Sunday, April 3, 2011
Orphan in the World
He told the boy that although he was huerfano still he must cease his wanderings and make for himself some place in the world because to wander in this way would become for him a passion and by this passion he would become estranged from men and so ultimately from himself. He said that the world could only be known as it existed in men's hearts. For while it seemed a place which contained men it was in reality a place contained within them and therefore to know it one must look there and come to know those hearts and to do this one must live with men and not simply pass among them. He said that while the huerfano might feel that he no longer belonged among men he must set this feeling aside for he contained within him a largeness of spirit which men could see and that men would wish to know him and that the world would need him even as he needed the world for they were one. Lastly he said that while this itself was a good thing like all good things it was also a danger. --Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing (1994)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Kyle! Look at you! So glad you posted, and what a great passage. It is also interesting reading this along with the Kafka passage Matt recently posted, with its great line: "Gregor took refuge in movement"...and here we have "although he was huerfano still he must cease his wanderings". That's been one of the most interesting things about this blog for me, the way these passages overlap and speak to each other in unexpected ways. It certainly helps that Matt reads so broadly: in the span of about a week he posted Nabokov, Kafka, Whitman and Shakespeare! And here you are with a little literature from the '90s. I love it!
ReplyDeleteYes, thanks for posting, Kyle! I really like this passage, especially "one must live with men and not simply pass among them" and "largeness of spirit [etc.]." And thanks to Rick also for drawing my attention to the orphan's "wanderings" in relation to the Kafka quote.
ReplyDelete(I see this is Book 2 of a trilogy ... Did you read All the Pretty Horses first? It's been sitting on my shelf for a few years; maybe I'll give it a go soon ... I didn't care for The Road though Blood Meridian is fantastic.)
Glad to be back posting - The blog had slipped my mind for a bit and then I forgot how to post. Anyways, I've just finished reading the trilogy and found "The Crossing" to be my favorite of the three. "All the Pretty Horses" is also very good (the movie, however, is not - I stopped it after about 30 minutes). The third book "Cities of the Plain" is a good book, but doesn't hold up to the other two.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you didn't care for "The Road," Matt. That was the book that got me in to McCarthy in the first place. I have appreciated the breadth of your quotes, by the way, and one of your quotes got me to pick up Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" which was hauntingly beautiful. I hope to read more of his stuff later.