Suttree

It's finally done, I've read everything that Cormac ever published. What a year. I plan to write something about that elsewhere, but for now, Suttree.

I think this is Cormac's longest novel at nearly 500 pages. It is episodic in nature and the episodes are presented without a lot of scaffolding to let you know. Cormac provides you with the changing of the seasons and that is the major progressive force of the novel. There is little plot other than Suttree's sort of underboiling search for self. I think you'd have to read it a few times to really mine it, and I think there is something there to mine.

I'm not sure this will be one that I re-read yearly like The Road. It is a little too long for that and parts of it a little too unpleasant. Not unpleasant in the way that The Road can be unpleasant, but I'll get to that.

There is, as usual, a lot to love in Cormac's prose. The characters are compelling and they do ring true. There is the somewhat biblical nature of certain events, questions, etc. I continue to find those big existential questions that Cormac's characters struggle with compelling, even if they are all somewhat wrapped in a system of faith that I do not hold.

There were a few things that stuck out to me. First, published in 1979 and set in the early 50's, I found the discussion of certain characters pretty interesting. There is a character that presents as trans, and my first read of Suttree and his conversation had me pause. There was an actual discussion of pronouns in search of the right one – it was NOT perfect and far from it, but for the scope of that conversation the identified pronoun was respected. I found this really interesting. I went back through the book after and it turns out the pronoun is not exactly respected throughout, and Suttree refers to this character by a different name at points – I didn't track this for a while because I got confused and thought they were different characters. So, complicated and not ideal. But that a book published in 1979 – by Cormac of all people – has this discussion and it didn't turn into a joke or scorn was fascinating to me. The character recurs several times and is a sort of duplicate in some ways for Suttree, and they clearly respect each other. Very strange. There are a couple of articles written on this that I found really interesting, too.

Still, there was a fair bit of the writing that I bumped against pretty hard. I saw a statement somewhere that the women characters in this book exist to fuck or cry and that's about it. That's about how it feels. There are exceptions, but they are at best one-page characters anyway. The men in this book revile women and talk like it, and I found it really unpleasant. I found myself wondering if this was an intentional thing because this is how people (men) in this era and in this region talked, or if this is just Cormac's pen. I think it's a little of both, really. Cormac has exceedingly few if any complex female characters and it is one of his great failings. What I am frustrated by is that the dialogue still rings true. I can imagine people speaking like this. It bummed me out.

Similarly, there is a relationship between Suttree and the teenaged daughter of another character. Apparently this character is 18. Yet, they are frequently described as child like in a way that I found extremely unpleasant. It is possible that the recent Vanity Fair article exploring (in a very poorly written way, and in a very man-defends-Cormac way) Cormac's essentially predatory behavior around a 16 or 17 year old that he (as a 40 year old) began an affair with. Maybe I'd have read this differently if I didn't know about that. But I don't think so. I think I am not all that interested in “childlike” being anywhere near a sex scene. Just stop.

Race is similarly handled as gender. There is a lot of racism in the book, mostly from other characters and in a way that I would expect for the time period. That said, there are a number of visual comparisons to apes and such and those weren't coming out of the mouths of characters, they were in the text as description. Surely we could have done without that. Suttree is not a character that demonstrates racism in the book, but he is surrounded by people and a narrator that use a lot of either directly and maliciously racist language. Again, if it lived solely in the mouths of the riverdwelling characters, it could to an extent be understood as true for the time, place, and characters. But it's in the narration, the author's voice! No thanks. It undermines the characters of color that are players in the story.

Those things aside, I found much of the book spoke to me. All of those big questions, the statements. I'm just going to write out some quotes I liked in closing.

* “... I'm not like you.. I'm not like him. I'm not like Carl. I'm like me. Don't tell me who I'm like.”
* You told me once you believed in God.
The old man waved his hand. Maybe, he said. I got no reason to think he believes in me. Oh I'd like to see him for a minute if I could.
What would you say to him?
Well, I think I'd just tell him. I'd say: Wait a minute. Wait just one minute before you start in on me. Before you say anything, there's just one thing I'd like to know. And he'll say: What's that? And then I'm goin to ast him: What did you have me in that crapgame down there for anyway? I couldn't put any part of it together.
Suttree smiled. What do you think he'll say?
The ragpicker spat and wiped his mouth. I don't believe he can answer it, he said. I dont believe there is a answer.
* He sat with his back to a tree and watched the storm move on over the city. Am I a monster, are there monsters in me?
* There is no one to ask is there? There is no...
* Sometimes I dont know what people's lives are for.
* Jesus wept over Lazarus, said the goatman. It dont say it, but I reckon Lazarus might of wept back when he seen himself back in this vale of tears after he'd just done been safe and dead four days. He must of been in heave. Jesus wouldnt of brought one back from hell would he? I'd hate to get to heaven and then get recalled what about you?

There are several characters that intend to have some direct conversations with their makers on their way out the door. All of them wondering why they've been subjected to all of this. I think we've all had sad or angry questionings like that to the empty air, whatever our beliefs.