Child Of God, by Cormac McCarthy

[Sancho]

Whenever I think I’m starting to feel a little too comfortable I’ll read a Cormac McCarthy novel. Then for the next month or so I’m all jumpy, walking around with a furled brow, looking at people I think I know in a different way, thinking I see deeper meanings in ordinary things. I can’t read his stuff too often.

So has anybody here read Child Of God? Does anybody feel like chatting about it? Has anybody got any insights into it?

[Danik 2016]

Wellcome back, Sancho. It´s good to "hear" from you.

I don´t know anything about him. But why don´t you write something, your impressions, a summary or ...? I think that might attract attention.

[Sancho]

Hiya Danik. Thanks. It’s good to be back and good to “hear” you as well. Also you’re right, so I’ll start.

***Spoiler Alert***

The main character, Lester Ballard, is a miscreant. Or rather he starts out as socially inept and then gradually devolves into a full-blown miscreant.

His housing accommodations track his descent. The story begins with Lester’s farm being auctioned off, presumably due to the failure to pay county taxes. Lester is there (with his rifle) and lets everybody know he his not happy about the situation. The sheriff knocks him silly with an axe handle and the auction goes on. Lester then moves to a dilapidated cabin, then to a cave in the mountains, then across a flooded creek and into a sink hole, and finally he is committed to an asylum for the criminally insane.

As far as I can tell Lester has no redeeming qualities, except perhaps that he is a really good shot with his rifle. He is introduced to us on the first page of the novel:

“...from the otherwise mute pastoral morning is a man at the barn door. He is small, unclean, unshaven. He moves in the dry chaff among the dust and slats of sunlight with a constrained truculence. Saxon and Celtic bloods. A child of God much like yourself perhaps.”

[Danik 2016]

Thanks, Sancho, one gets the picture, even if one hasn´t read the book. From what perspective is it written, from a moral or a social one?

[Sancho]

Well...I’m still trying to suss that out. I think the book is written in such a way that the reader can approach it from a social or a moral standpoint. Or both at the same time.

Do social factors result in Lester’s amorality? As we go along we learn that Lester’s Mom “ran off” when he was young and his father hanged himself in the barn. Lester had few friends growing up and he got into fights at school. His attempts to woo women are pathetic and generally met with scorn. Don’t forget he’s a little guy and probably has a bad case of ‘short-man syndrome’.

The book was published in 1973. And as I read along I couldn’t help but to be reminded of a recent school shooting in this country where the shooter left behind a manifesto in which he referred to himself as an ‘Incel’ or ‘involuntary celibate’. McCarthy sure did a nice job imagining Lester as a sort of proto-incel.

If anything, Lester’s moral behavior is somewhere south of a simple school shooter’s behavior. I know that sounds weird but read the book and you tell me. So, is redemption possible for Lester? Is there even such a thing as redemption? Is the idea of God and redemption all just a human invention anyway?

[Danik 2016]

The point you make about the "incel" is interesting, Sancho, and might allow also a psychological approach. It also reminded me of a school shooting in US, where, I believe, the shooter, he himself a shoolboy, left a video stating rejection by girls as the cause of the shooting.
I had a look at wikipedia meanwhile, it´s not the kind of book I myself would like to read, we have some of it in the news almost every day.
But others may want to read it.

About redemption, a very tentative answer. I think one has to believe in redemption first and then one has to want it. I don´t know if this is the case of your character. He seems to degrade into a subhuman condition.

[Sancho]

It’s not the type of book I tend to read very often either, Danik, but every 3 or 4 years I’ll read a Cormac McCarthy novel. So far my McCarthy reading list has gone like this: Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men, The Road, All The Pretty Horses, and now Child Of God.

I first read Blood Meridian and came away from it stunned. I was amazed at the attention McCarthy put into getting the language of the period right. At first I was a little put out by the violence, but somehow, despite my less than stellar academic career, managed to intuit this was no slasher novel.

It seems the reviewer of Child Of God for The New York Times was likewise put out by the violence and in fact by the whole idea of the book. So I surfed around the web reading reviews and it looks like there’s no middle ground with this book. People either love it or they hate it. But it does evoke strong emotions on both sides.

So anyway your “subhuman” comment triggered a thought. There’s a short vignette in it about a traveling carnival. It starts with one of the townspeople telling a story about a carny who cheated people at shooting game - didn’t play by the rules - then moves on to another contest in which you could win 50 dollars if you could stay in the boxing ring with an ape for 3 minutes. Naturally the guy telling the story gets in the ring with the gorilla (subhuman) and starts boxing him in the head, no doubt thinking the game is a boxing match. Well the gorilla gets angry -


...his eyes went kindly funny...and about that time he jumped right on top of my head and crammed his foot in my mouth and like to tore my jaw off. I couldn’t even holler for help. I thought they never would get that thing off of me.

I suppose a subhuman doesn’t play by human rules.

[Sancho]

So there was a vignette in the book I actually laughed out loud at. Lester finds a rusty axe head and takes it to a blacksmith for sharpening. The smith tells him that simply sharpening the axe won’t do him much good. He then proceeds to temper and forge the blade all the while going through an elaborate description of what he’s doing for Lester’s benefit. (It was a superb description of the smithing process of hardening steel and it honestly gave me a hankering to go out to my barn and work a couple of old axe heads I have there) Anyway once he finishes, he says to Lester, “Reckon you could do it now from watchin?” Lester comes back with, “Do what”

That cracked me up and I originally just took it to mean just that Lester is a bit of dullard. But one of the on-line reviewers clued me in. The rest of the exchange went like this:


It’s like a lot of things, said the smith. Do the least part of it wrong and ye’d just as well to do it all wrong. He was sorting through handles standing in a barrel. Reckon you could do it now from watchin? he said.

Do what, said Ballard.

Meaning once you’ve done “the least part of it wrong” you’ve passed a point of no return and you’d “just as well do it all wrong.” Well, Lester was about to cross that line in life.

[Danik 2016]

There is a review about Blood Meridian by Pompey Bum buried somewhere in this forum. I didn't,t realise this was the same author. It seems he goes to the core of human violence and degradation. One has to have stomach to read it.
I get your idea, though I never think of animals as subhuman. Of course an author that depicts extreme violence would also describe animal violence.

These kind of books sets one thinking about one's reality and it's relationship to violence.

[Sancho]

Pompey Bum, he’s a smart one, eh?

I agree with you totally about the term “subhuman” for a gorilla. We humans are an arrogant species - am I right? In fact when I wrote that post I wondered if it would raise anyone’s hackles. Speaking of which, “raising one’s hackles” as a metaphor for a human’s animalistic wariness may be questionable as well. You can drive yourself nuts trying to parse your speech so as not to offend anyone.

Hey, another very un-PC use of the word “subhuman” is in reference to someone who is mentally challenged. At one point in the story Lester goes over to a house and in a very Lester-esk way tries to romance the woman there. (“Lemme see dem titties”) In the house is a toddler who is referred to by both of them as the idiot. Lester brings the child a live bird to play with and the child almost immediately chews off one of the bird’s legs. In a moment of understanding and connection with the child, Lester says something like, “He only did it so it wouldn’t run off.” You might say Lester and the idiot saw things eye to eye.

[ennison]

Wasn't he thinking of Mr Gein during the creation of that text?

[Sancho]

Donno. I’d never heard of Gein, so I googled him, and it seems likely he could have been the inspiration for the Lester character. Also, based on what I read on the web about Gein, I just gotta say - yuk.

[MANICHAEAN]

Hi Sancho

I’d just like to get my six pence worth in, on the concept of redemption that you refer to. Traditionally it is believed to be granted by: works, faith or grace. I think actually it’s a bit more complicated than that. Or to phrase it another way, is redemption / salvation through what one does, or what one believes, or for what God chooses for reasons entirely of His own?

Today of course the main character would be referred to as; having social issues, (absent mother, suicidal father), mental issues, (vertically challenged). Perhaps we could also throw in his human rights? Much more interesting is his Celtic-Saxon bloodline. What potential for analysis that holds!

I must confess that it sounds like the kind of book I would not read, but I’m sure that will not deter you. My reasoning I suppose is during my work overseas, in having had to deal with three suicides, of which two were by hanging. You deal with it in the moment, but later ask yourself to what extremes a person is driven by adverse acts or circumstances. Couple that with the current distressing stories emanating from Ukraine, and I would rather lose myself in a lighter piece of writing.

By the way thank you for bringing onto the Forum something interesting to get one’s dentures into.

[Sancho]

Howdy, M. It’s good to hear from you.

Concerning your dental metaphor - no dentures yet, but I have had extensive dental work in my life. So, the other day I was down in LA and I found myself standing in front of a reception deck, and since I am who I am, I found myself flirting with the receptionist. And since she was a good receptionist, she was sort of flirting back at me — in the way a young woman flirts with an awkward old dude while hoping her phone would ring soon. Anyway she had a small jar of candy on her desk and figuring the candy was for customers, I stared absent-mindedly popping Sugar Babies in my mouth. (Sugar Babies are a chewy caramel M&M-sized confection.) In no time I had a pretty good wad of sugary goo going, and then I bit down on something really hard. I felt around my teeth with my tongue and couldn’t help noticing an empty space where a tooth used to be. So I made an excuse, smiled a gap-toothed smile at the receptionist, and went in search of a pharmacy. I found a CVS right down the block and they sold me a tube of crown adhesive. So I went into the loo and glued that sucker back on — with passable but mediocre results — and I headed back to the reception desk. I’ve got an appointment with my dentist next Friday.

As for redemption as it relates to salvation, I understand the concept, but I generally steer clear discussions of that sort of thing. I’m not a religious man. It seems to me that even among the faithful, that can be a contentious discussion. Politics and Religion have ruined many an otherwise promising dinner party.

But that doesn’t stop me from exploring the subject or enjoying the literature that comes out of the idea. Flannery O’Connor’s short story, Revelation, comes to mind. I keep coming back to her stories for some reason. Maybe because she wrote about the South and I’m from the South. Maybe because she wrote about religious topics for non religious people. Maybe because my mom liked her writing and we shared a lot of books. Maybe because she looked a lot like my mom and reminds me of her. Maybe because they both died too young. And maybe because she was a really good writer of short stories. Here’s the first paragraph of Revelation:


The Doctor’s waiting room, which was very small, was almost full when the Turpins entered and Mrs. Turpin, who was very large, made it look even smaller by her presence. She stood looming at the head of the magazine table set in the center of it, a living demonstration that the room was inadequate and ridiculous. Her little bright black eyes took in all the patients as she sized up the seating situation. There was one vacant chair and a place on the sofa occupied by a blond child in a dirty blue romper who should have been told to move over and make room for the lady. He was five or six, but Mrs. Turpin saw at once that no one was going to tell him to move over. He was slumped down in the seat, his arms idle at his sides and his eyes idle in his head; his nose ran unchecked.

Anyway the story, Revelation, is about redemption, or more precisely about a revelation of redemption. It’s a pretty quick read, but is deceptively complex. It’s worth the time if only for the interaction between Mrs. Turpin and the black farm hands. At any rate here’s a link to the story:

https://www.ohio.k12.ky.us/userfiles/1153/Classes/7791/OConner%20Revelation.pdf

[MANICHAEAN]

Hi Sancho

Thanks for the link to Revelation. As you note, the more you ponder on it, the more the complexity creeps in.

Regards discussing religion I try not to be dogmatic or coming across as a bit of a zealot. From a writing perspective, (albeit as an amateur), I've heard it said that the most difficult subject to write about is sex. On the contrary the origins and development of the different world faiths is much more of a challenge.

Take care & best wishes.
M.

[Sancho]

Sex and Religion. Whooeee. Though topics. Sounds about right though, M. I think it’s hard to write about about sex without coming across as creepy. Best to go full Seinfeld and “yada-yada-yada” your way past the sex scene. As for religion, the subject is huge. So long as you don’t try to bite off too much at once, I think you can explore some pretty good ideas. Ms O’Connor was a devout Roman Catholic living in the mostly Baptist South. I think it gave her some unique insights. She wrote about traveling preachers, tent revivals, holy rollers, stuff like that, and of course in Revelation she wrote about being judgmental (among other things).

Here’s the same idea in a less serious art form. The first few verses of The Austin Lounge Lizards’ tune — Jesus Loves Me (But He Can’t Stand You)


I know you smoke, I know you drink that brew
I just can't abide a sinner like you
God can't either, that's why I know it's true
That Jesus loves me but he can't stand you

I'm going straight to heaven, boys, when I die
Cos I've crossed every ‘T’ and I've dotted every ‘I’
Why, my preacher tells me I'm god's kind of guy
That's why Jesus loves me, but you're gonna fry

<chorus>
God loves all his children, by gum
But that don’t mean he won't incinerate some
Can't you feel those hot flames licking you?
Woo-Woo-Woo

The YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/PS_jFT0dErc

[Danik 2016]

Glad old Litnet still shows so much humo(u)r in verse and prose.
Wondering if Sancho will present us sometime with a short story!

[Sancho]

Danik, my friend,
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m afraid I’m a reader not a writer. My attempts at writing have consistently produced results like my attempt at dentistry last week - mediocre and slightly akilter. I will say this, though. Trying to write something does give me a greater appreciation for people who can write well, like Flannery O’Connor and Cormack McCarthy.
By the way, nice job striking a balance between British and American spelling. I appreciate it and I’ll bet Manichaean does too.

[MANICHAEAN]

Hi you two.

Not sure where to start the response, so will dive right in.

Sex.

As a schoolboy I got my hands on a copy of the previously banned “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” where the gamekeeper speaks in the idiom of his social status. Highly controversial at the time, using the F word. The judge ruling on the case asked if it were the type of book that one would allow one’s servant's to read? The secret on addressing the writing about sex I think lies in finding a balance between straightforward carnal “rutting” and embellishing the whole act in the nuances' of the English language. Give the pointer and let the imagination do the work as it were.

Religion.

Loved the ditty Sancho.

Divided by a common language.

I had to act on many an occasion as an intermediary in meetings for my Japanese employer and the Client represented by Exxon Mobile on a refinery project in Qatar. If the Japanese did not understand the Americans, they would not, (to save face) admit as such. Which is where I came in. In one instance, a Texan enquired after the movement of an item of construction.

“What is the route? (pronounced “rout”) he asked.

Both the Japanese & I were confused.

“Sorry but I do not understand” I replied. “How do you spell it?”

Following responses:

“Route.”

“Oh, you mean “route” pronounced “root”

“No, that’s the lower part of a tree.”

“But when you pronounce it “rout” it involves a battle where one side loses and runs away. “Route” and “Root” are pronounced the same in the UK. “Rout” is pronounced completely different.

Needless to say, the Japanese were bewitched, befuddled and bemused by this exchange between two English speaking individuals.

[Danik 2016]

Lol! Needless to say, my role here is that of the Japanese.

[Sancho]

Yup, yup, yup, Boy-Howdy. Texas English is a whole other thing.

You know I’ve heard “route” pronounced both ways here. You rout yourself to the root. The old verb-noun thing, very confusing. Or sometimes the old noun-noun thing, even more confusing: the best rout was along Root 66. (It winds from Chicago to L.A.)


You go through St Louie, Joplin, Missouri
And Oklahoma City’s looking mighty pretty
You’ll see Amarillo, and Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff, Arizona don’t forget Winona
Kingman - Barstow - San Bernardino
…
Get your kicks on ROOT Sixty-Six

Anyway, whataya suppose it was about Lady Chatterley that got it banned? Explicit sex scenes or the idea of a “Lady” with a little side action going on. At any rate, banning a book is a sure-fire way to make sure everybody reads it, eh?

I’ve been listening to a podcast about rock-n-roll, “A History of Rock Music in 500 songs” by Andrew Hickey. It’s been great fun, and evidently banning a song works the same way as banning a book. Andrew has an episode about Etta James’ song Wallflower (Roll with me Henry). I guess rolling with Henry was too much, so it got sanitized to “dance with me Henry” But as with Lady Chatterley, it was the woman who had the power in this song:


Henry - Hey Baby? Whatta I gotta do? To make you love me too.
Etta - Ya gotta roll with me, Henry
Henry - Alright baby
Etta - Roll with me Henry
Henry - Don’t mean maybe
Etta - Roll with me Henry
Henry - Any old time
Etta - Roll with me Henry
Henry - Don’t change my mind
Etta - Roll with me Henry
Henry - Alright
Etta - You better roll it while the rollin’ is on
- roll on, roll on, roll on

Scandalous!
Not sure why I’m on a song-lyrics roll

[MANICHAEAN]

Don't put yourself down Danik. You are like a flaming meteorite compared to some of the dormant galaxies on here.

Sancho. You are I trust, conversant with the fact that there are Americans, and then there are Texans. One other characteristic that I noted over the years was a distinction between what I call the “frontier” American and those that seem never to have crossed the state line. The former I’ve worked with in places as diverse as Papua New Guinea, Nigeria to Vietnam. Invariably characters in their own right; outward going and bloody good company. But although it's wrong to generalise, I’ve also met Afro Americans in Montego Bay in colonial pith helmets who seemed to think Jamaica was Africa. I will not expand on my one experience of immigration at Miami airport en route to that island. Suffice to say we clashed over what constituted a transit facility and needing a visa when not technically entering the United States.

Regards Lady Chatterley I believe that she fancied “a bit of rough” with the gamekeeper. Some women like to be wooed; others the more cave-man approach. The use of swear words seems to have been the main reason for banning the book. Seems ridiculous these days, when so called celebrity chefs f all over the place. Thank goodness Lit Net has in place a defensive firewall such that one cannot fall on one's ***.

D’ont get me started on rock & roll. I saw Buddy Holly live in London, and to this day I will always remember the beat of the drummer in “Peggy Sue.” I also went to the LSE with Mick Jagger. He was taking a degree in Industry & Trade, but decided to leave in his second year to work on his band, the Rolling Stones. His main tutor called him in and advised against with the words “I would finish your studies Mr Jagger in case you do not make a success of rock and roll.” The rest is history.

[Danik 2016]

Thanks, Manichaeam. Liked the "flaming meteorite". I certainly have never been called that before.

[Sancho]

“The Flaming Meteorites” What a great name for a band! I’m thinking a metal hair band, a band who likes likes to light their instruments on fire at the end of the show. Oh yeah. Can’t miss.

That’s amazing, M. I only ever saw The Stones at a few stadium concerts, the first time at The Astrodome in Houston just after they released Tattoo You. Anyway, a thousand years from now kids at the LSE will be studying an ancient economic and social phenomenon known as “Mick-n-Keef”.

Andrew Hickey’s podcast gets into the nitty gritty of the business side of rock-n-roll, which I found depressing yet fascinating. I mean I grew up listening to that kind of music so it’s been interesting to get some the behind-the-scenes stuff. Ed Ward is another historian of rock and roll. Sadly he died last year. I’ve got both volumes of his history of rock and roll, which I’ve been reading roughly in tandem with Hickey’s podcast. And of course there’s the always quotable Hunter S. Thompson’s take on the music biz:


The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench - a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs… There’s also a negative side.

You know, I’m sure all this stuff somehow relates to McCarthy’s book.

[MANICHAEAN]

Haha. Yes, we might seem on the surface to have diverted somewhat from the original topic; but I'm sure with our combined input, (including you meteorite No 7) we have not diverged too much.

After all, what are free wheeling imaginations for?

Easter Greetings to you both.

M.

[Sancho]

Thanks, Manichaean
And a happy Passover to all

[Danik 2016]

Thanks, Mani and Sancho Belated greetings to you too! Have a good time!

Just to get back to the theme of the thread here are two reviews on Cormac McCarthy's child of God:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-child.html?scp=50&sq=hill%2520country&st=cse

https://offtheshelf.com/2015/07/child-of-god-by-cormac-mccarthy/

[Sancho]

Well it’s that season so I’ll use a baseball metaphor: “swing and a miss” by the NYT reviewer. And at the risk of mixing metaphors I’ll say I don’t think he tried very hard to peel the onion.

Yet I’m somewhat sympathetic towards the reviewer. The first book by McCarthy I read was Blood Meridian. One of my first impressions was it felt a little like a B-Movie Slasher flick and I said as much on this website. Then another member of The Litnet very gently offered a few suggestions for how to interpret the violence and the character of The Judge, essentially peeling the onion for me. It has made me a better reader and in a nutshell it is one of the reasons I stay on this website.

[Danik 2016]

Yeah. Reviews sometimes changes ones take towards a book or another work of art. Or even an author. The idea here was to offer a negative and a positive review so any one could take his/her pick.
I myself thought that Faulkner was the utmost that violence could be depicted in US fiction and I had to learn to like him. But compared with Mc Carthy, who I still couldn´t bring myself to read, it probably sounds like Kindergarten literature today.