Cormac McCarthy, who passed away today, ranks among the most important writers of fiction American society has ever produced. There is ample agreement on this point.<\/p>\n
When it comes to interpreting the meaning of his work, though, there is much less consensus.<\/p>\n
McCarthy handled big themes in his work, and that is true in his most recent novels: The Passenger and Stella Maris. These two books form a single narrative of siblings Alicia and Bobby Western\u2019s extraordinary lives. We find here meditations on meaning and meaninglessness, human knowledge, death, spirituality, and the nature of the material world. Truth and beauty, reason and faith, love and sex: it\u2019s all here. Mingled with these themes is obsessively detailed description of machines and contraptions of all sorts (especially guns and cars)\u2014another perennial McCarthy interest.<\/p>\n
Many critics read McCarthy\u2019s novels the way they do so many other art forms: devoid of the possibility of hope, transcendence, and a living God. But this often glosses over the genuinely conflicted character of the art. The Passenger and Stella Maris offer more than just an artistic representation of reality\u2019s inescapable brutality. They forcefully struggle with the greatest questions of human existence. Like any good work of art, these books don\u2019t allow any reader\u2014religious, atheist, materialist, Christian\u2014to walk away feeling perfectly comfortable in their understanding of the world.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cormac McCarthy and the Possibility of Faith https:\/\/t.co\/hRDAPhETqs<\/a><\/p>\n — Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) June 17, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n