Heretics
After the gut wrenching tale of Billy mending and then eventually killing the she-wolf. McCarthy presents the reader with a momentary break from the increasingly bleak narrative with a remarkably told parable-like story. A self described heretic tells Billy about the extraordinary series of events survived by a man and the eventual tole that they take on his life. Parts of it read a bit like someone on LSD relating their unifying theory of the universe. It’s complicated, seemingly contradictory and awesome.
In keeping with the authenticity of the book, the disasters that separate the man from his parents and child are historically accurate. The old man tells of Mexicans defending themselves from invading Americans in Caborca. This is a conflict that American history has recorded in quite a different way and is known as the Crabb Massacre. The terremoto described was an earthquake that killed 42 people in Bavispe. These events leave the man alone in the world with a feeling that he is “elected”. Spared by God but for what? “He was but some brevity of a being. His claims to the common life of men became tenuous, insubstantial. He was a trunk without root or branch.” He begins to contemplate the nature of God. He goes back to the original church from which he was rescued and decides to reside under a dome that will surely fall thus killing him and sealing his escaped original fate. This never happens and the man relates his story a priest sent to reason with him. This relationship effects the priest in a life changing way. McCarthy uses this character to present many philosophical and religious arguments that are all encompassing and require multiple readings for better understanding.
This article relates McCarthy’s worldview as somewhat pessimistic in earlier works and more implicitly affirmative in The Crossing. The story told by the priest does ultimately have unifying theme to. I feel like the main point of the priest’s story is that actions matter. There are consequences for actions beyond the scope of man and these actions can have a profound effect on others. The article mentions that McCarthy does present the idea that all stories are related in some type of single journey yet meaning or resolution still remains elusive. This may be what the “save yourself” comment from the old man to the priest was about. It may be impossible to understand the true nature of God and the longer you have to think about it the more circles you will run in trying. The priest seems to have taken this advice and by the time he is relating the story to Billy has renounced his former calling.
This section made me think less about finding some kind of karmic justice in The Crossing. I did not like the wolf dying and was looking at the page number when this happened like “really.. now what”. It was a nice bridge to the rest of the book and made me reappraise my expectations. Ultimately the author is keeping you on your toes and much like the priest says it is the story tellers task to “devise against the listener’s claim that he has heard the tale before”. We get no resolution and Billy loses everything like the man in the priest’s story. Yet as the readers or “witnesses” we now have some kind of new knowledge that may endure and be passed on to others and eventually reside somewhere beyond our view.
Source
Frye, Steven. “Cormack McCarthy’s ‘world in its making’: Romantic naturalism in the crossing.” Studies in American Naturalism Vol.2 no.1 (Summer 2007) pp 46-65. web accessed 6/21/2014 .jstor.org
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