I finished the first round of revisions to my novel Kingdoms of Glass and Steel yesterday, bringing the overall word count up about 13K words, from 81,333 to 94,429. Honestly, I underestimated how long revisions would take and I hope round three (which yes, is totally necessary) doesn’t take as long. I think I have the plot arc pretty well nailed down now and I have asked my reading group to point out any areas where they wanted scenes extended, especially when it comes to getting in the main character’s head.
My overall feeling? I think it’s okay, actually. There are plenty of twists and turns and the plot is always moving (or perhaps rocketing) forward, so I think it would keep a body reading. My only question is whether it’s too plot-driven, but I’ll let my reading group be the judges of that. I find that it’s much easier to let the spirit take you where it will when writing a novel, but whether that translates into salability, who knows? Yet we shall see…
I’m finishing Blood Meridian today and it’s just as good, if not better, than the first time. A part of me wants to start it over and read the whole thing through again just because I like it so much, but I’m not going to do that.
I’m wondering, however, how Cormac McCarthy votes. Googling for his political affiliation results in nothing. My guess would be some strain of libertarianism, but I’m not sure—individual liberty turns pretty friggin’ ugly in Blood Meridian, for instance. In researching this question, I stumbled across some libertarian interpretations of No Country For Old Men that point out that the drug war that’s at the core of the story can only come about by governments making drugs illegal, and that the police (as representatives of the state) are unable to do anything about it. And then there’s the passage where the sheriff relates a story about sitting next to a woman at some event dinner going on about “right wing this and right wing that” and him responding that the world started to go down the tubes once young people stopped using sir or ma’am.
It’s an interesting interpretation, but ultimately makes the mistake of thinking McCarthy the author is on the same political side as the folksy sheriff who is totally out of his league against a force of nature like Chigurh. It seems to me that McCarthy is writing above politics and instead delves into the heart of human nature, which he sees as black and mean. We paper over that black heart with morals and social graces of our own invention (as opposed to necessary truths about the human condition) but ultimately, violence is at our very core. Characters who embrace this notion like Chigurh and the judge are alive at the end of their respective books, whereas those who act morally wind up dead. In my reading, this is neither right nor wrong (nor right nor left in the political arena) but rather it just is, and that to me is the ugly truth McCarthy wants to force readers to look at.
This doesn’t take into account The Border Trilogy, but again I would have to say that a strong political reading doesn’t come naturally to these books, which I would guess is part of the point. Early westerns certainly espouse what I would consider a libertarian ethic, but in The Border Trilogy McCarthy is both critiquing and criticizing this conception of the American West as an idealized space of individual freedom (an idea that of course is also at the center of Blood Meridian). And I’ve read a few interesting essays on how McCarthy’s fiction is a critique of capitalist expansion, where life is little more than a series of forced commodity exchanges that are rarely negotiated on equal footing between the two parties and hence always turns out bad for one side, an argument that I find compelling considering the strong evidence presented in both The Border Trilogy and Blood Meridian. Just because I buy the argument doesn’t mean that I think McCarthy is a Marxist though.
The complexity of McCarthy’s work makes me not only want to reread his books, but to also read about his books and compare and contrast different interpretations and positions. The fact that his books spawn so many solid yet contradictory arguments would be one of the reasons why he can be called the best living American writer with a straight face. That may be debatable but when it comes to McCarthy, it seems like most things are.
Current Mood: Pensive | 
Currently Listening To – The Hold Steady – “Stay Positive”
6 Comments
Deciding on the politics of an author can be quite an entertaining sport, depending on whether the author makes it easy or hard. They say write what you know, but playing Devil’s advocate can be such fun. (grin)
Somewhat related to this is the dust up over the latest Orson Scott Card column flamed on about here and here. Many people raise the issue of “I hate this author’s politics so I will never buy his stories again.” Without rendering an opinion on either OSC or his work (past or present), it’s a hard choice as to whether to subscribe to such a boycott. As one commenter noted, they listen to Wagner’s music, not either his political views or what people later did with said music.
I suspect that your interest in Cormac’s politics is much more academic curiousity.
Dr. Phil
Tolkien is another great example. I adore his work but don’t agree at all with his Catholic world-view.
In my American Indian lit class, we read The Education of Little Tree, a book that is about a kid who goes to live with his Cherokee grandparents and extols (as well as rewrites) the history of the indigenous people of the south. It was widely hailed as a NA classic—until it was discovered that the author was a white supremacist who had very little first-hand experience of Cherokee culture and was basically using the book as a platform to bash the north and the federal government using Indian stereotypes as a means for justifying these grudges. The book is still often used in classrooms to teach NA “culture” (which is frightening in itself) despite the fact that it was written by an ex-member of the Ku Klux Klan.
One of my friends wrote his paper on whether this was a fair treatment of the book, given that it went from being praised to scorned based on nothing more than the author’s identity. In this case, and with the case of Card, I didn’t care for the authors’ politics and I didn’t care for their work either, so giving them up was easy to do.
But to your last point, there’s a huge gap between “enjoyment” and “academic curiosity” that don’t always meet. For instance, I thought The Virginian was a lousy book that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone, but I “enjoyed” it (sort of) because of my academic curiosity regarding the western genre. For McCarthy, not only do I love the way he uses language, but I also like trying to figure out what the hell these books are saying beneath the surface, and the fact that they support so many readings suggests to me that McCarthy deserves his reputation.
Your students are going to love you. They’re going to read stuff, come up with their simplistic undergraduate lit crit ideas, then have to do Venn diagrams and flow charts to follow you — this is NOT a criticism, BTW, but glowing respect for the depth you’re willing to go in order to get at some truths about the works and the authors.
Cool.
Dr. Phil
life is little more than a series of forced commodity exchanges that are rarely negotiated on equal footing between the two parties and hence always turns out bad for one side, an argument that I find compelling considering the strong evidence presented in both The Border Trilogy and Blood Meridian. Just because I buy the argument doesn’t mean that I think McCarthy is a Marxist though.
I also wonder if complicating this argument further is the fact that one can be critical of capitalism and not automatically be a Marixst. To add another related point, I imagine one can be critical of certain parts of Capitalism or certain practices that often occur under capitalism, but still basically think it’s a good system or a necessary one.
I harbor no illusions about the typical undergrad’s interest in academic pursuits. The best advice I’ve heard so far is that the best teachers incorporate the work that they love and find interesting and hope that passion transfers over to some students who are paying attention, and that you can’t win them all.
Should be an interesting experience regardless…
Good point, Eric. Like I said, my guess is that McCarthy is likely some strain of libertarian, but libertarian is such a huge term that encompasses such a wide range of political views (i.e. you can be liberal or conservative libertarian) that claim doesn’t do much in terms of understanding his political position.
And I’m far from an expert in libertarianism anyway, so I’m very much wading into unknown waters here…