No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

"He could think of no reason for the transponder sending unit to be in the hotel. He ruled out Moss because he thought Moss was almost certainly dead. That left the police. Or some agent of the Matacumbe Petroleum Group. Who must think that he thought that they thought that he thought they were very dumb. He thought about that."

This time through I was struck by the subtlety of Chigurh's mind and the falling-away of Bell. One of the terrifying things about Chigurh is the clarity of thought, and subsequent action, he seems to demonstrate. Rarely is he tripped-up or caught off-guard. This gives him an apparent single purpose to his actions. Bell, as he admits time and again, feels overmatched by what is coming. Ellis tells him that cannot be stopped, that you cannot get back what was lost. Bell's self-described story is one of failure. As narrator he may hold that the country has changed. Ellis suggests it has not. Its always been hard on people. We are left wondering if Bell, who seemed to model himself after his grandfather, would not have been better off paying closer heed to his father's example - who we hear little about. Perhaps. There are no clear answers.

"I knew he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there is all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up."

Suttree - Cormac McCarthy

Continuing my march through McCarthy's works. Suttree is surely the funniest of those I have yet read. In particular Harrogate's antics stand out - he bears similarities to Jimmy Blevins from All the Pretty Horses. Whether he is cadging change from payphones, dynamiting his way into a bank vault, or causing a small-scale prison riot, Harrogate brings a lightness and foolishness to Suttree's life which may be a tad self-important. McCarthy captures the mood of the river and the people who inhabit the margins of Knoxville. The characters come fully-formed, at once real and absurd. In this earlier work it feels like McCarthy is piloting techniques that are honed and refined in, for example, Blood Meridian and The Crossing. The book reads as episodic and its a bit unclear how each event contributes to a changing Suttree. But maybe that is the point, as a raft drifts in the river, so does Suttree drift. One of McCarthy's most enjoyable.

The Godfather - Mario Puzo

Re-read Puzo's classic as a light holiday diversion. In particular the rise of both Vito and Michael reads as a parallel. I was unclear why there was such an emphasis on Johnny Fontane's story. Enjoyable.

Outer Dark - Cormac McCarthy

The circumstances we are born into are beyond our control. While human life issues from a darkness, for some the world itself is a type of outer dark. What narrative we create out of our lives is of our own making - largely meaningless. McCarthy's story, resembling a parable, ends with a road that leads nowhere, save a tangled way.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig

This time through, the story strikes me for its unity of journeys: how the narrator's intellectual journey is mirrored and given color by the landscape he moves through, by the experiences between he and Chris, by the way concepts are unified with the person. So landscape (of the world and mind), concepts, and interpersonal relationships merge into a story of the person. Perhaps that is meant to be Pirsig's synthesis. I have read the work enough that it serves as a reminder and cause for reflection on how I have changed. It remains an aspirational work to engender a hoped-for unity of work, person, and understanding. That such a path is useful, and such an outcome possible, is comforting.

From a 1974 interview with Pirsig, "The goal is just to live your life without too much fuss about it."

The Snow Leopard - Peter Matthiessen

"Have you seen the Snow Leopard?"
"No! Isn't that wonderful."

On this re-reading, what jumps out to me most are the aspects of zen and how that can interweave with journeys mental, physical, geographic, and emotional. Matthiessen and Schaller's journey with their sherpas and porters into the Dolpo(a) region of Nepal are a reminder of the space for adventure in this world and that travel and exploration can (also) be ways of turning inwards. Peace of mind, as Pirsig reminds us, is not attained at the mountain, nor is it given by the mountain. It is either brought with us to the mountain or cannot be achieved at all. In striving we hope to learn that all we really needed was right here all along. Everything is already present, as it has ever been.

"Better tea and wind pictures, the Crystal Mountain, and blue sheep dancing on the snow--it's quite enough!"

High Fidelity - Nick Hornby

Back with Rob, Dick, and Barry. This time I was struck by the parallels between Rob's life - recently adrift at the age of 35 - and my own. While these three always felt like contemporaries, only as I have gotten older can I begin to understand the creeping germs of hopelessness that come with age. It helps make sense of Barry's motivation to join his 'hip young gunslingers,' and Dick's monomania for new music. Rob looks around his apartment, his store, and his emotional life and begins to recognize a dustiness; a clutter to things that have been kept too long. Laura recognizes his inability to put one foot in front of the other and how the comfort of routine simultaneously keeps him grounded and unhappy. Rob's revisiting of his top-five, desert-island, most memorable split ups (in chronological order) are a rare case where his dwelling on the past actually catalyzes his freedom from it. Throughout the book Laura is really the only catalytic force. She moves Rob to confront himself and in doing so the possibility that they might have a life together. Laura is movement and action; Rob, Dick, and Barry are comfort and routine. Our lives need both.