Kiefer, Christian. "Unneighborly Behavior: Blood Meridian, Lonesome Dove and the Problem of Reader Sympathy." Southwestern American Literature 33.1 (Fall 2007), 39-52.
Kiefer takes a look at the folly of familiarity suggested by Blood Meridian in the context of the popular Western novel, specifically Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. Both novels were published in 1985 and both incorporate the same terrain and similar tribes of Indians (and the prequels to Lonesome Dove even involve the same time period and mention the mercenary scalp-hunting), and Kiefer proposes that considering these similarities in juxtaposition with the the unique thematic concerns and vastly different narrative styles of the novels presents an interesting study in reader sympathy in relation to the Western. Kiefer is especially interested in discussing the subtly of the differences between Blood Meridian and Lonesome Dove in relation to the reader's experience in order to illuminate the different perspectives on the past and present that both novels represent. Identifying the moral basis of the heroic Western as appealing to reader sympathy (as supported by Lonesome Dove's commercial success compared to that of Blood Meridian), Kiefer examines the ways in which McCarthy uses and alters such Western idioms as morally justified and restrained violence to challenge reader sympathy. Kiefer quotes from the two works and compares the level of conscious reflection of the characters as well as the different approaches to similar conflicts (such as those between rangers and those between a protagonist and a barkeeper). Kiefer sees Blood Meridian's violence as "a violence, in the end, that appears to teach nothing, that imparts no message, other than that violence itself is the great and terrible solution to all, that it is a constant in the affairs of men, and that any act that is not inherently violent is perhaps no true act at all. (42). By exploiting the modern reader's expectations of "stock characters" of history that popular culture (of which Lonesome Dove is an example) has provided, McCarthy encourages a rethinking of not just literary conventions but historical conventions as well; Kiefer proposes that the challenge to reader sympathy in Blood Meridian "necessitates the construction of a new interpretive system" (49) while even criticizing such systems by criticizing itself.
Though many critics have asserted that Blood Meridian is an atypical Western, and cannot in fact be reduced to genre writing at all, the suspended disbelief or disregard for the popular genre in Kiefer's analysis invites a ground-level examination of what is involved in the reader-novel relationship. If characters "who attempt to act with morality tend to be met with death or horror, and what God exists...seems vacant at best or malevolent at worst" (41), the traditional sensitivity or development of understanding of value system that a reader might expect to experience (in a protagonist or anti-hero figure) is thwarted. The kid's violence and the lack of insight into his psyche by the time his first unconscionably violent encounters are described do not allow the reader to forge expected relationships with the text, and are forced to reconsider what the narrator's treatment requires of his audience. The reader must follow the kid's actions and thus engage in a kind of bloody pilgrimage whose direction and reasoning is not self-evident. The lack of binary oppositions in the novel are also identified by Kiefer as challenging reader sympathy, because taking sides is a challenge. The simultaneous alienation and alignment encouraged by the narrator's treatment of the kid illuminates the way that Blood Meridian prompts the reader to consider ethical questions about understanding the past and the possibility of choosing a "good" or "better" path. Kiefer also points out that the narrator has a high degree of self-consciousness, and that the judge is symptomatic of the "anti-text" that the novel also contains (50) as revealed, for example, when he proclaims that “men’s memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not” (Blood Meridian 330). If the judge is an aspect of the narrator's own uncertainty, the instability of familiarity and authority becomes an even more fundamental issue of the narrative.
Showing posts with label reader-character sympathy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reader-character sympathy. Show all posts
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The Unreckonable Narrator
Phillips, Dana. “History and the Ugly Facts of Blood Meridian.” Cormac McCarthy: New Directions. Ed. James D. Lilley. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002. 18-46.
Because McCarthy’s statement that “books are made out of books” is his only comment on the placement of Blood Meridian in the continuum of literary history, Phillips proposes that the critical reader must examine what books Blood Meridian is made out of as well as the novel’s form and point of view in order to discern its vision and effect. Phillips finds that an examination of sources (such as Mexican-American history, or the history of John Joel Glanton, as well as Moby Dick) reveals that Blood Meridian is not “a pastiche of sources” (21), and he uses Georg Lukács’ theories on “philosophy of composition” to properly “historicize” the novel (21). Phillips seeks to identify the relationship between the implied philosophy of history that Blood Meridian proposes and its philosophy of composition (22), proposing that through the “optical democracy” (as taken from the “optical democracy” passage in the novel as well as several other instances in which Phillips sees humans described with equal or less significance than their surroundings) of the narration in which knowledge accrues instead of developing (28) and the landscape is represented as more potent or at least as “putatively factual” as the characters, McCarthy presents a vision of the world as dominated by natural history and geological forces connected to vast time and space which preclude the significance of the individual and the human in general, including all attempts at meaning-making (37). Phillips proposes that the narrative is “nonhuman” rather than “inhuman” (37), “alien, but not alienated” (37) in its virtuous “equanimity of tone” which is authoritative, final, and shows “psychology, morality, and politics” as “mere languages” and figurative language as merely a means of magnifying intensity rather than suggesting symbolic or hidden meanings (36). Phillips supports this interpretation by emphasizing Blood Meridian’s powerful narrative despite its disregard for Lukács’ emphasis on character and plot and engagement with history which are the traditional terms of literary effectiveness: he claims that it is self-evident that the narrator has no insight into the psyche of the characters, that none of the characters possess “a sense of himself” (30), and that the similarities between Moby Dick and Blood Meridian highlight the way in which McCarthy reconfigures character by avoiding the self-consciousness of Ishmael and instead constructing characters “as language, as suggestive artifact or trace of the human” (25). Finally, the absence of Lukácsian narration combined with the narrator’s epic resonance via preoccupation with natural/geological history presents a worldview that whatever values exist are on a large and unknowable scale and that even the present is, as Phillips borrows from Blood Meridian, “a time before nomenclature” (39).
Phillips’ focus on the un-preferential tone of the narrator and the lack of relevance of character to the overall “philosophy of history” that he finds central to Blood Meridian aligns the reader with the kid as an individual faced with an impersonal and unconscious but nonetheless incredibly powerful universe. Though Phillips does not conceive of the narrator as a conscious entity or knower, the voice of the narrator (which Philips often characterizes as McCarthy’s voice) interacts authoritatively with the reader by challenging the reader’s expectations of plot and character and by confronting the reader with violence and death as the “more or less objective truths of all human experience” (24) rather than offering any kind of redemptive vision, or even a world in which personal vision or transcendence matters (because it is impossible). The refusal of the possibility of transcendence with which the narrator confronts the reader is similar to the overwhelming nature of the judge’s declaration that a man’s destiny “is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well” (Blood Meridian 330). But even the voice of the judge, which as Phillips acknowledges “seems to be in implicit dialogue with the impersonal, highly detailed, and verbally ingenious narration” (26), does not reveal the judge’s inner life or character, an assertion that Phillips supports by emphasizing the theatrical nature of the judge’s “ventilations” (27). Because the judge is not a traditional character, his speeches cannot be conflated with the voice of the author or narrator and are thus not granted the expansive authority of vision which the narrator possesses. The absence of any real examination of character reveals that the narrator is not in fact a knower or “meta-character” but rather a body of knowledge that guides the reader in an exploration of “liminal concerns” such as the impossibility of the privilege of humans in relation to the rest of the world (28). Although Phillips conception of the “optical democracy” of the entire narrative only addresses one aspect of the narrative’s disturbing power and vision, it does draw attention the ways in which the judge is not necessarily more powerful than the kid, that the judge’s rhetoric does not necessarily convey truth in the same way that the more negative and impersonal narrator does.
Because McCarthy’s statement that “books are made out of books” is his only comment on the placement of Blood Meridian in the continuum of literary history, Phillips proposes that the critical reader must examine what books Blood Meridian is made out of as well as the novel’s form and point of view in order to discern its vision and effect. Phillips finds that an examination of sources (such as Mexican-American history, or the history of John Joel Glanton, as well as Moby Dick) reveals that Blood Meridian is not “a pastiche of sources” (21), and he uses Georg Lukács’ theories on “philosophy of composition” to properly “historicize” the novel (21). Phillips seeks to identify the relationship between the implied philosophy of history that Blood Meridian proposes and its philosophy of composition (22), proposing that through the “optical democracy” (as taken from the “optical democracy” passage in the novel as well as several other instances in which Phillips sees humans described with equal or less significance than their surroundings) of the narration in which knowledge accrues instead of developing (28) and the landscape is represented as more potent or at least as “putatively factual” as the characters, McCarthy presents a vision of the world as dominated by natural history and geological forces connected to vast time and space which preclude the significance of the individual and the human in general, including all attempts at meaning-making (37). Phillips proposes that the narrative is “nonhuman” rather than “inhuman” (37), “alien, but not alienated” (37) in its virtuous “equanimity of tone” which is authoritative, final, and shows “psychology, morality, and politics” as “mere languages” and figurative language as merely a means of magnifying intensity rather than suggesting symbolic or hidden meanings (36). Phillips supports this interpretation by emphasizing Blood Meridian’s powerful narrative despite its disregard for Lukács’ emphasis on character and plot and engagement with history which are the traditional terms of literary effectiveness: he claims that it is self-evident that the narrator has no insight into the psyche of the characters, that none of the characters possess “a sense of himself” (30), and that the similarities between Moby Dick and Blood Meridian highlight the way in which McCarthy reconfigures character by avoiding the self-consciousness of Ishmael and instead constructing characters “as language, as suggestive artifact or trace of the human” (25). Finally, the absence of Lukácsian narration combined with the narrator’s epic resonance via preoccupation with natural/geological history presents a worldview that whatever values exist are on a large and unknowable scale and that even the present is, as Phillips borrows from Blood Meridian, “a time before nomenclature” (39).
Phillips’ focus on the un-preferential tone of the narrator and the lack of relevance of character to the overall “philosophy of history” that he finds central to Blood Meridian aligns the reader with the kid as an individual faced with an impersonal and unconscious but nonetheless incredibly powerful universe. Though Phillips does not conceive of the narrator as a conscious entity or knower, the voice of the narrator (which Philips often characterizes as McCarthy’s voice) interacts authoritatively with the reader by challenging the reader’s expectations of plot and character and by confronting the reader with violence and death as the “more or less objective truths of all human experience” (24) rather than offering any kind of redemptive vision, or even a world in which personal vision or transcendence matters (because it is impossible). The refusal of the possibility of transcendence with which the narrator confronts the reader is similar to the overwhelming nature of the judge’s declaration that a man’s destiny “is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well” (Blood Meridian 330). But even the voice of the judge, which as Phillips acknowledges “seems to be in implicit dialogue with the impersonal, highly detailed, and verbally ingenious narration” (26), does not reveal the judge’s inner life or character, an assertion that Phillips supports by emphasizing the theatrical nature of the judge’s “ventilations” (27). Because the judge is not a traditional character, his speeches cannot be conflated with the voice of the author or narrator and are thus not granted the expansive authority of vision which the narrator possesses. The absence of any real examination of character reveals that the narrator is not in fact a knower or “meta-character” but rather a body of knowledge that guides the reader in an exploration of “liminal concerns” such as the impossibility of the privilege of humans in relation to the rest of the world (28). Although Phillips conception of the “optical democracy” of the entire narrative only addresses one aspect of the narrative’s disturbing power and vision, it does draw attention the ways in which the judge is not necessarily more powerful than the kid, that the judge’s rhetoric does not necessarily convey truth in the same way that the more negative and impersonal narrator does.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Interrogative Relationships: Opposition vs. Deconstruction
Holloway, David. "'A False Book is No Book at All': The Ideology of Representation in Blood Meridian and the Border Trilogy." Myth, Legend, Dust: Critical Responses to Cormac McCarthy. Ed. Rick Wallach. Manchester and New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 2000. 185-200.
Maintaining that the historical moment of the author as well as the reader does and should limit and shape the reader’s understanding of a work of literature, and defining the moment of the reader in part by the literary criticism written since the publication of the work, Holloway frames his discussion of Blood Meridian and the Border Trilogy in an examination of the disparate and often conflicting positions of established McCarthy criticism. Holloway discusses whether or not a synthesis is possible between these positions, connecting the fractured nature of modern criticism to the “millennial eclipse of alternative economic and ideological structures” and thus tying the reading of conflicting response to literature to the fate of writing and culture in general (187). Holloway forges a kind of synthesis of contradictions by suggesting that contradiction is essential to McCarthy’s work, and though he looks at four of McCarthy’s novels, his examination of the Judge’s language in Blood Meridian suggests that McCarthy uses (even steals) for rhetorical, revisionist purposes and thus cannot be relied upon to be straight-forward or to imply singular meaning. Holloway identifies Holden’s control of the Glanton Gang as “the expropriation and exclusion of meaning” (193), and though McCarthy attempts a “revisionist account of Western American History” as well (192), the Judge is opposed in Blood Meridian. Given this complexity of voice and language and its use and misuse, Holloway asks what the ideology of representation is in the novel (193). Holloway finds that the narrator’s construction of events and the language used to describe them question the “notions of totality, grand narrative, and determinate meaning” by implicitly criticizing manifest destiny and by meditating on the blurring of strict distinctions and binaries. Because binaries are a stabilizing force (here Holloway references The Crossing) and because McCarthy forms an incomplete binary in Blood Meridian by incompletely opposing the judge (who is left as the last one standing) (195), the narrator employs a self-conscious and precarious, even deconstructive rhetoric. Using language only plays into the judge’s hands, so Holloway suggests that the novel cannot avoid the paralysis and falsity which the judge promises all books face (194), though McCarthy’s incomplete opposition to the judge offers the possibility of opposing (and thereby confirming his “intractable presence,” 195) or dismantling the judge but not in defeating him.
Though Holloway refers to McCarthy’s use of language and handling of the judge rather than the narrator’s, his point that Judge Holden reveals or represents the “self-reflexive procedure” of Blood Meridian speaks to the relationship between the rhetoric of the judge and the voice of the narrator (191). The narrator uses the “language with which its own critique is formed” (192), and the judge’s distortion of truth and theatrical use of language present the power and thus the perils of the revisionism that Holloway sees the narrator dabbling in (by presenting a particularly violent and anti-expansionist view of the formation of the United States). Holloway’s discussion of Blood Meridian illustrates the ways in which the narrator and judge are similarly powerful, and while the judge is a more narrow-minded authority in the novel, the narrator is not necessarily a more important voice considering that Holden is the last one standing and dancing at the end of the novel, and even his proclamation that “he will never die” closes the main narrative (335). Holloway’s reading aligns the reader with the kid and the judge with the narrator by identifying that the judge’s victory over the kid (and the seemingly omnipotent narrator either unable or unwilling to pose a solution to the mystery and horror of the judge) leaves the reader questioning the limits of language. The kid’s skepticism (despite his annihilation) is the kind of questioning that the “self-reflexive,” language-obsessed narrator may invite in the reader; an awareness that the rhetorical world of the judge, which is interrogated but not denied by the narrator, is only one world of meaning.
Maintaining that the historical moment of the author as well as the reader does and should limit and shape the reader’s understanding of a work of literature, and defining the moment of the reader in part by the literary criticism written since the publication of the work, Holloway frames his discussion of Blood Meridian and the Border Trilogy in an examination of the disparate and often conflicting positions of established McCarthy criticism. Holloway discusses whether or not a synthesis is possible between these positions, connecting the fractured nature of modern criticism to the “millennial eclipse of alternative economic and ideological structures” and thus tying the reading of conflicting response to literature to the fate of writing and culture in general (187). Holloway forges a kind of synthesis of contradictions by suggesting that contradiction is essential to McCarthy’s work, and though he looks at four of McCarthy’s novels, his examination of the Judge’s language in Blood Meridian suggests that McCarthy uses (even steals) for rhetorical, revisionist purposes and thus cannot be relied upon to be straight-forward or to imply singular meaning. Holloway identifies Holden’s control of the Glanton Gang as “the expropriation and exclusion of meaning” (193), and though McCarthy attempts a “revisionist account of Western American History” as well (192), the Judge is opposed in Blood Meridian. Given this complexity of voice and language and its use and misuse, Holloway asks what the ideology of representation is in the novel (193). Holloway finds that the narrator’s construction of events and the language used to describe them question the “notions of totality, grand narrative, and determinate meaning” by implicitly criticizing manifest destiny and by meditating on the blurring of strict distinctions and binaries. Because binaries are a stabilizing force (here Holloway references The Crossing) and because McCarthy forms an incomplete binary in Blood Meridian by incompletely opposing the judge (who is left as the last one standing) (195), the narrator employs a self-conscious and precarious, even deconstructive rhetoric. Using language only plays into the judge’s hands, so Holloway suggests that the novel cannot avoid the paralysis and falsity which the judge promises all books face (194), though McCarthy’s incomplete opposition to the judge offers the possibility of opposing (and thereby confirming his “intractable presence,” 195) or dismantling the judge but not in defeating him.
Though Holloway refers to McCarthy’s use of language and handling of the judge rather than the narrator’s, his point that Judge Holden reveals or represents the “self-reflexive procedure” of Blood Meridian speaks to the relationship between the rhetoric of the judge and the voice of the narrator (191). The narrator uses the “language with which its own critique is formed” (192), and the judge’s distortion of truth and theatrical use of language present the power and thus the perils of the revisionism that Holloway sees the narrator dabbling in (by presenting a particularly violent and anti-expansionist view of the formation of the United States). Holloway’s discussion of Blood Meridian illustrates the ways in which the narrator and judge are similarly powerful, and while the judge is a more narrow-minded authority in the novel, the narrator is not necessarily a more important voice considering that Holden is the last one standing and dancing at the end of the novel, and even his proclamation that “he will never die” closes the main narrative (335). Holloway’s reading aligns the reader with the kid and the judge with the narrator by identifying that the judge’s victory over the kid (and the seemingly omnipotent narrator either unable or unwilling to pose a solution to the mystery and horror of the judge) leaves the reader questioning the limits of language. The kid’s skepticism (despite his annihilation) is the kind of questioning that the “self-reflexive,” language-obsessed narrator may invite in the reader; an awareness that the rhetorical world of the judge, which is interrogated but not denied by the narrator, is only one world of meaning.
The Conscious Complexity of the Narrator-Reader Relationship
Schopen, Bernard A. “‘They Rode On’: Blood Meridian and the Art of Narrative.’” Western American Literature 33.3 (1995): 179-194.
Bernard Schopen considers the captivating and profoundly disturbing effects of Blood Meridian in terms of its formal elements, and the “manifold but integrated artistry” (188) of the narrative in particular. Though he sees the narrator as exploring “the mystery of evil in human hearts” (191), Schopen is interested not so much in the themes of Blood Meridian as the way in which those themes are constructed and conveyed, and how the construction is in itself central to the meaning of the novel. The “literariness” of the narrator, his direct addresses, his acknowledgements of uncertainty, and his alienation from the world that he describes (the rarity of internal glimpses) create a sense that the narrator is “a consciousness in search of meaning” (181-182). “Far from formless” (184), Schopen finds that the narrative, this search for meaning, is embedded in the complex structure of the story which is in fact imposed by the narrator (186). This control is exemplified by textual and structural patterns such as repeated images and phrases, recurring shifts in tense and tone, and nesting and echoing dramatic frames. Through “repetition-within-variation” (188), the narrator poses his troubling vision and questions from many angles. Thus the narrative, the great art of Blood Meridian, has such a powerful effect because its language and composition have multidirectional force, ensuring that the reader feels the “recognition” that Schopen asserts is “effected by all great literature” (191), and that this recognition is the awareness of a shared uncertainty rather than some absolute truth.
Schopen’s reading of Blood Meridian offers insights into the power that the narrative exerts over the reader, as well as the effort required by the reader to understand the complexities of the narrative. By stating that “recognition” on the part of the reader is one of the greatest achievements of powerful literature (191), Schopen identifies the reader-narrator relationship as difficult to forge but essential. “Carefully controlled,” the language employed by the narrator “carefully controls the reader’s response, producing contextually appropriate effects ranging from the horrific to the humorous” (181). But if the form of Blood Meridian “nearly becomes” its meaning (183), the reader must not just be controlled but also attend to intricate detail and be comfortable with a large degree of uncertainty in order to understand the narrator’s preoccupations. To think outside of the facts of the story to the method of its telling, the reader must be aware of but avoid intoxication with the language, just as the kid (to some extent) sees through Judge Holden by maintaining a wariness of the judge’s rhetoric. Although Schopen does not discuss the rhetorical power of the judge, dismissing him (or the kid) as a protagonist because of his "lack of agency in the narrated events" (185), Schopen's exclusion of the judge’s worldview from the complexities of the narrator’s voice, and especially his evaluation of the narrator as an authoritative seeker, establish the narrator as distinct and even in opposition to the judge. Schopen asserts that the narrator poses fundamental questions and rejects traditional answer systems (191), but in the “inexorable onwardness” of his inquiry does not try to replace such systems. The judge lacks the negative capability of the narrator, maintaining an uncompromising philosophy of war and destiny (Blood Meridian 248-249) and using his breadth of knowledge and command of language to convert his listeners to submission rather than to convince and confront them into questioning. Schopen’s positing of the narrator as “an atemporal observer of a world gone horribly wrong, a world populated by a species grown so alien to him that their inner existence he cannot assess and so does not access” (182) emphasizes that the relationship between the narrator and reader may be more ethically significant than any existing between characters or between the reader and a character.
Bernard Schopen considers the captivating and profoundly disturbing effects of Blood Meridian in terms of its formal elements, and the “manifold but integrated artistry” (188) of the narrative in particular. Though he sees the narrator as exploring “the mystery of evil in human hearts” (191), Schopen is interested not so much in the themes of Blood Meridian as the way in which those themes are constructed and conveyed, and how the construction is in itself central to the meaning of the novel. The “literariness” of the narrator, his direct addresses, his acknowledgements of uncertainty, and his alienation from the world that he describes (the rarity of internal glimpses) create a sense that the narrator is “a consciousness in search of meaning” (181-182). “Far from formless” (184), Schopen finds that the narrative, this search for meaning, is embedded in the complex structure of the story which is in fact imposed by the narrator (186). This control is exemplified by textual and structural patterns such as repeated images and phrases, recurring shifts in tense and tone, and nesting and echoing dramatic frames. Through “repetition-within-variation” (188), the narrator poses his troubling vision and questions from many angles. Thus the narrative, the great art of Blood Meridian, has such a powerful effect because its language and composition have multidirectional force, ensuring that the reader feels the “recognition” that Schopen asserts is “effected by all great literature” (191), and that this recognition is the awareness of a shared uncertainty rather than some absolute truth.
Schopen’s reading of Blood Meridian offers insights into the power that the narrative exerts over the reader, as well as the effort required by the reader to understand the complexities of the narrative. By stating that “recognition” on the part of the reader is one of the greatest achievements of powerful literature (191), Schopen identifies the reader-narrator relationship as difficult to forge but essential. “Carefully controlled,” the language employed by the narrator “carefully controls the reader’s response, producing contextually appropriate effects ranging from the horrific to the humorous” (181). But if the form of Blood Meridian “nearly becomes” its meaning (183), the reader must not just be controlled but also attend to intricate detail and be comfortable with a large degree of uncertainty in order to understand the narrator’s preoccupations. To think outside of the facts of the story to the method of its telling, the reader must be aware of but avoid intoxication with the language, just as the kid (to some extent) sees through Judge Holden by maintaining a wariness of the judge’s rhetoric. Although Schopen does not discuss the rhetorical power of the judge, dismissing him (or the kid) as a protagonist because of his "lack of agency in the narrated events" (185), Schopen's exclusion of the judge’s worldview from the complexities of the narrator’s voice, and especially his evaluation of the narrator as an authoritative seeker, establish the narrator as distinct and even in opposition to the judge. Schopen asserts that the narrator poses fundamental questions and rejects traditional answer systems (191), but in the “inexorable onwardness” of his inquiry does not try to replace such systems. The judge lacks the negative capability of the narrator, maintaining an uncompromising philosophy of war and destiny (Blood Meridian 248-249) and using his breadth of knowledge and command of language to convert his listeners to submission rather than to convince and confront them into questioning. Schopen’s positing of the narrator as “an atemporal observer of a world gone horribly wrong, a world populated by a species grown so alien to him that their inner existence he cannot assess and so does not access” (182) emphasizes that the relationship between the narrator and reader may be more ethically significant than any existing between characters or between the reader and a character.
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