Cormac McCarthy is, as I have noted here before, easily one of the greatest living novelists. I recently reread Suttree and was even more impressed this time than the last time I read it. It’s Great. After reading it, though, I did a quick tour of the on-line criticism of it—and wow, I’m amazed (though I probably shouldn't be) at how so many people miss what strikes me as the obvious motivation of the entire plot.
The novel follows a few years in the life of Cornelius Suttree. Born in a rich family in the South, married with a child, we find him at the outset living in a houseboat on the river, catching fish and interacting with an assortment of low-life. It is slice of life novel, capturing life at the bottom, the very bottom—people living on a river or in ramshackle huts, thieves and prostitutes, drunks and ex-convicts. The characterizations are great; in fact, there are few characters in literature as memorable as Gene Harrogate. Suttree lives in this world, but he never really fits in; he is more intelligent and cultured than anyone else, yet here he is, living as one of them. That part everyone seems to get.
But, why is Suttree there? That is the thing that few of the reviews seem to notice, and yet the reason he is there is the whole explanation of why this novel is what it is. We learn right at the outset of the story that Suttree is a younger twin, that the older twin was born stillborn, and that the existence of the twin was kept hidden from Suttree until a drunk uncle told him about his twin brother. That presumably was the moment at which Suttree abandoned wife, child, and life among the rich. The stillborn twin largely vanishes from the story after the initial revelation, but we find out in a hallucinatory episode toward the end of the novel that Suttree is, in fact, haunted by this notion of his brother. So, what is Suttree doing in this novel? His name gives it away, I would have thought. Suttree/Suttee. This is a novel telling a story of self-immolation. And the story resolves after Suttree’s hallucinations with him declaring, “I have learned that there is one Suttree and one Suttree only.” (He declares this to a priest—just in case we would otherwise miss the reference.) And then Suttree leaves town, starting off on a new life.
Suttree is, in other words, a fascinating character; one who upon discovering the death of a twin brother he never knew he had, throws himself onto the pyre in an attempt to destroy his own life. Yet the funeral pyre becomes purgatorial rather than hellish, a bit of a surprise because the book reads like one long decsent into even deeper levels of hell. Suttree learns that he is complete, that he need not live his life among those who are dying, but that he can construct his own life (the novel ends with a whole series of mentions of things being constructed as Suttree leaves town (along with a small boy giving water to the construction workers, and then offering it to Suttree (supply your own Biblical reference))).
Suttree was followed by Blood Meridian, and that contrast is instructive. The tone of this novel is one of despair; the tone of BM is one of brutality. This novel captures the despair of a life without the possibility of redemption, while BM captures the violence of a life without God. In both cases, the hero finds a means of redemption; Suttree by realizing he is complete, the kid by walking away from the violence (after which, he is, of course, killed). This then, McCarthy seems to be saying, is Life without God. This then is what it takes to be redeemed.
I am constantly intrigued in reading literary criticism about McCarthy. It strikes me as blindingly obvious that not only are his books deeply religious, they are also deeply Christian. Yet, the critics genuinely seem oblivious to the latter, and often the former. I don’t think I am projecting things into McCarthy, but every time I read a review of one of his books, I begin to wonder if I am. But, then I think, "How can you trust anyone who didn’t seem to notice that Suttree is an obvious reference to Suttee?"
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