So, Cormac McCarthy lived in El Paso for a while, presumably traveled in Mexico. And not in the best of circumstances, he was dirt poor. I think that when he set out to write a western/military history novel, he asked himself, "what sort of man would have lived where I live, 150 years ago?" And then he wrote a series of characters who are archetypal or at least typical of the setting, but overshadwed by it -- because west Texas, south Texas and desert Mexico are overwhelming, scary places. They're dry, they're unforgiving, and they're empty -- and so are McCarthy's fucking characters. I love it. His depiction of violence is just realism. I don't see the need to subscribe symbolic value to it. Texas/Mexico (the distinction was blurry then) in the 1800s was a really dangerous place, with a lot of competing factions centered in a small area. All the history of the time that I've ever read indicates McCarthy's violent scenes are by no means beyond normal.
Very true, and while the 1800's were a violent time I think that McCarthy writes about violence as if its a part of our makeup. I think i mentioned it in an earlier post but at the very start of the book he added 3 epigrams:
It is not to be thought that the life of darkness is sunk in misery and lost as if in sorrow. There is no sorrowing. For sorrow is a thing that is swallowed up in death, and death and dying are the very life of the darkness–Jacob Boehme Clark, who led last year’s expedition to the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, and UC Berkeley colleague Tim D. White, also said that a reexamination of a 300,000-year-old fossil skull found in the same region earlier shows evidence of having been scalped–The Yuma Daily Sun, June 13, 1982 It's not that this one period is violent; its that we as species are violent and always have been. So in a sense perhaps the violence in this novel should not be considered all that important to what the author is trying to say.His depiction of violence is just realism. I don't see the need to subscribe symbolic value to it. Texas/Mexico (the distinction was blurry then) in the 1800s was a really dangerous place, with a lot of competing factions centered in a small area. All the history of the time that I've ever read indicates McCarthy's violent scenes are by no means beyond normal.
Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time–Paul Valery
Slowly dying in the desert only to be awoken by a vulture picking at your rancid oozing wound is far more terrifying than any vampire or zombie.His depiction of violence is just realism.
-That's the way I see it too. But then, violence is so horrible in reality, that sensationalizing it actually has the result of making it more palatable not less. What I mean is that McCarthy's telling of the violence is so much more disturbing because it isn't glorified, vilified or sensationalized in any way. It just is... and that makes it all the more real and oddly relatable.
I agree with this interpretation. I mentioned it in an earlier post as well, and it's even more unsettling that it's really the first time I've read something that doesn't glorify it in any way; it's absolutely clear cut. What kind of society are we are part of that so few depictions of violence are such?
That's a good point, it is a bit disturbing that violence is never presented in a matter of fact way. That said, it's got to be a defense mechanism to protect oneself from the raw brutality of it. To somehow keep us above the animal nature of violence. He keeps the psychology of violence largely out of this too. He mentions when people are scared etc, but doesn't dwell in analyzing or over-hyping the internal dialog or conflicts. -There is no internal dialog to speak of really. It's just "this happened" and then they move on.
It's wonderful in that regard. It keeps the flow precise and makes the beauty that much more enjoyable; there'sno moraliz ing, no opinions, no purple, nothing but depiction and story. None of those things, save purple prose, are bad, but there's something so meaningful in the writing that can express itself, to simply be from a mastery of language and mere existence.