I love reading, and I dabble at writing. I recently spent some time re-reading a couple of books from one o f my favorite Authors, Cormac McCarthy. Reading is sort of a reach; I should say that I had them read to me. This was via book on tapes on my commute to and from work. I’m not really cheating in this; I have truly read both of these books, along with most of the other books McCarthy has written. When I find an author I like, I sort of stick with him. Audio books can be a delight, depending on the book and the reader. There are certain readers that can make a story come alive. I love these two books, and the vocal talents were top notch.
The two stories I am talking about here are ‘All the Pretty Horses’, and ‘No Country for Old Men’. Both novels are set along the West Texas border of the Rio Grande, and involve journeys across the border into Old Mexico. ‘No Country for Old Men’ starts off in Terrel County, ends in El Paso. The border crossing occurs very briefly at Piedra Negras in this story. ‘All the Pretty Horses’ starts off in San Angelo Texas, and travels down to Cuatro CiĆ©negas in Coahuila Mexico. Looking at a map, it would appear that this border crossing could have been in the same general vicinity as in ‘No Country for Old Men’. Yet, in ‘All the Pretty Horses’ the border crossing is quite important to the story itself. In fact, ‘All the Pretty Horses’ is the first book in McCarthy’s border trilogy.
There are many similarities like this between the two stories. Almost to the point where I start to wonder, could the author have a lazy streak? Did he come across some vivid imagery and prose that he felt was so good that they had to be reused?
There are many examples of this in the two books. One very simple one is a simple one line phrase. In ‘No Country for Old Men’, as Llewelyn Moss returns home from hunting carrying a nickel plated handgun, his young wife asks him where he got the gun. ‘The gettin place’, he answers. This exact line is used in ‘All the Pretty Horses’. It is a good line, and it works in the West Texas syntax applied to both books.
Another example is that both stories use the imagery of a coin flip to describe aspects of fate important to the story line. In ‘All the Pretty Horses’, the image is used to describe how fate is sealed when the die of the coin is cast, and all coin flips that happen after that moment are sealed in fate. In ‘No Country for Old Men’, the evil protagonist Anton Chigurh allows two of his potential murder victims a coin flip to decide their fate.
So, laziness, or obsession with images? I’m not sure, really. My primary reason is that I truly enjoy McCarthy’s stories and his writing style. I also think it’s possible that by using these common themes and images, he may be tying his stories together.
Both stories have vivid images of Comanche’s out of the history of West Texas. In ‘No Country for Old Men’, the narrator remarks on Llewelyn Moss, the hero/villain of the story coming across petroglyphs from some similar ancient hunters of the past. In this story, Llewelyn Moss begins the story as the hunter and quickly becomes the hunted.
In ‘All The Pretty Horses’, John Grady Cole, the hero, while riding the trails on the historic family ranch about to be sold, follows a trail once used by Comanche’s travelling up from Mexico at a time when the Comanche owned the West Texas llano. In a way, John Grady Cole rides these same trails throughout the book as he searches for a life no longer possible.
So to me, rather than attributing these reused images and phrases to laziness or obsession, I think perhaps the author might be tying together these stories in a historic perspective. The violence that occurred in the setting of ‘All the Pretty Horses’, set in 1949, to the border violence and drug wars of ‘No Country for Old Men’, set in 1980…has occurred many times before in this same barren, desolate, yet beautiful border land. And perhaps, it will happen again….witness McCormack’s newer book, ‘The Road’.
As for me, I just enjoy a good story.
Cheers
nca
Wow dad. These sound like good books. You should really consider being an English teacher though...your comments would have made an excellent paper. Maybe your just making up for all the goof-off days of high school :)
ReplyDeleteWhat's really funny though, is now that I am not in school, I thirst for knowledge more than I ever used to. I miss learning. I have been reading books like crazy, and I never used to read unless I had to.
Yeah, Julie...I have sometimes thought I'd want to be a writer or a teacher. But I'm always happy to read a well written book.
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