Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
McCarthy’s syntax is what stood out for me, because although he is narrating a ‘predawn dark’ and ‘sinister’ ‘world’, he does so effortlessly, like breathing. Each sentence varies in length to give a flare to his writing: ‘see the child’ is a fantastic opening, three words that can open so many doors to so many possibilities, without the need of anything complex. The excerpt is written to seem like a long list of description rather than a narrative piece of prose, which brings to it a unique bluntness that escalates the empathy we feel for this ‘thin’ ‘child’. The strong emotive language he uses, ‘oddly innocent’ with a ‘shadowed agony’, helps to create the idea of a ‘bleeding’ ‘mankind’; one that this young boy has had to cope with over ‘fourteen years’ (‘night of your birth’, ‘a year later’, ‘forty two days’) – time also helps to paint this ‘predawn dark’.
As always, simplicity can be the key and McCarthy demonstrates a mixture of it and the above devices to create a special style of storytelling.
The End
There is nothing left. Just a shell. Just an empty phlegmatic shell. I look into his eyes and they are frozen; caught up in the bloody blaze of 1971. He sits there, all day. So long has he been staring that his eyes are now grey like the panes of my windows. My father was once a brave man. Now he is a lost one. He does not breathe. He does not move. He does not eat. Just sits. Sits like he sat in the throne aboard the flying castle. His beautiful flying castle. Twenty years was not enough to shake away the shock. I still bathe him. I still change him. Still I can not wake him up from his around the clock nightmare. When he sleeps, his eyes will dart from left to right in a constant jive. He is avoiding the incoming fire in his dreams. He will die soon, in his head. The end will come when he gets shot.
I have tried. Tried to speak to him, talk into the ears that are muffled with gunfire, tried to revive the previous sense that he's misplaced, tried to feed him, help him, wake him up and find my brilliant father in that hollow emptiness. Nothing. Now he is just a body, an old body. He is trapped in Vietnam, unable to reopen the portal.
I found him last night. Shaking uncontrollably.
I’m in the hospital now. Shaking uncontrollably.
The doctor is nice. He says that he will help him. I do not believe that he can. My clothes are two days old. My hair is greasy and unwashed. My mind is with my father who can not stop shaking his right arm. He is still empty. Like the inside of a termite infested tree trunk. The doctor has given him drugs to make him sleep. He will wake up screaming for his General.
I am almost his shade of sugar white. I dare not close my eyes in case my father trips over death’s foot and is not able to get up again. I dare not imagine what my mother would say, her black onyx hair on fire like orange topaz.
I dare not imagine what will happen to my father when he finally falls out of his flying castle.
There is some lovely, thoughtful prose here. So many of these restrained sentences carry so much impact: ‘He will die soon, in his head’ particularly stands out, for me. There is some fantastic imagery, too: ‘like the inside of a termite infested tree trunk’ and ‘his shade of sugar white’ are wonderful (I like the linking of sweet ‘sugar’ to sickness; a great, effective contrast, that makes the image vivid and the reader think). The terse, underwritten writing strongly mirrors the narrator’s feelings. The coupling of form and content is fantastic, so well done.
ReplyDeleteHowever, your writing occasionally lacks control. ‘Black onyx hair’ and ‘orange topaz’ aren’t quite tautologies, but they’re close. In all forms of writing I’d keep in mind the ideas of not using two words where one will do, and of not using unnecessary words. You should abide by these ideas even more in a work of near-minimalism like this. With these ideas in mind, something like ‘my hair is greasy and unwashed’ could be edited down.
The use of a repeated structure such as ‘He does not move. He does not…’ can be effective, but not when this device is used several times in the same extract. As you also have the ‘I still… I still…’ and ‘tried…’-based patterns, your syntax goes from rhythmic to overly repetitive. Like McCarthy, perhaps you should vary your sentence structure more.
I like the magical idea of the ‘flying castle’, but I think it should be developed more. What is this flying castle? Why does the narrator imagine the father’s private world as being a flying castle? What is the motif’s connection to/basis in “real life”, or memory, or personal history? It’s an interesting symbol, but should be glossed further.
Another promising extract, however. I’m genuinely annoyed I won’t have your prose to look forwards to from now on!
Hey,
ReplyDeleteThat's a amazing piece eternity_forever. I can see from your analysis that you've grapsed what McCarthy does brilliantly, and you've used it to good effect.
You are very good at restrained writing, and at building rythms using clipped sentences. There is a subtle sadness to all of this that you represent in the way it deserves - you do not convey emotions with a narrator that sounds like an archaic character on a stage; everything feels real, subdued, and charged with a quiet tragedy.
Any comments I make can only be picky, espececially after Sarah has convered the almost-tautologies.
Look at this sentence:
He is avoiding the incoming fire in his dreams.
It's a great image, but we already know he's asleep, you can cut it back, make it even shorter, and it'll have more impact. So just: 'he's avoiding the incoming fire.'
Another point is that I liked your desciption so much I wanted to see your style extended into dialogue. That's not a complaint - because it's all good without speach - but giving characters' voices can sometimes make things even faster and show us the actions in a more effecting way than telling.
Any other comments are purely praise. These nuggets are awesome:
Like the inside of a termite infested tree trunk.
I am almost his shade of sugar white.
trips over death’s foot
I really look forward to whatever you write next. If you get the chance to write prose over this summer try out this style a little more - it suits your writing. If you use dialogue, experiment with not using indicators, so instead of:
'I was dreaming,' he said.
I was dreaming, he said.
He said: I was dreaming.
It makes typing faster, it tests your skills at making speech distinguishable from description, and it suits peices that use short, building sentences.
Ok - hope you write lots in your own time this summer. Take care, and well done,
Andy