I read five books by Cormac in 2022, some for the first time, some for the third, all in vacant, unplanned preparation for the two new ones he put out this winter, which were disappointing in their own particular ways. Suttree, on the other hand, was an immense pleasure. A book tortured by sadness, regret, perserevence, postively haunted by people who cannot resist the temptation to fall in love with one another endlessly. Nearly every character in this book would be better off (none more than Suttree) if they just assumed the worst of everyone who crossed their paths, but try as they might, they can't help but extend a hand in hope. If those arms are crafted of shattered bone and flaccid muscle, stinking in unwashed clothes, reeking of poverty, all the better. Every death in this book comes as a surprise, even more so if those deaths are never with the kind of machinery of cruelty and colonial design that touches the rest of McCarthy's work, even more than that, that so many of their are without sneering violence. If it's not his best work, that might only be because I haven't grown out of my adoration for the volume and storm of Blood Meridian. I think I would have liked 2022's The Passenger more if that book's best parts (which feature the lead character repetitively lining up in empty Southern bars like a Samuel Beckett character, wallowing through elliptical, conflict-free conversations with people who care about him but can't help him) hadn't read like a faint, Suttree-tinged echo.
The Bad Lands, by Oakley Hall
The story of Teddy Roosevelt's sojourn amongst the hard boys, and how he became a hard boy himself--possibly, maybe, maybe even truer to reality then Warlock, to which Bad Lands serves as the thematic sequel. (There's a third, The Apaches, which I have yet to read.) But where it shines brightest is the moments it leaves behind the truth it proposes and in the fear it nakedly endorses. It's cheap to treat post traumatic stress disorder as a blurb, an explanatory sticker--it takes real concern to instead just lay it out with this much of a gentle touch. Watching a man eviscerate himself of his own nature so that he can survive is one thing, but to see him do it out of a yearn towards friendship is far more tragic. Also: funny. It's never not funny to watch a guy who lives his life like its a giant pirate ship that he is the captain of decide to piss all over all a banker at a party when the subject of unpaid debts arises.
Atlanta Hawks At Oklahoma City Thunder, January 25th, 2023
Imagine it: you're the franchise player who has (supposedly) helped implement an alternate ending to Succession's 3rd season finale in the real world, and your 27 year old zero-experience buddy is now running the NBA team that has gone all in on you. The team just blew a five game win streak (that you can't seriously take credit for) and lost two games to teams you should've won easily. Okay? Now picture yourself playing in the arena your parents took you to when they couldn't really afford it, because they knew how good you would become. Your parents are there, right next to the opposing team's bench. You're a divisive guy, and you've already gotten a technical for running your mouth. But the game is starting to turn around, and after multiple games where the three pointer you're famous for has seemingly abandoned you for a rookie everybody has fallen in love with, you're starting to get your shot together. The game is going your way. The team is looking to you. You fire one off from the logo, it's perfect--the arc, the touch. The camera passes by your family at that moment, a moment too far from the end of the game to be called a victory, but a type of victorious moment that hasn't been part of your story for months. And your mom?
She was looking down at her phone the whole time.
King Buffalo, Regenerator
Sounds like if the band Keane made prog-psych-metal: the songs are still long, but you can understand all the lyrics and it's hard to imagine any of this band having facial hair that isn't regularly groomed. I listen to this only when I'm running in the cold--the one time I played it outside of that singular experience, a nine-year-old girl who was playing "spies" with my daughter said "this is good music for stealing". The way assholes talk about ambient music: that's how I should sound right now.
Villette, by Charlotte Bronte
I read Jane Eyre years ago and enjoyed it quite a bit, but unlike Jane Austen or Edith Wharton or my beautiful Chuck Dickens, I don't believe I even gave a passing thought to looking for more from Charlotte. I doubt I was even aware of Villette's existence. I'm glad I waited. If I'd read this back in the day before I knew what it felt like to live alone, or to have a professional failure, or to experience genuine heartbreak...I might have drank in the language she uses and seen it for its beauty, but the truth of it would have been something I could only imagine. I would have bought it, but I wouldn't know how rare it is to see it laid this bare. I can't count how many moments I loved in this book, but I can say that the moment when Lucy refuses to budge, the minutes early on when she knows if she walks out the door that this one opportunity will never come back around--that broke something inside me that'll never heal. I thought this book was an astonishment.
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