 60s. I found no sustenance in this nihilistic tome. Albert Camus said it well enough in 1942. I remained frustrated throughout, and to quote this reviewer out of context, I found the pages "...rarely, relatively, rewarding." After finishing, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, I felt an odd sense of accomplishment similar to viewing all 3 (6) hours of Warhol's 1966 double screen faux-extravaganza, Chelsea Girls. For me, the characters pooled like stagnant gray runoff. With each turn of a page I longed for some movement, only to feel the frustration of Sisyphus. I am happy for all those who found a treasure in this book. Personally, I felt cheated.
5 - boarderlass
I wept.
6 - The man who once was
I liked the eggs.
7 - sheena
i hate even talkin bout this stuff so i hated the book