The Road is not a violent or pessimistic book, tho there is violence and pessimism in it. Don't confuse the set and the setting.
Why write about, 'the worst among us'? Some art (and Cormac tottered over the line between wrought and overwrought plenty) is about finding meaning in the margins, in the edge cases. The statistical noise at the outerbands of anything might make it an impossible endeavor for meaning-making, but that's why art. You try anyway. Some writers are skilled enough to make the mundane sing and that's great, but McCarthy obviously didn't seem to care for that approach.
I think I can see why Child of God put you off enough for the thoughts of others to prevent any further effort, but I'd suggest you give him another go.
I'd save blood meridian for later tho; If you don't get too distracted by the setting of the road, it's a perfectly optimistic book.
As the poet said, something in us does not erode (free pun!)
I don't want to spoil, but the optimism isn't for the characters, it's for we the reader, and the species.
The thimble of fire joins the wider flame. Goodness survives even there, and even then.
That fire they carry is not extinguished even in a world where all systems and pretenses at civilization have been ruined. It finds the wider flame, and decent folks to tend it.
It is one of the more optimistic works he's done, not despite the setting, but because.
I may give "The Road" a chance though.
The Road could be seen as overly masculine in its portrayal of a man and his son against nearly the entire world, which is often the fantasy of male prepper types. Some oppositional takes to this would be e.g. Cory Doctorow's Masque of the Red Death, where he presents the dichotomy directly in a post-apocalypse world and argues for the more optimistic outcome, wherein people work together in a non-exclusionary way to overcome whatever the apocalyptic scenario is, which might be considered a more feminine perspective. Others taking that perspective would include Rebecca Solnit in "A Paradise Built in Hell."
In the Too Like Lightning series, Ada Palmer takes on the male/feminine sci fi angle directly by creating a near-utopian society of mostly gender neutral people. At one point in the novel a character argues that in fact they've created a feminine society of women, and therefore aren't prepared to handle the outlier class of people that want to create war, who have for the most part began to present explicitly as men.
I'd say the Road is a full inversion of this in that it doesn't bother explaining why the world collapsed and purely focuses on how people are left to cope with it
It's a world where femininity and fertility have been completely eradicated and turned into a living hell by said survivalist men who vie to dominate what little is remaining
The only "good" to be found in it is the memory of the Man's wife and the family the child meets at its conclusion
On the other hand I (a man) have read Blood Meridian, and while I loved it, anyone who reads it and thinks "fuck yeah these are real men" is a psycopath. Nobody should want to be associated with those characters (or the real people that inspired them) in any way.
> people feign to wonder where the male readers have gone
I haven't heard this concern, but if this is an issue I can't really believe awards have anything to do with it. Nobody is saying "yeah I used to like books but Hugo nominees these last few years weren't to my taste, so I just stopped reading". At least in my experience the average person doesn't really care about media awards, they are mostly for industry insiders and a small subset of major enthusiasts.
That wasn't what I intended to convey. They're altogether not published to the same degree they were.
> I haven't heard this concern
do a search
> I don't feel like I'm having any trouble finding masculinity here.
What were the exact words I used? They're right there. Read them again.
Interiority being a huge axis here.
Loathing the inevitability of McCarthy to get the same posthumous treatment as Kerouac did and with those benevolent and corrective blows kill pure art just a little bit more
I don’t “love” either artist to be sure. Is that also dismissive? I’m not sure.
My daughter and I talk about the message in the book regularly. Though she has yet to read it. I see more clearly my purpose as a dad and as a member in my community. Totally worth the read.
If you want to read McCarthy doing nihilism, maybe try the sunset limited.
Thinking masculine is a criticism is quite a tell.
Though I do kinda feel the “masculine” note in that quote haha, if only because the women that appeared in the story were steadfastly hospitable (or victims.) Disregarding any incident where the Judge was involved, it actually felt quaint, especially in contrast to everything else going on.
I’ll be interested as I check out the rest of his catalogue as to if the stomach-churning detail involved still feels necessary, or if my tolerance starts to change.
I see the violence as a refutation of the idealized, sanitized version of the West popularized in mainstream Westerns. Where law and authority = good, even though the Glanton gang was funded and armed by US authorities
He did ok with Alicia in his last couple books, but even there he flounders some. "If I had a baby I wouldn't care about reality"? Hmm, ok?
"His face was all covered in girljuice"? C'mon bud.
But no writer is flawless.
She was particularly surprised to find such a passage in a book by McCarthy who she expected to be some gruff man’s man.
I haven’t read that passage myself, but seemingly Cormac was capable of writing women when he chose to. Perhaps not enough, though.
I will say this about the passage tho: McCarthy writes a small narrative which does seem to explain her choices and character as it affects John Grady. It's convincing, and she's a good character, but even there she's something of a set piece.
Still, glad you mentioned this. Thanks.
His worldview seemed to be that humans as a species are extremely violent and capable of the most inhumane acts and we’re hanging on by a thread. Some of his writing often covered what just a slight altering of our societal moral compass might look like.
Probably my favorite author of all time, him or maybe Delilo.
@JKCalhoun > in my world-view most humans want to be kind.
These two views aren't necessarily in conflict. Individuals can overwhelmingly want to be kind but still be in a system where society pushes them to behave to the contrary.
> The old man shook his head doubtfully, paying the band of his cap through his fingers. I'm satisfied they caint get no worse, he said.
> But there are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse, only Suttree didn't say so.
Love it
If anyone has any ideas on what the point of violence in art is, I'm open to hearing it. Obviously horror is a genre and so is gore, and people seem to enjoy being shocked. I don't think that is what McCarthy was going for though. And he wasn't going for the vengeance-catharsis angle like Tarantino either.
Yeah, maybe his detractors were on to something.
I haven't even started "The Road" because of its reputation. I have only read "Child of God" and wondered why someone might write about the worst among us. But then I'm not a fan of Quentin Tarantino as a filmmaker for the same reason.