Cormac McCathy and Blood Meridian

I recently finished reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I had read The Road previously, a book that intrigued me even if it didn't entirely convince me. I decided that the restraint of the language, its desolate quality, the way that nothing in the book ever quite peaked, was all part of what the book was trying to do: depict a world lacking. And anyways, I'm a sucker for apocalyptic fantasies and it was really just a slow, drawn-out thriller so it made for good summer reading outside in the sun. In the interim between then and now, I saw No Country for Old Men, which was an excellently made, drawn-out thriller that hinged on its own spareness and ultimately, insufficiency. So I was beginning to see a theme.

I had developed the conception of McCarthy as a masculine writer based both on my experience with him and his tendency to be a preferred author of several of my male friends. Reasons why I think this is valid (and I grant that these are based on largely traditional conceptions of masculinity, but so be it): he is violent; strong; hard and spare; individualistic, and quite romantic in his own way. It's a cowboy's, hero's romance, and though some would call it subversive, I don't think it is; a failed hero is all the more romantic for the failure. Another obvious point is that his books are about men. That is not unique in itself, except that they are almost exclusively about men without being obviously misogynist, which is no small achievement. (Or they are only as misogynist as they are generally misanthropic.)

Upon beginning Blood Meridian, I found it to be similar to The Road, if more violent. It starts off with a similar desolation, but then blossoms into a kind of pure literary beauty. He is indisputably an excellent writer, one with a full grasp of his technical abilities; but in spite of this, I could not wait for the book to end. Why? I have no objection to good writing. I like good writing. I think it is sometimes worth reading things only because they were written well. But come on, give me just one sentence without a freaking simile. Just one without decadent imagery, just one where the language doesn't buckle under the ripeness of its fruit. A typical passage: "They rode like men invested with a purpose whose origins were antecedent to them, like blood legatees of an order both imperative and remote. For although each man among them was discrete unto himself, conjoined they made a thing that had not been before and in that communal soul were wastes hardly reckonable more than those white regions on old maps where monsters do live and where there is nothing other of the known world save conjectural winds (182)." Gorgeous. Drop dead, utterly beautiful, a knockout of a passage. But I couldn't stand it at the end, the obsessive beauty that was so overwhelmingly present I had difficulty seeing it as beautiful. Was this the point? I don't know, I can't tell as it stands. It certainly would correlate to the way that The Road operates structurally as well as narratively, but as a strategy I just can't get behind it. As the novel blooms from aridity into lushness, I am stunned, then overwhelmed into indifference. With some writing, I pause and reflect on the excellence of the author, then continue reading. With Blood Meridian, all I thought about was the author. Perhaps I approached it too academically, but I found myself wishing that McCarthy would stop being a Good Writer long enough to write.

But then there's this: "You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow." So I'm a little torn.

Bartok

Bartok sounds like coffee tastes.

Julie & Julia

This past weekend I saw Julie and Julia with my family, and aside from the movie itself (it's light, cheerful, and maybe just a little—albeit in a truly wholesome way—subversive), the most indelible impression left is, unsurprisingly, Meryl Streep. She is an unquestionably superb actress, capable of incarnating a pop-cultural deity in a way that supremely announces her presence as a performer by vanishing, deft and quick, into the icon herself, but even more than that, she is a professional. This notion is perhaps one of the few modern myths that I buy into almost wholeheartedly. The idea of the pro: someone who performs their function quietly and efficiently, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of success; one of the most enduring and realistic cultural legacies of a capitalistic society, and one that I cannot help but aspire to. What is the seductiveness in this notion of the professional, of someone who is not just good at what they do but good at being good? It combines an ability that is just crucially short of being unearthly with a sense of direction and duty that is forever grounded in the task at hand. It is perhaps the focus that makes the difference, the unrelenting drive to succeed. But that only accounts for part of the equation, and moreover, is too romantic a notion by far. The lack of romanticism is part of the professional's defining characteristic, and in its place a kind of clear-sightedness that leads to the endlessly practical. A professional is never a dreamer, never a cynic, but instead a pragmatic idealist: a realist with a firm belief in the unending power of ability. Perhaps the declaration of the professional as capitalistic was overly hasty, as a Marxian work ethic does not seem entirely incompatible. But in feeling, a pro is entirely too individualistic, and too far at odds with any sort of immediate collectivism.

The professional is attainably heroic, and only as capable as he has the power to be. A significant part of it is the sense of traditionalism, seen in the individual's utter dedication to the mastery of a craft. In the traditionalism is seen the existence within a community of professionals, though those of the past and future can suffice. Is the professional an anti-revolutionary figure? Perhaps, as they are almost necessarily dogmatic. Innovation is inevitably inefficient; inventors are always amateurs. Whether actress or soldier or banker, somebody who does what they do well, and for no other sake than to do it. The professional is a kind of livable crucible, a negotiation between extremes that does not compromise but draws strength from the tension instead. Part of it is that they must remain in motion, and dedicated to the task: a professional without a profession is nothing at all. I think the professional is perhaps a paragon of immanent idealism, if such a thing exists: a materialism (they must be craftsmen, not philosophers) that gives rise to a religion, one that exists in tandem with but independent of its origins. To be good, to be great at what you do; to have something to be great at, and know it.