A bloody and barbarous god : the metaphysics of Cormac McCarthy /
Metaphysics of Cormac McCarthy
Petra Mundik.
- Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, (c)2016.
- 1 online resource
Includes bibliographies and index.
Introduction." A direct apprehension of reality": Cormac McCarthy and the perennial philosophy -- "Terra damnata": anticosmic mysticism in Blood meridian -- "Suzerain of the earth": the mystery of the judge in Blood meridian -- "Disciples of a new faith": satanic parody in Blood meridian -- "This luminosity in beings so endarkened": gnostic soteriology in Blood meridian -- "Diverging equity": the nature of existence in All the pretty horses -- "All was fear and marvel": positive and negative epiphanies in The crossing, Book one -- "The illusion of proximity": transcendence and immanence in The crossing, Book two -- "Mourners in the darkness": blindness and insight in The crossing, Book three -- "The right and godmade sun": destiny and salvation in The crossing, Book four -- "Beauty and loss are one": transience and fate in Cities of the plain -- "The bloody and barbarous god": sin and forgiveness in Cities of the plain -- "That man who is all men": the illusory and the real in the epilogue to The border trilogy -- "In all that dark and all that cold": good and evil in No country for old men -- "All things of grace and beauty": the presence of the sacred in The road.
"A Bloody and Barbarous God investigates the relationship between gnosticism, a system of thought that argues that the cosmos is evil and that the human spirit must strive for liberation from manifest existence, and the perennial philosophy, a study of the highest common factor in all esoteric religions, and how these traditions have influenced the later novels of Cormac McCarthy, namely, Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain, No Country for Old Men, and The Road. Mundik argues that McCarthy continually strives to evolve an explanatory theodicy throughout his work, and that his novels are, to a lesser or greater extent, concerned with the meaning of human existence in relation to the presence of evil and the nature of the divine."--
9780826356710
McCarthy, Cormac, 1933-2023 --Criticism and interpretation.
Metaphysics in literature. Good and evil in literature. Apocalypse in literature. Gnosticism in literature. Philosophy in literature. Mysticism in literature. Spirituality in literature. End of the world in literature.