Fantastic interview with Cormac McCarthy. Too rich to excerpt, just go read the whole thing. I’ll just pull this bit out. He is asked what kind of response he has gotten to The Road from fathers:
I have the same letter from about six different people. One from Australia, one from Germany, one from England, but they all said the same thing. They said, “I started reading your book after dinner and I finished it 3:45 the next morning, and I got up and went upstairs and I got my kids up and I just sat there in the bed and held them.”
Fantastic! Thanks for putting that up. He’s shot pretty quickly to my short list of favorites…
Am becoming a fan of McCarthy. Thanks for the link.
“… If I were God, I wouldn’t have done it that way.”
If I had just a dollar for every time I’d felt, thought, or said that, I’d be today living comfortably in Ibiza with… well never mind the rest… you get the idea.
I’m really looking forward to his next one. I liked his comments on writing women, and how he didn’t feel ‘competent’ enough but that he was going to give it a shot.
I just love his mind.
Not a bad writer either. :)
AAAAAAAAAH!
He’s a cool guy. I love that he hangs out with scientists in Santa Fe. There’s just something that bugs me. Garrison Keillor, Larry King and David Letterman bug me in the same way. It’s these guys that have kids in their 50s and 60s and think they’ve spawned the child of God. Like having kids in their 20s or 30s was just TOO pedestrian because they were busy with important things like building their huge careers. But now they have a kid and act like it’s never been done before. For Christs’ sake – Garrison Keillor already had a kid but didn’t seem to notice – until he had one in his late fifties. He’s always talking about her – but never mentions the first kid. Anyway, it’s just a little thing of mine.
It makes sense to me that men who either put off having kids, due to the demands of their careers, or because – now that they’re old, they can slow down a bit and enjoy a personal life – would have a different perspective of youth, innocence, and their own child – than a man who is younger and has all the time in the world (or so he thinks). Living in the harsh brash world of personal ambition and striving can make one self-focused (and rightly so – if you want to have a career and be at the top of the heap – as these men are) – so I find McCarthy’s words about his son to be very moving. He has nothing he wants to do than spend time with his little boy – the man is in his 70s. He might not have felt that way if he were in his early 30s.
Also, if having a child helps the man write something as harrowing as The Road – something he NEVER would have written as a young man, and something he admits he never would have written without the presence of his son – then I say bring it on.
I’m a person who is a late-bloomer. I didn’t have the same trajectory that other people have – and so things that seem par for the course for my peers, who are in different life stages than me – are truly MIRACULOUS to me. Like: companionship? Having a partner? This is something that people (most people anyway) figure out earlier – 20s, 30s. That was not the case for me. I listen to my friends talk about husbands and vacations and everyday things like that and it is as though they are talking about the Emerald City. If I ever do settle down and find a life mate, my perspective will be very very different than someone who meets and marries in their 20s. Not saying BETTER, just different. And that will never change.
I guess I have an affinity for late-bloomers like myself, and totally understand why they would look at something as natural as having a kid as the most amazing miraculous thing they have ever heard of – because they are doing it 30, 40 years, after the other men in their age group.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I, having a child at a very young age and not having a clue, it does feel like you’re doing something no one has done before, but at the same time I was very aware this is obviously not the case, and other people are not living in baby land too.. But what bugs me, and maybe it’s because I live in NYC, but parents here who are on “display” with their children and we’re all suppose to marvel at them, it doesn’t feel natural. (that, and they are on their cell phones while they are with them, don’t they know how fast it goes and how soon your children are gone?)
But I’m going to check our McCarthy, only after I finish reading again Moby Dick after reading your blog! I love the book, read it twice but feel I still read it too as an adventure novel and can’t wait for Ahab to come on again, I was even going to name my first born Ahab, till I realized I would be cursing the kid before he was born. Everybody was relieved when I had a girl.thanks again for all the great stuff and I have only checked out about a quarter so far of what you write! Regina
Regina – I think Cormac McCarthy is a current-day melville, if there can be such a thing. His books are BIG, so big that I find it hard to wrap my head around them – and with something like Blood Meridien every sentence is so brilliant, so awe-inspiring, that I want to take a second to CATCH UP – very very similar to the feeling I got when I read Moby Dick.
I love that you wanted to name your kid Ahab! Better than Queequeg, I guess!