Fragility of hope

US author Cormac McCarthy was a seer who foretold the destruction of our natural world in his novels, writes PATRICK MULLIGAN.

- PATRICK MULLIGAN

Last month, American literary titan Cormac McCarthy died. Having lived to 89, across the industrial and information age, he probably dies complete. As someone who so extravagantly sought to transcend his time, he leaves a legacy that almost befits the audaciousness of his literary ambitions.

Over here, we have not thought much of him since his death, but McCarthy knew about us. Although famously reclusive, after the publication of The Road, dedicated to his son John, he told Rolling Stone: "If the family situation was different, I could see taking John and going to New Zealand. It's a civilised place."

His first novel was published in 1965, but popular recognition came about 27 years later, with the first of his western trilogy, All the Pretty Horses. While that trilogy is enduringly beautiful, it was the two bleak bookends to it, Blood Meridian and The Road, that my thoughts turned to. One, the story of humankind's doom brought forth by its rampage of sadistic destruction, and the cheerier of the two, about the apocalypse.