This is the second novel I've read by McCarthy, the other being the much-later written
The Road. While it might be a good idea to set up this review with a quick evaluation of
The Road, I think I'll probably do a review of that in time, so you'll have to just go and read it yourself!
I have a confession to make: I am not a prolific reader. Often, especially when tired, I will read a single line over and over, soaking up any potential meaning. It means that generally speaking my reading habit isn't escapist - I look to gain something from the work, be it emotional, intellectual or spiritual (moralistic rather than religious, I'm no kook). In turn this leads to me reading authors at a one book max, to try and get as much scope as possible. As a writer, this probably makes me quite hypocritical - my hope that people will read all my books at odds with the fact I've only read Dickens'
Great Expectations or Steinbeck's
Of Mice and Men (
Grapes of Wrath is still on the bookshelf, silently judging me...) or Kafka's
The Trial. So, having a go at a second McCarthy book represents a divergence from my usual habits.
So...is it any good?
Having considered it for a couple of weeks, it's very apparent how different it is as a writing example compared to
The Road. It flits in and out of simple prose, almost Hemingway-esque, to purple, poetic lines which hint at some ethereal element at work. And then there's stranger moments when the reader is addressed directly, almost casually, as though you're sat sipping a cold beer swapping stories on a Tennessee porch with an old timer. Stylistically, there's a feeling that McCarthy has the literary equivalent of ADHD - flitting in and out of whatever takes his fancy at the moment. It makes the novel exhilarating to read at times, but it also fragments the overall message - instead of the unified bombast found in the singular McCarthy of
The Road, in
Child of God we get to see the input of the many McCarthys. Having only read these two books, with their 32-year gap, makes it seem as though McCarthy is using the earlier novel to "pull" himself together as a writer.
Beyond style, the plot is...well...a little odd. It captures that Southern State intrigue as it rolls through the foothills, people living a hard life with no imagination to go beyond the parameters of an existence seemingly set in the history of the land. But then there's murder (mostly grisly), masturbation (disturbing) and necrophilia (both comments apply here). I found it intriguing to read the review from the New York Times of 1974, where the reviewer makes clear his lack of empathy for the central character, Lester Ballard (and instigator of all the above nastiness), and its paralysing impact on the novel in terms of its tragedy. I have to disagree, and not because I believe Ballard's life is tragic. It's just that it doesn't feel like McCarthy intends for it to be tragic. There's an apathy to his writing, along with a neutrality, that seems to hold Ballard up as a showcase of human extremity: "Look, this is what we're capable of."
This is where I feel the lead problem with the novel lies.
There's a fine line between highlighting the worst in humanity because you want to open people's eyes to some untapped moral imperative, and doing it because it interests you as a writer. An amoral story with no end moral, well, what to do? I get the idea of zero-sum. Zero-sum makes actual the pointlessness of certain societal scenarios - the technique of brinkmanship in politics and war, for example - by evoking the complex strands of reality in a symbolic story. Anyone who watches
The Departed can see the parallels with life - in particular terrorism and Western foreign policy - even though Scorsese's film greatly simplifies the situation to the level of implied sentiment. He captures the essence of current feeling within society, which is that no-one gains anything from the current scenario - i.e. zero-sum.
Child of God is not zero-sum.
It isn't, because a key element of zero-sum is that there are elements that cancel each other out: 1 - 1 = 0. McCarthy's book misses that critical 1. It lacks a heart - not the schmaltzy, gooey kind, but simply an emotional tie that gives the equation its content. The trouble isn't that we have no empathy for Ballard or the other characters; it's that beyond McCarthy's experiments in style, character and plot - basically pushing back his own boundaries - we are left with an empty equation: 0 - 0 = 0. I've read many student's work with the same problem: full of interesting ideas, engaging characters, great moral questions, gripping plot, exciting style. And yet, with nothing gained, when something is lost within the work, we do not feel that loss as keenly as we should. It's like reading a story of some crime - not the headline stories, but the page seven 'filler' ones. Those are people's lives, too; their position in the paper doesn't change this. But the lack of flavour, the lack of detail - that's key at engaging us on a level beyond passing interest. And that last phrase - "passing interest" - quite neatly sums up the effect of
Child of God. I'm not sure McCarthy was aiming much higher than that, as his concern with the novel seemed to be an internal one. If you want a quick read that's a bit of a challenge, and examines the minutiae of a very distinct US region while tackling notions of society and morality, give
Child of God a look.
