The Cormac McCarthy Perspective
A Young Adult’s Author Analysis
Written by DJ Hadoken
There are a plethora of late century American writers, among them is Cormac McCarthy, who is known as “one of the most important contemporary American novelists who has consistently extended the boundaries of what can be done with the English language in his novels” (Magill 1196).
Like most creative writers, he has his own unique writing style. One that confuses his readers, but tempts them to read on.
Cormac McCarthy was born on July 20, 1933 in Providence, Rhode Island. He lived there until the age of four. He then moved to Knoxville, Tennessee with his parents, Charles Joseph McCarthy and Gladys McGrail McCarthy. While in Knoxville, he graduated from a Catholic high school and then proceeded to attend the University of Tennessee from 1951 to 1952. In 1953, after dropping out, he wandered about the country doing odd jobs until he joined the U.S. Air Force for four years.
In 1957, he returned to the University of Tennessee, only to drop out again in 1959. In 1959 he was also awarded the Ingram Merrill Award for creative writing. Although he dropped out in 1959, he received the same award again in 1960.
McCarthy is known to practice the “Joycean virtues of silence, exile, and cunning more faithfully than any other contemporary author” (Bell). He is a determined and committed writer who is indifferent towards any and all awards that are offered to him.
He is highly known for his extreme ability to shun publicity. As well as for his style of writing, which is known for lack of quotation and accent marks (sometimes making it difficult for readers to understand his writing).
Some critics and writers who have read McCarthy’s novels consider him and his writing to be in a sense, strange. However, McCarthy has not let that disturb him. “I don’t understand them,” he said once, “A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange” (Woodward).
After that was said, many writers and critics began to look at both his works and him from a different perspective. They viewed his style as a new approach towards literature and refused to criticize him or berate his writing. “McCarthy’s prose restores the terror and grandeur of the physical world with a biblical gravity that can shatter a reader” (Woodward). He is the “rightful heir to the Southern Gothic tradition...” and may be referred to as “a man’s novelist whose apocalyptic vision rarely focuses on women...” (Woodward).
Indeed, McCarthy is not known for producing epic stories involving heroines and romance. It has been noted, “McCarthy doesn’t write about sex, love or domestic issues” (Woodward). McCarthy’s style has repeatedly been compared to William Faulkner for reasons such as that both of their works seem to focus on the aspects of human behavior, and that they both consist of “...[little known] vocabulary, punctuation, portentous rhetoric, use of dialect and concrete sense of the world...” (Woodward).
Among his novels, All the Pretty Horses (1992) is a National Bestseller and the book for which he is best known. His other famous works include: Cities of the Plain (1998), The Crossing (1994), and Blood Meridian (1985). Most of the main characters in his novels are connected to him in some way, many of which move around from place to place as McCarthy did when he was younger. Some of his books begin in Texas or Mexico, and then stray between different areas of the south and southwest.
Suttree (1979) and Blood Meridian are considered two of his most important novels. Completed after twenty years, Suttree is McCarthy’s longest and most comical book. It is a sort of autobiography of himself. The characters and events represent mainly the portion of his life spent in Knoxville.
Blood Meridian, however, is not a comical novel. It is based on historical events that occurred in 1849 and 1850 in the southwest. The novel is a constant onslaught of anarchy between Whites, Hispanics and Native Americans on the American Frontier. “It may be the bloodiest book since [Homer’s] The Iliad” (Woodward). A description of Blood Meridian eerily hints at its setting as a “...world where Indians [Native Americans] are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving” (Readwest).
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Child of God (1973) is a novel in which the main character, Lester Ballard, is described as “...a mass murderer and necrophiliac...” who “...lives with his victims in a series of underground caves” (Woodward).
Finally, Outer Dark (1968) consists of a story centralized around a girl’s search for her baby, a product of incest with her brother. However, the brother later witnesses the death of his baby at the hands of three strangers.
All the Pretty Horses depicts the story of a young man, named John Grady Cole, who sets out on an old-western style adventure with his friend, Lacey Rawlins. Compared to McCarthy’s other novels, which may be considered harsh and graphic, All the Pretty Horses is a more gentle portrayal of the life of one young man and his journeys throughout Mexico. The novel even includes a touch of romance, which, as mentioned above, is not a common topic in McCarthy’s novels
All the Pretty Horses in actuality is the first volume in a trilogy of books called the “Border Trilogy”. McCarthy was humorously asked during an interview why this particular novel had such a low body count. McCarthy simply responded, “You haven’t come to the end yet... This may be nothing but a snare and a delusion to draw you in, thinking that all will be well” (Woodward).
McCarthy has said, “There’s no such thing as life without bloodshed” (Woodward). Many people may agree with this, because, sadly, it is true. Violence and death are common events among our human race.
McCarthy has taken advantage of these facts of life and has utilized them in order to portray, in a slightly “factual” form of fiction, intricate stories the likes of which only a mind similar to his would be able to weave. He has taken the aspects of human flaws and tendencies and has used them to present to readers a frighteningly accurate portrayal of human nature.
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Works Cited
Bell, Madison. “The Man Who Understood Horses.” New York Times. 17 May 1992.
New York Times On The Web.
< http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-horses.html >
Access Date: 6 August 2001.
Cormac McCarthy – Award-winning Author. Readwest.
< http://www.readwest.com/cormacmccarthy.htm >
Access Date: 6 August 2001.
Magill, Frank. Magill’s Survey Of American Literature. New York.
Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 1991.
Woodward, Richard. “Cormac McCarthy’s Venomous Fiction.” New York Times. 19 April 1992.
New York Times On The Web.
< http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-venom.html >
Access Date: 6 August 2001.
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