Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, while not the most enjoyable reading experience of my life, was not unenjoyable in the least. I love McCarthy’s word choice. I love his prose. I love his twist on a phrase, and his use of one word over another for meaning a certain idea, or invoking a certain feeling. He is a modern author who will last into future generations.
For some reason, I thought he was an academic. He isn’t. Perhaps I thought this due to his membership in a science consortium known as the Santa Fe Institute. I must have just assumed he was an academic. The Santa Fe Institute is a scientific think tank. It is strange that they would have a novelist like Cormac McCarthy as a fellow. They admit as much by claiming that they are not your average scientific think tank.
McCarthy has devoted himself to the craft of writing. He spends all of his time writing. He has been married at least twice over his life, and maybe three times. I can’t remember precisely how many times he has been married. I also can’t remember if he decided he wanted to be an author immediately before, or immediately after his first marriage.
McCarthy dropped out of college twice. He married his first wife. They were very poor and lived in a ramshackle cabin in East Tennessee. In their first year of marriage, he asked his wife if she wouldn’t mind getting a day job to support them while he would quit his job and write full time. This was before he had ever published anything.
That took some guts. It also took some bizarre single-mindedness.
Stunned by his request, she packed up and left him the next day. That wasn’t what she signed up for. On one hand, it’s hard to blame her. A woman wants security, she wants to be taken care of. She wants a man who can get ‘er done in career and home life. McCarthy knew if he wanted to succeed at writing—and it appears he believes his sole purpose in life is to write—then he needed to devote himself to the craft.
In his interview with Oprah, he admitted that he subjected his family to poverty and hardship for the sake of his writing career.
And he is excellent at his craft.
Excellent.
As I said, he will go down as a true modern classic, and my grandchildren or great-grandchildren will be reading his books as examples of American literature.
Choose how you want them all to remember you, and be sure it’s the right choice.
This morning, I was watching a short interview with Jordan Peterson, and he said when you’re young and impulsive, you have to take “old you” into consideration because you’re going to get old one day. You don’t want the decisions you make as a young person to turn the life of “old you” into a catastrophe.
Respecting your elders can even mean respecting the elder you will one day become. This is fascinating to consider. I return to the Ten Commandments again and again. Honoring your father and mother has always been understood to mean, “respect (and honor) those who are older than you,” and one day, “current you” is going to be “old you.” You should have the consideration and courtesy to care for that old person like any other old person. If you don’t respect yourself—even your old self—why should you expect anyone else to respect you?
McCarthy is an excellent writer. But at what cost?
Also this morning, I watched a video of a young man, living in Paris, who practiced the daily routine of Picasso for two weeks.
Picasso worked every day practicing his craft for hours each day. He would go to bed at 3 AM, he would awake at 11, visit with friends till 3 PM, work into the evening, eat supper at 10 PM, get back to work at 11 PM, repeat. His unwavering routine was kept at the sacrifice of all of his relationships. He even admitted as much. One of his lovers wrote a book about life with Picasso. He told her that art was more important than anything in his life. He would gladly sacrifice any person for the sake of producing his art, including her, including his own self.
He said, when he would enter the studio, he would leave himself at the door like a Muslim leaves his shoes outside the Mosque.
That is a bizarre single-mindedness.
Picasso is certainly remembered, fondly for his contribution to humanity, through his art.
God, obviously has a greater purpose for all of us. We are all going to contribute to this earth and the existence of humanity in some fashion, either big or small.
If McCarthy and Picasso had been celibate monks who devoted themselves to their craft, then there wouldn’t be the wake of destroyed personal relationships behind them, and they would have been remembered only for their positive contribution to humanity.
Then again, maybe not. Maybe the angst created by sacrificing others’ lives for the sake of our craft makes the craft that much more resilient.
Explaining his philosophy, McCarthy said:
There’s no such thing as life without bloodshed. The notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.
Metaphorically, sacrifice and bloodshed bring life.
Is the art of McCarthy and Picasso and those of their caliber full of life because of the bloodshed of the relationship sacrifices they made?
Choose how you want them all to remember you, and be sure it’s the right choice.
