Last Post of the Semester

As I continued in The Crossing, it continues to get more interesting and confusing as most McCarthy books do. The main conflict so far seems to be between the protagonist, Boyd, and a she-wolf that has been walking around hunting the cows that are roaming free. In one scene, McCarthy sis something I have never seen him do before. He showed the book from the perspective of the wolf. This threw me for a loop for a little while. The wolf’s thoughts were rational and coherent, though fairly simple. McCarthy explained the wolf’s situation and background about how its mate had died in the jaws of a trap. This makes the wolf very difficult for Boyd and his father to catch, as she digs up and overturns all the traps. Once again I am a little surprised at McCarthy’s knowledge of somewhat antiquated things like wolf trapping, which he explains step by step, or horse breaking in All the Pretty Horses. I guess being from an upper-class suburb makes me kind of surprised he is so knowledgeable about these things, but it goes back to McCarthy’s history as a wonderer. Once again, in The Crossing, McCarthy fails to break any gender barriers with his female characters. Boyd’s mother is rarely seen and when she is, it is in the stereotypical female role of cooking, clean, and communicating for the family. I think this book has started out faster than All the Pretty Horses and has pulled me in more in the first few pages than ATPH did, but I can’t imagine this wolf hunting is the main conflict in the book, so it will be interesting to see what twists the plot takes.

New McCarthy Book

Now that I have finished my commentary on The Running Mate, a very good book I would recommend to anyone interested in politics, I have started reading The Crossing, the sequel to All the Pretty Horses and the second book in The Border trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. I may or may not be able to finish it before it is due in the library on Jan. 12 though… But it is very interesting to compare and contrast The Crossing with both ATPH and The Road. Of course, McCarthy style is still the same, with long awkward sentences followed by short equally awkward ones, no quotation marks, and dialect within the quotations. The Crossing also seems to be set somewhere in Texas though that has not been clearly defined yet. There is another dark, introversive character like John Grady Cole, named Boyd who I believe will be the protagonist, but that could also be his younger Billy. (I can’t help but think who would name their kids Billy and Boyd.) But there are also differences in the books already. Boyd seems more attached to his family than JGC was which leads me to wonder what is going to happen to make Boyd leave home, as he surely will. McCarthy also has put a lot of figurative language into the beginning of The Crossing which is a literary device I do not remember him using in either of his two other books I have read.

I liked The Road and I like ATPH even more, so I wonder where The Crossing will fall once I (hopefully) finish it.

Ethics in Politics

One topic that is brought up almost incessantly in The Running Mate is ethics in politics, more specifically in elections/confirmations. The main character, Senator Charlie Martin, is forced to make several ethical decisions, first in the confirmation of his friend from war to the post of Secretary of Defense, and then in his own reelection campaign.
His friend up for confirmation, Sly Parkinson, was discovered to have abused dieting pills, and later female member of his staff. However, he was easily the most qualified person for Secretary of Defense being a brilliant military mind. The questioned posed by the situation is, should a person’s personal actions affect their job, and in this case even Parkinson’s good friend Charlie Martin had to say yes, and vote against his confirmation. The question gets a little stickier when you get into the less egregious sexual actions of people such as Bill Clinton and Newt Gringich. Did their actions affect their ability to do their jobs? Probably not. But did their action disqualify them from hold as high of offices as President and Majority Leader? That is where people get into arguments?
Another ethical issue that was addressed in the book is what information can you use against your opponent in a political campaign. Charlie Martin’s political opponent had a radio show in which at one point he condemned “partial-birth abortions.” Martin’s staff found out that his opponent’s wife actually had an abortion fairly late in her pregnancy. Martin debated furiously within himself about whether he should use that information in an add. It would be devastatingly effective and almost guarantee him the win, but it would also be very cruel. It was a difficult situation for both candidates that perplexes me still after thinking about it for awhile. I don’t know what I would do.