Why Cormac McCarthy Writes Dark Novels (Cormac Answers)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
- People love to call Cormac McCarthy a nihilist. However, I think that's a pretty lazy label. Today, we will be hearing Cormac McCarthy discuss why he writes dark novels in a 2011 interview with Lawrence Krauss and Werner Herzog. McCarthy has never really discussed this at length before, and at some level, this is as close as he gets to talking about his own writing process. More videos dropping soon! If you want to join the McCarthy newsletter link is down below. Also, dropping daily McCarthy content on social media and on the McCarthy Underground Podcast.
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Cormac McCarthy is an American writer who we consider one of the greatest authors of all time. He was born in Rhode Island but was raised and wrote his initial works in Tennessee. However, his most famous (and best) works were written in the Southwestern United States. Below are some links and my opinion on all his books!
Book Name: Stella Maris
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: December 6th, 2022
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Rating: 8/10
Purchase link to support Write Conscious: amzn.to/3YaZa5r
Book Name: The Passenger
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: October 2022
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Rating: 8.5/10
Purchase link to support Write Conscious: amzn.to/3YiEdFN
Book Name: The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: September 2006
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Rating: 7/10
Purchase link to support Write Conscious: amzn.to/3xfGuW8
Book Name: No Country For Old Men
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: July 2005
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Rating: 7/10
Purchase link to support Write Conscious: amzn.to/3JZD3KW
Book Name: Cities of the Plain
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: May 1998
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Rating: 8/10
Purchase link to support Write Conscious: amzn.to/3lqAreJ
Book Name: The Crossing
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: June 1994
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Rating: 10/10
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Book Name: All the Pretty Horses
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: May 1992
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Rating: 9/10
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Book Name: Blood Meridian
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: April 1985
Publisher: Random House
Rating: 10/10
Purchase link to support Write Conscious: amzn.to/3RKMEY2
Book Name: Suttree
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: May 1979
Publisher: Random House
Rating: 9.5/10
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Book Name: Child of God
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: 1973
Publisher: Random House
Rating: 6.5
Purchase link to support Write Conscious: amzn.to/3jDOFc0
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On the subject of animals in McCarthy: I haven't been able to stop thinking about the mousetrap scene from The Passenger, where the one mouse gets caught but doesn't die and Western releases it and it "wobbles" off into the dark. Then Western throws the traps in the trash.
You know Cormac is a genius when he can remind you of the humanity in a mouse.
Man... That whole Idaho scene was wild. The mouse scene was the energetic transition out of Idaho too which gives it even more power. Thanks for bringing this up Alex!
Read the story by Kafka about the mouse. 🕳️
Love you mentioned the lazy labeling of McCarthy as a Nihilist!
Haha, I used to say that label about him for years!
Note, nihilism doesn't necessitate a negative world view. McCathy, if not nihilistic, sure embraces that theme quite often.
Exactly Todd!
You've made me want to go back and re-read every Cormac novel I own.
Let's go! We are doing it soon on this channel together once I get over my Passenger and Stella Maris craze in December :)
Dude,
You are the most informed person I know on Cormac McCarthy.
That is a huge compliment.
Thanks dude! Compared to scholars I am pretty dumb, but they're living in ivory towers and writing one paper every three years in journals 100 people read lol.
Great stuff man, my interest in his novels has grown exponentially since I found your videos. Thanks from Portugal
Let's go! We are going to be reading all of his books together soon on this channel.
You’re truly fighting the good fight.
Thanks Eddie! Feel like I can defeat some pretty big enemies in the next six decades of this project.
@@WriteConscious what you want to do in six decades, try to do it in three. Shakespeare wrote his thirty seven plays, sonnets, and poems in twenty years!
This was such an insightful video - I ask myself this all the time: why am I reading these novels? Am I wasting my time? I tell myself no, because I enjoy it so much. I just read Blood Meridian recently, and I absolutely loved it. I can't really explain why I did, though. I loved what most loved, the beautiful prose, the philosophical commentary, and the unbiased, unapologetic violence portrayed. Because like you said, tragedy has always and will always exist - regardless of who, what, or when you are, it can and will always find you. It puts things into perspective regarding your own life. Take The Road for example - I never cried so hard at the end of reading (or watching) anything, and the only reason I did was because of how much I could relate to it (obviously not exactly, but there are similarities). I think that reading these stories do help us heal - it's a way for us to read some of our own internalized emotions transcribed on paper, written by another who has had similar experiences as you, such as losing a loved one, or questioning your place in this world.
Beautiful comment brotha. We are so lucky to be able to read and experience some of the greatest tragedies ever created in the artistic realm!
I recommend looking into Paul Ricoeur’s threefold mimesis. He will give you ideas why we read novels.
Will do!
Good points.
Yes, trauma in our DNA memory...yes, art tries to heal...create pauses, make some kind of sense, even momentarily. But we need it over and over...so we need new artists again and again. And good work is perceived uniquely in each readers or viewers mind...Proust knew this.
Proust knew almost everything Barbara! :)
I've always found McCarthy's villains incredibly fascinating. Judge Holden, Anton Chigurh, the bearded leader of the unholy trinity from _The Outer Dark_ , the German from _The Crossing_ , and noted how each is philosophical, imbued with the hallmarks of civilization, its propagation and yet all are bringers of destruction, all are annihilators, and reapers of men.
War and bloodshed are the progenitors of apocalypse, and through apocalypse new paradigms, new civilizations are born. It's interesting that destruction, its avatars like Judge Holden, should bring new civilization, it's as if they must clear the last season's crop to allow for the next season's growth.
I read McCarthy's works as a continuous dialogue, a discussion about Man's existence, and his place in the universe and whether that universe is Godless or not. Nietzsche warns that if God is dead, nihilism and despair, pointlessness and apathy will reign. He worried that religion and morality bound Man, fettered him to a state of cowardice where he was unable to rise up and evolve into a greater form, a superhuman expression, his ubermensch. I often wondered if McCarthy cast his villains as these ubermensch and as a means to counter, to foil Nietzsche's assertion, he created characters like John Grady Cole, Billy Parham, Llewelyn Moss, and the man from _The Road_ .
Each of these characters are who I've deemed the "skilled man." It would seem that the pinnacle of human expression in McCarthy's works is that of the skilled man, a person who specifically defines the highest value of humanity in the knowledge and its application, of its husbandry of nature. Judge Holden wishes to document everything, to know it and master it and ultimately to eradicate it, but characters like the man, Billy Parham and John Grady use their skills to bear light, to perpetuate humanity, and to synergize humanity with nature.
You mention the cataclysm of the younger Dryas period that has left some sort of atavistic trauma within all of humanity, and it's possible that such cataclysms have expelled us into the land of Nod, cast us from Eden and divided humanity from Nature. In this, we are pariahs, we wander on the outskirts of the wild, forging civilization to shield us from its ravages, and wise men, skilled men, either blessed with an innate genius, or bearing knowledge passed down to them, strive to bring humanity back into nature's fold, to unify us as caretakers and masters of nature and our world.
Fire and darkness are important themes in his works. There are keepers of the fire--bringers of truth and knowledge, people who do so out of love (The Road)--and there are those who use the shadows it creates, the island in the dark, to delude others, to sow confusion, and to indict the unskilled, the sinful, the Godless, and rapine, into their fold, to wield fear to master not nature and its indifferent dangers, but the heart of men--Blood Meridian and The Outer Dark.
But from the very sparks of fire is born human civilization, no cold forges stamping graven images of false gods on coins are welcome in its cold-thwarting glow. Our ancestors, firebearers, have gone into the dark valleys beyond the ancient mountain mazes, they hold congress by those ancient fires, and they await our passage into the night.
This is a great comment! Just reading it for the first time. Thanks for writing it out. I agree with your analysis.
@@WriteConscious Thanks for your great channel. I appreciate your effort and dedication to sharing McCarthy's genius with the rest of the world. You bring light to TH-cam. Keep up the stellar work.
Yes.Even tho.these dark novels are about violence & evil,it is part of reality. Kem Nunn also with his Surf Noir books.
Yup
If I remember this correctly, Ted K. Foray into the wilderness isn’t what started directed his negative trajectory of his split - I believe his peace and tranquility was “destroyed” by a construction/logging(?) company. His first acts were to sabotage their equipment, I believe.
I don’t know if Blood Meridian healed me per se but it definitely helped me in other ways.
I re read it about once every 5 years and every time I do, I find something new.
For sure! Just reread it and it helped me gain perspective on how I view humans!
How has it helped you?
Great point in saying that some read to boost their ego and impress others. You can't discuss the book with them. They never felt it.
Exactly. Very sad when people bandwagon something that can actually help them lol.
Write Conscious, "you can be a reader but be a fuckhead". Brilliant lol
100%, after 8 years in academia I saw it countless times
Thanks again for the McCarthy content. I have a copy of Animals in the Fiction of Cormac McCarthy and I really like it.
🖤
I will look for that...very interesting!
There are many "solutions". Your channel points to good writing as one. Good job!
Thanks brotha!
I write my own personal stories .. all are dark .. not because I’m not dark.. I just find lose and tragedy to be so powerful
I think part of the problem is the lazy use of the term "nihilism" without truly understanding what Nietzsche meant. People only take the first half of his writing about it while ignoring the second. Yes, Nietzsche wrote that life had no inherent meaning, but he goes on to say that means that we, as humans, need to give it meaning of our own. That is a powerful statement and really undercuts the half-ass labeling of something dark as "nihilistic."
"Nietzsche wrote that life had no inherent meaning, but he goes on to say that means that we, as humans, need to give it meaning of our own". That's probably the greatest piece of philosophical insight ever written.
Religious people treat this life as PRACTICE hoping for a better version after they die. How pathetic is that?
Yes!!!
The “God is Dead” statement gets taken out of context way too often and it’s frankly annoying.
I think of "The Monk", as dark as it gets.... and so illuminating. Or "The Possessed" by dostoyevsky
I agree. The Possessed is a WILD novel
Thanks for this effort. Appreciated
No, thank you for reading and changing your interior world!
hey! great video my friend. i’m a big fan of McCarthy’s philosophy in his writing. do you know of any more video or interviews with cormac? i know of the krauss, the one at sfi, and the oprah appearance, but thats about it. thanks !
Hey Liam! Thanks for the support. There is another one with Krauss that's audio only with Werner Herzog in 2011 I think.
(Essay incoming)
There is a scene in the movie The Counselor (Mr. McCarthy wrote the script) where a character tries to describe why he is unable to help the protagonist (The Counselor). In that our choice create worlds that we enter, and that these worlds or perceptions, sometimes gives us new choices, but also not the chance to undo our first, and sometimes there are none new choices to begin with.
Imagine these worlds more like rooms and our choices are doors within these rooms. You enter a door that leads to a room with three doors. You chose the one closest to you and enter a room where it looks the same as the one before, but the walls are soaked in blood and smell like guts and human excrement. You turn around and the door you entered through is gone. There is not a trace of a door, just a red wall.
You run to the closest door and enter a room that looks exactly like the one before but the blood is gone. It looks like a normal room, except you just get the feeling that something is wrong, just off. But now, there is no door. Neither behind you, or in front of you. Now, there is no choice, only acceptance.
This is what I think Mr. McCarthys novels are about. That our choices leads to worlds and realities that we can sometimes never predict. Llewelyn Moss couldn't predict what was going to happen after he took the money or when he went back with the water. For Sheriff Bell, he is stuck in the room where there are no doors, a way to enter and understand the reality that he can't deal with. He can only accept.
But sometimes these worlds can be predicted. They might even be realities that are talked about. But never understood truly until YOU enter it.
"War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."
100%! Great essay and thoughts.
Billy and the Wolf = Dead Parents, brother, wolf, and sets up for Cities of the Plains
The Passenger = Bobby investigates plane and sets up the whole novel
Outer Dark = Abandons baby
The Orchard Keeper = Some guy gives a ride to another person
A great video. Where can I find the full of McCarthy interview?
Search Cormac McCarthy, Werner Herzog and Lawrence Krauss on Google!
From Child of God.
It came on bobbing and bearing in its perimeter a meniscus of pale brown froth, in which floated walnuts, twigs, a slender bottle, neck, erect, and tilting like a metronome .
I’ve always been drawn towards darker literature and repulsed by happy or positive literature. As I see it, it has more depth and significance. Right or wrong, happy or positive literature has less gravitas. McCathy does want to be seen as a lightweight.
I’m enjoying you discussions on McCarthy.
Feel the same way unless I'm on psychedelics or yogadelics.
Where this clip from? With McCarthy speaking.
2012 audio interview with Wernor Herzog. Google it and you'll find it. This is the only clip related to to literature though :(
Hey could you do a Cormac Mcarthy book tier list
Scheduled for 12/4!
@@WriteConscious what should I read of Cormac Mcarthy after no country for old men
I wish i could right horror suspense. But my work is only getting darker as i get older.
The darkest works don't need horror/suspense. Cormac in Blood Meridian only uses history and war
@@WriteConscious I'd love to write something this good lol
Great video mate
Thanks brotha! Been enjoying your channel too!
@@WriteConscious that’s great to hear!
I can only speak for myself-but I read dark literature to vicariously experience and contemplate things that will likely never happen to me. Subjecting myself to stories of profound suffering helps me appreciate my life and be more grateful for all of the luxuries I have.
For me, reading is active meditation.
Great comment Seth! Feel the same way.
It’s cathartic.
Spoiler alert for the Crossing.
Whoops 🤣
Stopped listening the second he said, “women were reading to get laid”
Stopped reading the second he said "women were reading to get laid"
Why did you use the image of the baphomet for the thumbnail to describe the darkness. The baphomet represents balance like the yin Yang symbol. Not just darkness.
Great video.
Thanks Cole!
Love this
Can you please describe how studying literature at University is a waste of time?
I am a lover of Cormac McCarthy's work, an author, and a podcaster. Would you like to come on my podcast Dream Chasers and Eccentrics and talk about McCarthy?
In full aggreement with you on this. Mini series is what this needs. Disappointing for sure.😞
😂
We read because we are storytelling creatures and we love a good story. Also, we like to travel and reading let's us travel in someone else's mind.
For sure! But, why do we like dark stories more rather than light ones??
I definitely don't think art is a way of healing trauma any more than yelling that your leg is broken will heal the leg. From what I've been able to gather, the art someone makes is what they are having the hardest time processing in their life. So if someone's making horror movies or shows like Ren and Stimpy with insane characters, those people have a lot of heavy unprocessed emotions (which is what trauma is) surrounding horror/insanity.
There are plenty of examples of plenty doing art vastly different from anything related to their trauma. I would say we are all traumatized and most artists don't continuously write about their trauma. Cormac does in his first four novels, and never really gets back to those themes. Did he heal, or did he just write about what he was most familiar with at the start?
@@WriteConscious hmm good point. Whats an example of that bychance?
People can certainly write or work on other stuff not related to what happened to them, but id be hard pressed to think artists don't always work on projects in some way relevant to the questions they're trying to figure out in their own lives.
Thank goodness I’ve already read the crossing because you rapid fired those spoilers without warning pretty much lol
Yeah, if you haven't read all his books you should get off TH-cam and come back when you're done lol.
@@WriteConscious I’ve read 7 of his books already so I would say to be a bigger fan than most. Should be able to enjoy content about my favorite authors without getting spoiled. Honestly shouldn’t expect people to 100% an author’s work before watching content of people talking about it. Most reviewers give spoiler tags or warnings regardless for future reference btw. Do you think everyone who watches Stephen king content to have read all of his work?
This is the new world! BookTube is dead! I've moved beyond TBR and Bookshelf tours!
@@WriteConscious so that justifies spoiling stories? This reply honestly makes no sense honestly. On any entertainment medium that involves stories it’s wrong to assume the audience has 100% the thing before they allowed to enjoy content about it. Again people should be able to enjoy content about these things without being spoiled on every detail without warning. Most people (not just booktube) understands that common curiosity but enjoy taking pride in being an exemption and a prideful ass
@@WriteConscious and this wasn’t even a book review of any kind. Thought it would be interesting to see a video on an author I’m reading but silly me to assume I was allowed to enjoy content related to it. Again there’s no justification in spoiling his stories without warning.
McCarthy is American, isn't that enough?
Lol! "Because I'm an American" Jimmy Blevins
Thank you for this video. I shared it with a few friends. They were so excited.. Your channel should try using 'promosm'!!
Other than the ad, I knew this wasn't real because no one has friends who also read Cormac 😂