Once, when the internet was young, I found out somehow about a web site whose purpose, I think, was simply to collect horrible images - photographs - and display them like curios for anyone who wanted to peer in. It triggered my curiosity. I went to the web site and looked at a couple of frames. The details aren't important, and the whole experience lasted maybe 15 seconds. Two of the images were so horrifying that I will never forget them. I never again conducted such a reckless experiment. The details aren't important. What matters is that those images infected me. They are pasted in my imagination as indelibly as a tattoo. Decades later I can still see them clearly. I wish I hadn't. There are things you can't unsee.
Years later I picked up The Road, the only book of McCarthy's I have read. I feel the same way about The Road as I do about that website. It's not what happened in the story that really got to me, though what happened was memorably disturbing; it was the depth of the despair. The skies, the forests, the campfire, the sailboat on the shore: all now part of my internal landscape. I wish I hadn't read that book, and I occasionally find myself in conversations in which I warn people away from it. It has occurred to me in the years since that it is literally the only book I've ever read that I wish I hadn't. There are some things you can't unread.
I appreciate your commentary on McCarthy's work. It's useful to know that there is some kind of return route from the deep cave into which McCarthy leads his readers. Maybe I will revisit just the last chapter, and look again. Even if I don't, there is something in knowing that there are other people who have visited that place and not returned empty handed.
I remember those early days of the internet too, Chris, and I think the comparison you make is an apt one. While those mentally-scarring encounters aren't necessarily fun, I do think they're important for developing a healthy sense of morality later in life. And like McCarthy (and I think also Jerry Seinfeld?) says, You remember the things you wish you could forget, and forget the things you wish you could remember.
Do you think of McCarthy's moral lessons as warnings ("This is where the present path leads. Turn back, oh man!") or examples ("Here is how to be decent should you find yourself passing through hell")?
Good question. I’ve never thought of his writing as either of those things. To me it reads more like a chronicle of our innermost workings by a tired and somewhat disappointed but still mostly impartial observer.
This is a wonderful piece, Jayson! Very nice work (and great idea for a series on McCarthy).
The Road was my first McCarthy novel as well, and I’m grateful that it opened my eyes to his work.
Coincidentally, I started my Substack just days before his death, so my first post-launch piece was a tribute to that work in honour of his memory.
In particular, the paragraph where McCarthy uses the impossibly obscure term “salitter”--translating roughly to “essence of God”--is one of my favourites in all of prose. “The salitter drying from the earth”... the tonal resonance is perfection!
Thanks for reading, c.d. With a novel like The Road in particular, it's easy to get lost in the big-picture ideas on display, and not pay enough attention to the word-by-word choices McCarthy makes. With some of the obscure and arcane vocabulary he uses, it makes me wonder what he likes to read in his spare time, because in some cases, he's pulling out old words I've never encountered anywhere else. And yes, the rhythm of his prose is always spellbinding.
Once, when the internet was young, I found out somehow about a web site whose purpose, I think, was simply to collect horrible images - photographs - and display them like curios for anyone who wanted to peer in. It triggered my curiosity. I went to the web site and looked at a couple of frames. The details aren't important, and the whole experience lasted maybe 15 seconds. Two of the images were so horrifying that I will never forget them. I never again conducted such a reckless experiment. The details aren't important. What matters is that those images infected me. They are pasted in my imagination as indelibly as a tattoo. Decades later I can still see them clearly. I wish I hadn't. There are things you can't unsee.
Years later I picked up The Road, the only book of McCarthy's I have read. I feel the same way about The Road as I do about that website. It's not what happened in the story that really got to me, though what happened was memorably disturbing; it was the depth of the despair. The skies, the forests, the campfire, the sailboat on the shore: all now part of my internal landscape. I wish I hadn't read that book, and I occasionally find myself in conversations in which I warn people away from it. It has occurred to me in the years since that it is literally the only book I've ever read that I wish I hadn't. There are some things you can't unread.
I appreciate your commentary on McCarthy's work. It's useful to know that there is some kind of return route from the deep cave into which McCarthy leads his readers. Maybe I will revisit just the last chapter, and look again. Even if I don't, there is something in knowing that there are other people who have visited that place and not returned empty handed.
I remember those early days of the internet too, Chris, and I think the comparison you make is an apt one. While those mentally-scarring encounters aren't necessarily fun, I do think they're important for developing a healthy sense of morality later in life. And like McCarthy (and I think also Jerry Seinfeld?) says, You remember the things you wish you could forget, and forget the things you wish you could remember.
Do you think of McCarthy's moral lessons as warnings ("This is where the present path leads. Turn back, oh man!") or examples ("Here is how to be decent should you find yourself passing through hell")?
Good question. I’ve never thought of his writing as either of those things. To me it reads more like a chronicle of our innermost workings by a tired and somewhat disappointed but still mostly impartial observer.
This is a wonderful piece, Jayson! Very nice work (and great idea for a series on McCarthy).
The Road was my first McCarthy novel as well, and I’m grateful that it opened my eyes to his work.
Coincidentally, I started my Substack just days before his death, so my first post-launch piece was a tribute to that work in honour of his memory.
In particular, the paragraph where McCarthy uses the impossibly obscure term “salitter”--translating roughly to “essence of God”--is one of my favourites in all of prose. “The salitter drying from the earth”... the tonal resonance is perfection!
Thanks for reading, c.d. With a novel like The Road in particular, it's easy to get lost in the big-picture ideas on display, and not pay enough attention to the word-by-word choices McCarthy makes. With some of the obscure and arcane vocabulary he uses, it makes me wonder what he likes to read in his spare time, because in some cases, he's pulling out old words I've never encountered anywhere else. And yes, the rhythm of his prose is always spellbinding.
My wife and I had the same reaction to watching this movie: That we needed to give our only child a sibling, so they would not be alone when we died.