Recommendations by Rob Ross

As an undergraduate Creative Writing major, I fell in love with Faulkner. Learning about my love affair, a fellow student told me about a guy named Cormac McCarthy who, he claimed, had picked up where Faulkner left off. Incredulous, I asked my advisor if I ought to read McCarthy. After pausing for what seemed like an eternity, he told me: “Not yet.” 23 years later I decided that I had waited long enough. Stylistically, Blood Meridian bludgeons the reader with an Old Testament, matter-of-fact violence that purports to reveal the world as it is. Indeed, the novel is a litmus test to readers: those who believe that humanity is fundamentally good will dislike this book on grounds that it is gratuitous and fantastical, while those who believe that humanity is fundamentally self-interested will nod and think, sadly, “I guess that’s about right.” McCarthy tells far more than he shows, but with subject matter this horrific, the narrative distance is a welcome attenuation. As for the “gratuitous” violence, can it be called gratuitous when its purpose is to depict the misery and horrors associated with indigenous displacement in the years following the Mexican-American War? It's clear now that my advisor warned me off McCarthy because I was 21 years old and as impressionable as a sponge. He was wise enough to know that, had I read him then, I would have fallen under his spell and written insufferably derivative pieces for years in an attempt to pick up where McCarthy left off. With age comes wisdom. I now understand that no one will pick up where McCarthy left off. Which is a relief to all aspiring writers, I think, for it means we need only read him and weep.