Cormac_McCarthy

In Rhode Island, on July 20, 1933, Cormac McCarthy was born. As the third of six children, he was named Charles after his father. He later changed his name to Cormac, after the Irish king of his ancestors. At the age of four, McCarthy moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. Cormac McCarthy was raised Roman Catholic and attended the University of Tennessee for college where he graduated with a major in the liberal arts. He then joined the Air Force in 1953 and served four years. For two of those years, he was stationed in Alaska where he hosted his own radio show.

In the years 1957-1959, McCarthy returned to his college university and published two stories. For his creative writing, he earned himself the Ingram-Merrill award. This was the first award of many. McCarthy received a traveling fellowship and other recognition awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He used the money won to travel to the home of his ancestors, Ireland. While there, McCarthy met his wife, an English woman named Anne CeLisle. Once married, the two proceeded to travel to England, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain before settling in the artist’s colony of Ibzia.

In 1967, they made their return to America. Eleven years later, Cormac and his wife separated and eventually divorced. They had no children together. McCarthy then moved to El Paso, Texas. He now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his third wife, Jennifer, and their eight-year-old, to whom he dedicated his novel, __The Road__ to. [[]].

Cormac McCarthy, a brilliant author, wrote many novels, including __The Road__. After appearing in his third interview in seventy years, which was also his first appearance on television [[]], Oprah Winfrey was the one to discover how the idea for __The Road__ came about. About six years ago, in 2002-2003, McCarthy took his son on a small trip to El Paso, Texas. While standing in the hotel room, he looked out over El Paso and imagined what it would look like in fifty to one hundred years. He said, “I just had this image of these fires up on the hill… and I thought a lot about my little boy.” He then wrote down some thoughts in a notebook and apparently didn’t really think about it for quite some time. While visiting Ireland again just a few years later, he came across his notes and the novel “just came to him”, he said.

Oprah was facinated about his life and the stories he told about it. She was particularly intrigued by the time in his life where he was once tossed out of a forty dollar-a-month hotel because he could not afford to pay the bill. He then told a story of living in a “shack in Tennessee” where he had so little money that he could not afford to buy toothpaste. He ran out, only to discover a free sample of toothpaste in his mailbox. [[]]. I think McCarthy’s Catholic faith and his experiences through life have bled a little into his writing.

__The Road__ is about an America where there is nothing but ashes. When it rains, it rains ashes. When it snows, it snows ashes. There are ashes in the creeks and ponds and rivers causing them to be black. Even the ocean is black. America was completely destroyed, and how that happened is never told. All you know is that there are the “good guys” and there are the “bad guys”. You don’t want to meet the bad guys.They will eat you. This is a story about survival, and a father’s love for his son. This is a story about perseverance and finding a reason to live when it seems as if there is nothing to live for.

I read an interview that said to its readers, “Even in this bitter world, a few noble things remain: a shred of conscience, a willingness for self-sacrifice, the pull of blood ties, and a struggle for survival. They are intangibles, of course; nothing you can take to the bank or way for supper. But McCarthy- and this is a great achievement here- shows how fiercely we hold on to our personal metaphysics even after we have left everything else behind. Not many novels force us to confront such matters- certainly not the in the raw and bleeding manner that Cormac McCarthy does. For that reason, I suspect that this book will continue to mesmerize readers long after more compact tales of apocalypse, with their neat political commentaries and helpful hints for legislatures, have fallen out of favor.” [[]]

This is America today:

We are a functioning city. We are abundant in technology and leisure. We have conveniences at our left and at our right. Today, we don't have to deliver messages by horseback to the next town, or by ship to another country where it might take months, even years to get a reply. We don't even have to send letters in the mail, really. All we have to do is get on the internet and e-mail, myspace, or facebook it to the person we need to talk to. If you feel like talking to someone, you don't have to plan a meeting, all you have to do is call. We have communications galore, and we don't even think about it. As if that wasn't enough, we can preserve food in our freezers for months. We can cook an entire meal in the oven in under an hour, or in the microwave in even less time. If we are hungry, and not at home, we can stop by a resturant. If we're short on time and money, we can stop by a fast-food restaurant to accommodate that. If we are even shorter on both time and money, we have vending machines. All we need is at our finger tips. Survival here is a joke. Even the homeless have places to eat and shelter, even if it is not as filling or comfortable as it is for the more fortunate.

Now take all of that away in a split second. America is up in flames and everything is burning down. No more shops, restaurants, or offices. There is one business that runs this America, and it is called theft. The things you have managed to save will only last so long. Your phones? They will die. Your cars? They will run out of fuel and decompose. Your clothing? You will outgrow it, and it will become thin. Your medicines? They will expire. Your food? Most of it will rot. The water will become poisoned, because there are no longer any purifiers to filter out all the contaminants we put into it every day. Your only source of heat is the sun and your own body, but how long will that last you on a cold winter's night? The sun is gone and your body is surrounded by ice.

You might be thinking that people will help you. Those people might nod their head in agreement, now, but wait till they're desperate. Wait till they believe they have nothing to live for; nothing to loose. Greed will control their lives, unless their character is stronger than that. Henry David Thoreau once said, "What is called resignation is confirmed desperation." [[]] And who is to disagree? Only those who have never been desperate. Desperation is what will lead us astray in this world, if not guarded by sense; but there are few who have sense in the nonsensical world of an America reduced to ashes.

In __The Road__, a father and his son have been traveling South in hopes of survival. They can look to no one but themselves and abandoned houses for help. All they have for protection is a pistol with two shots left in it and a plastic tarpaulin to cover themselves from the rain at night. Sometimes they light fires, but not always. They cannot afford to be spotted. Picture this: the man and his son stop on a hill to rest. Looking down, they see three dark figures. Hiding now in the camouflage of the untamed nature, they see that the figures are two men and one man or woman who is having trouble walking. Eventually, they realize that the third member of the party is a pregnant woman. They stay hidden to watch the group.

In the morning, the father is spotted by one of the members, and they flee upon seeing his gun. The father and son wait a while, and see the smoke fade out from their campsite. They enter in hopes of finding anything of use. McCarthy then writes, "...He was standing there checking the perimeter when the boy buried his face against him. He looked quickly to see what had happened. What is is? he said. What is it? The boy shook his head. Oh Papa, he said. He turned and looked again. What the boy had seen was a charred human infant, headless and gutted and blackening on the spit. He bent and picked the boy up, starting for the road with him, holding him close. I'm sorry, he said. I'm sorry." [__The Road__, p. 198, last paragraph] This illustrates a world infected with the grimy, foul, sleazy bile of contemptibly, infection, and sadly also reveals the flaws of human nature; what we will do in times of desperation. The picture of our core: a mother eating her own child for self gain.

But take one last look at this world. The world is dead. The world is full of cannibals and sickness. The world is darkness. Let's peer, once again, at the change of the world we live in now to this world. The transformation. The transition. Let us look and comprehend. "They were signs in gypsy language, lost patternas. The first he'd seen in some while, common in the north, leading out of the looted and exhausted cities, hopeless messages to loved ones lost and dead. By then all the stores of food had given out and murder was everywhere upon the land. The world soon to be largely populated by men who would eat your children in front of your eyes and the cities themselves held by cores of blackened looters who tunneled among the ruins and crawled from the rubble white of tooth and eye carrying charred and anonymous tins of food in nylon nets like shoppers in the commissaries of hell... Out on the roads the pilgrims sank down and fell over and died and the bleak and shrouded earth went trundling past the sun and returned again as trackless and as unremarked as the path of any nameless sister world in the ancient dark beyond." [__The Road__, p. 180-181]

What would keep you alive in this world? What would even give you the desire? Pleasure? No, there is none. Gain? No, there is nothing to gain. Knowledge? No, it is better to be ignorant here. There is nothing for yourself that would give you life. Only the sacrifice for another person. Only the father's love for his son kept them alive. Only the small glow of love gave enough light to see in the darkness. Where light is present, darkness has no choice but to flee. In this world, you have to do all you can to create that light; to keep that light alive.

In our world, the one we live in now, the world of technology and leisure and success and growth, there is still darkness. __The Road__, this post-apocalyptic novel about human war, is a picture of our possible future. No, it may not illustrate in exact detail. It may not be a portrait, but it is an example of a possibility. Our world, while it has all the good things I've mentioned, also is filled with war, disease, greed, insecurity, filth, questions, theft, hurt, and both deliberate and sub-conscious destruction. Thankfully, we still have room and time for change. Take a page from this book and run with it. Create that light and change things. Make that darkness go. It's simple, really.

Don't let desperation become your face or cloud your vision. Let incentive, better judgment, and selflessness as a result of the big picture guide your steps. Then, only then, can the world change; one person at a time.