Susan Hated Literature

Or the evening redness
Author: Cormac McCarthy
ISBN: 0679728759
DDC: 813.5420
See also: CormacMcCarthy.com ; Library Thing

See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves.

This may sound contradictory; I would heartily recommend this book, I have no idea what it is all about. I can tell you a basic outline of the plot, our main protagonist, who is known only as the kid, leaves home at fourteen and travels the American West, encountering violent deed after violent deed, ending up riding with the Glanton gang as they set out to “protect” people from the savage Indians.

That is the storyline, but that isn’t what this book is about, as I said, I have no idea what it is about. Violence is obviously a central theme, but whether McCarthy means that such violence is a part of all humanity and impossible to ignore, or whether he means it as a warning, or indeed something completely different I couldn’t say. So why would I recommend it?

Quite simply the prose is just beautiful. It may be describing horrible acts of death and destruction, but it reads wonderfully.

The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only be taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate. [...] The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I’d have them all in zoos.

I think I’ll probably have to read it again at some point, maybe with some thought thrown in, but for now I’m happy to have read it.

Well, obviously enough, with the weekend just gone my first topic of this post has to be… the role of the Catholic Church in the political life of Ireland.

Or maybe not.

I’d much prefer to ramble on about the rugby. I didn’t catch any of the England-Scotland match, though I hear Wilko was fabtastic, but his try wasn’t one. I am a fan of Wilkinson, and in one way I do hope his road to recovery is straightforward, but then again, we play England fairly soon and I really want to win.

I didn’t see much of the France-Italy game either. Was at the aunt’s having lunch. But I’m very disappointed in Italy. This was to be their year to win a game, but they played horrendous rugby^[1] and it’ll be the Wooden Spoon if they continue on like that.

And so on to our match, and could you get much more intense than that?
And yes Ireland were lucky not to have O’Callaghan penalised, but there were more than a few occasions when I saw Wales not releasing the ball when tackled. Turns and roundabouts. Three tries to nil means we finished better on the day. And on a day when O’Gara had a horrible first 40 minutes that says a lot.

Injuries now are the big worry for Sunday against France. Darcy is supposed to be fine, O’Driscoll may make it. Although that might just be talk to keep the French guessing. The big worry is Stringer, who has a hairline fracture in his hand.

We’ll see what happens.

In today’s weather update it looks like winter has finally arrived now that it is spring. Bloody freezing out this morning so it it. And the last half an hour or so on the drive home on Saturday was through freezing fog so dense that you couldn’t see nuttin’.

Still the trip home meant I was finally able to stick all the music on the mp3 player. Only around 2,500 songs or so, but while I was adding them I also spent a few hours^[2] deleting all the duplicates from the PC. I’m not really sure why we needed ten copies of some songs on the hard drive, though I’m sure there was a very good reason for it.

And you’ll all be pleased to know that the newest cat is still alive. And as stupid as any cat. Put out by the mutt leaping about the sitting room chasing a ball she decided to leave the room, but as she jumped down from the chair she slipped on the wooden floor and smashed into the ironing board, but instead of realising that she was the cause of her collision she promptly turned and blamed the innocent hound. Spitting at him until he nosed her out of the way.

The gasúr had his birthday while I was away. He is a whole year old now^[3] and taking a few steps, though he prefers to crawl.

How was everyone’s weekend?