“[She] would even be a good woman,” the misfits said, “if at every moment of your life there was someone in the neighborhood to shoot you. “[1]
These words, at the end of Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, came out of my head as I progressed in Comarc McCarthy’s novel A Estrada (Editora Alfaguara, 2006). road live every day aware that someone is there to shoot them, just along the curve, in the grass beyond the ditch, or appearing behind them. Along with the constant threat, McCarthy’s lean prose builds a world in which trinkets and distractions have been eliminated. Neither the color nor the rays of the sun adorn this landscape. The story pits us against characters constantly forced to recognize what matters.
- No to-do list.
- The providential day itself.
- All beautiful and pleasant things.
- Such as those carried in the heart.
- Have a common origin in pain.
- Were born of pain and ashes.
- Then he whispered to the sleeping child: I have you.
- [2].
Man and son in this affliction testify with their own existence that human beings must live for others, otherwise there is no reason to live and show us that we cannot live without hope.
The world as we know it
The first paragraph of the novel evokes Plato, Bunyan, Jonas and Dante:
In the dream from which he awoke, he walked through a cave where the child took him by the hand, his light playing on the damp limestone walls, like the pilgrims of a fable engulfed and lost in the bowels of a granite beast. holes in the stone where the water ran and sang. It silently counts the minutes of the earth and its hours and days and years constantly. Until they met in a large stone room where there was an ancient black lake. [3]
Like Dante in a dark forest, McCarthy’s pilgrim will be led through hell to love not for Virgil, but for the child. Like Christian Bunyan, he carries his burden, which he will lose on the way to the heavenly city. Jonah, this man’s journey and experience are in themselves a message that calls the Ninivites to repentance. Like Plato, McCarthy tries to free us from the illusion of the cave to discover what is real (the “shapes” are invoked everywhere, as is the image of “philosophers chained to the wall of an asylum”).
McCarthy’s pilgrim is reluctant to awaken from the dreams of the world as we know him, and McCarthy asks his audience to repent of unsettling restlessness and wake up in this world, the world of our dreams. water, “water so fresh I could smell it,” finds “nothing in his memory anywhere in the world of something so good. “Enjoy your next sip.
As Job’s wife, the man’s wife gave the dots (the verse “God Maudire and die?”It appears in the novel, briefly followed by the suggestive word “Blessed”). He said those who survived were the “undead of a horror movie. She said there was no counter-extension, that her only hope was “nothing eternal. “But McCarthy’s counter-sacrifice is faith, hope, and sacrificed love. These show the bankruptcy of a desperate and incredulous existence that ends in nothing. The man even pleaded with his wife not to kill himself with the words “for God’s sake, woman. “
These three remain
McCarthy’s words describe a world of “fragility of all things revealed,” and the story he tells in this world shows that when it all ends, there is hope, faith, love, and life left, that a man knows there is no greater love to give. your life for someone other than life itself?the fact that we are still alive? he testifies against despair. The birth of the child was the guarantee of man’s hope and faith against his wife’s desperate desperation that a child was born into such a world. The man and his wife responded in the opposite way: for her, the child was a pain that took hold of her heart; for him, a shining miracle of kindness:
They sat by the window and ate at midnight with their robes by candlelight and watched the distant cities burn. A few nights later, she gave birth in her bed, under the light of a battery-powered flashlight. Gloves used to do the dishes. The unlikely appearance of the small crown on the head, scratched with flowing black blood and hair. The stench of meconium. His screams meant nothing to him. [4]
The alternatives are clear: death/life; despair/hope; selfishness/love. And in this book, good people choose life, hope, and love. The good guys never give up the points. The good never break the little promises, for that leads to the great ones; The good ones bring fire. The nights were cold blizzards and black coffins, and the long reach of the morning conveyed a terrible silence. Like a sunrise before the battle? There were times when I saw the child sleep, when he started crying uncontrollably, but it wasn’t about death, he wasn’t sure what it was, but he thought it was a matter of beauty or kindness. Things I wouldn’t have done, to think anyway.
High contrast
Other religious responses also contrast. At one point, man and child meet a traveler, “an arched old man,” and he looks at the world and his experience as if nothing mattered. When the man asks, “How would you know if you were the Last Man on Earth?”The old man said to the man:
“It wouldn’t make any difference. When you die, is it as if the rest of the world dies too?
Man replies, “I think God would know, is that it?”
The old man: “God does not exist.
The man: “No. “
McCarthy condemns the old man’s logic by presenting himself contradicting the answer: “God does not exist and we are his prophets. “
Does man face the illogical affirmation of the old man?What is the prophet of a God who does not exist?With a counter-extension regarding the indifferent rejection of God’s old man: “I don’t understand how you’re still alive, how do you eat?
The claim that “God does not exist” is answered by the counterproposal “are you still alive?”Man seems to suggest that life itself is proof of God’s existence, a test against meaninglessness. To the question “How do you eat?” the old beggar replies, “People give you things. “With these words, the old man confesses that, apart from the Christian virtue of charity, he has no life expectancy. Man confronts God’s rejection of the old man with the fact of the continuity of the old man’s life, and the old man himself acknowledged that the generosity of others sustains his life. The broader account explains that generosity and charity flow only from faith in God, from the hope that God will deliver and provide, and of love that imitates the very love of Christ, who gave his life so that we can live.
When the man and child leave, the old man asks if the old man will thank the child for feeding him, but the old man refuses to do so. Christianity makes gratitude possible, but the old man does not express the gratitude he owes him.
This dialogue with the old man shows that love is purely Christian; the old man has no category for love, kindness or kindness, and man’s suspicious exchange with him also shows how essential trust is for human communication. In other words, apart from God, there can be no sweetness or dignity. The old man does not even wish good luck to man and child, and McCarthy therefore seems to imply that belief in God’s providence reinforces the species. so the old man doesn’t want him. As he left, the man said to his son, “There’s not a lot of good news along the way. “[5] The old man does not have the gospel.
The book begins with the man who wakes up to groping his son in the dark, determined to make sure that he is there, that they are safe; the book ends with the man who falls asleep, choosing not to kill his son before he dies. , clearly confident that even if you are not awake to protect the child, you can rest knowing that you will be safe. For this pilgrim, dying is an act of faith. They wandered not in a cave, but in a world without civilization, A world without shapes. Forms are the world we enjoy now, if so, if McCarthy’s Jonah leads us to repent by escorting ourselves through hell, the pilgrims advancing through the ruins of the Vanity Fairs.
McCarthy seems to want us to know that the life we aspire to is the life we have.
1 – Or? Connor, Flannery. Full stories. Cosac Naify, 2008. P. 175.
2 – McCarthy, Cormac. La road. Editora Alfaguara, 2006. Translation by Adriana Lisboa (Kindle edition, ranked 557).
3 -Dem, position 33
4 -Dem, position 613.
5. In the original, “Good news”. Here, I took the liberty of translating freely, as Adriana Lisboa’s translation says. What destroys the biblical and evangelical concept of “good news. “? NEW TESTAMENT.
By: James Hamilton. © The Gospel Coalition. Website: thegospelcoalition. org. Translated with permission. Source: The Life We Desire: On the Road to Cormac McCarthy
Original: the road? Lay novels we recommend [12]. © Faithful Ministry. Website: MinisterioFiel. com. br. All rights reserved. Translation: Leonardo Bruno Galdino. Review: William Teixeira.