Review of Child of God by Cormac McCarthy
Title: Magical prose lifts up a broken child, much like you or I
Up front: I'm a big fan of Cormac McCarthy. I've been reading his novels over the years, sort of working backwards. This is his earliest work I've read yet. I knew the disturbing subject matter going in (killer necrophiliac running loose in the Southern countryside), but, still, I wasn't prepared for what McCarthy can do with prose in such a stomach-churning setting.
The story is simple: It's the mid-20th century in the mountainous Sevier County, Tennessee. Lester Ballard becomes dispossessed, left to wander the countryside. A man not quite right in the head. As the story goes on Lester becomes more and more...let's say "unhinged" in his dealings with people, particularly women and girls.
The writing is classic McCarthy. He makes you feel what you're reading. And this is a short novel, which makes its reading all the more difficult because it is so compressed. (I read it over two days.) The language is beautiful and uplifting; the story is grotesque and disquieting. What a dichotomy. The theme, to my reading, is because it just is that way (it's a common McCarthy theme). Some children for glory; some children for fire. Is Ballard a child of God? The same as other creatures inhabiting this world, yes. Even as McCarthy writes: "a child of God much like yourself perhaps." (That's a fresh take on the idiom "There but for the grace of God go I.") Perhaps. Likely not. Lester Ballard becomes a sick, twisted child, a fiend dwelling in caves and haunting the townsfolk. Who among us would stoop to this? Precious few, thank God. But there still is the theme: it could be you, but for the grace of God. Yes, there are moments throughout this novel of cruelty and barbarity and psychopathy/sociopathy; but there are also heart-rending moments of tender clarity--yes, I mean for Ballard. A broken vessel can cry to the heavens; McCarthy makes this monster human, all too human, like us, and that's the real horror.
For me, McCarthy is America's greatest living novelist, and this early work of his shows how he was developing his craft. You can see some elements here that he used in such later (and fuller and finer) works as No Country for Old Men and Blood Meridian. But this work stands alone as an eyepiece on one child turned loose to be sick and to sicken the world.
All my reviews are on my Amazon review page: http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/...
Up front: I'm a big fan of Cormac McCarthy. I've been reading his novels over the years, sort of working backwards. This is his earliest work I've read yet. I knew the disturbing subject matter going in (killer necrophiliac running loose in the Southern countryside), but, still, I wasn't prepared for what McCarthy can do with prose in such a stomach-churning setting.
The story is simple: It's the mid-20th century in the mountainous Sevier County, Tennessee. Lester Ballard becomes dispossessed, left to wander the countryside. A man not quite right in the head. As the story goes on Lester becomes more and more...let's say "unhinged" in his dealings with people, particularly women and girls.
The writing is classic McCarthy. He makes you feel what you're reading. And this is a short novel, which makes its reading all the more difficult because it is so compressed. (I read it over two days.) The language is beautiful and uplifting; the story is grotesque and disquieting. What a dichotomy. The theme, to my reading, is because it just is that way (it's a common McCarthy theme). Some children for glory; some children for fire. Is Ballard a child of God? The same as other creatures inhabiting this world, yes. Even as McCarthy writes: "a child of God much like yourself perhaps." (That's a fresh take on the idiom "There but for the grace of God go I.") Perhaps. Likely not. Lester Ballard becomes a sick, twisted child, a fiend dwelling in caves and haunting the townsfolk. Who among us would stoop to this? Precious few, thank God. But there still is the theme: it could be you, but for the grace of God. Yes, there are moments throughout this novel of cruelty and barbarity and psychopathy/sociopathy; but there are also heart-rending moments of tender clarity--yes, I mean for Ballard. A broken vessel can cry to the heavens; McCarthy makes this monster human, all too human, like us, and that's the real horror.
For me, McCarthy is America's greatest living novelist, and this early work of his shows how he was developing his craft. You can see some elements here that he used in such later (and fuller and finer) works as No Country for Old Men and Blood Meridian. But this work stands alone as an eyepiece on one child turned loose to be sick and to sicken the world.
All my reviews are on my Amazon review page: http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/...
No comments have been added yet.
