For the last two years, I’ve been reading more and more of Cormac McCarthy’s work. I started with Blood Meridian (which probably wasn’t the best place to start), The Road, Child of God and The Border Trilogy. The latest McCarthy book I read was The Outer Dark. The Outer Dark still unsettles readers decades later, and for good reason. It’s an early but essential work by McCarthy. I was left asking myself if this is a story about punishment, or about a world where redemption never existed in the first place?
The Outer Dark is a dark and twisted fairy tale of two characters wandering and experiencing different people along the way who meet them with different responses, both good and bad. Are their experiences a reflection of their motivations, or is it simply a matter of chance?
I try to avoid any spoilers at all in my reviews. I will provide very light spoilers, so if you don’t want any information about the book this blog post may not be for you.
The story begins with two siblings, Culla and Rinthy, who has just given birth to their incestuous child. After Culla leaves with the baby and comes back without it, Rinthy goes looking for it, and Culla goes after Rinthy. They both experience a cold, uncaring and dangerous world. They also both meet a trio of men who come in and out of the story at key points.
The landscape is a character in the story. As the title suggests, the outside world is dark and mysterious. Nature is indifferent, it doesn’t care about us or what happens to us. In the world innocent isn’t rewarded, it is exposed and exploited.
The trio of men mentioned earlier play a big part in The Outer Dark, there are different possible interpretations that can be drawn by the reader. Are they simply bad people, manifestations of guilt and hate, or are they biblical agents of punishment? I won’t get into detail with how I interpreted their inclusion in the story, but I do see the seeds that are planted in this early work from McCarthy that he uses in his later work like Blood Meridian. I even wondered if this was the framework for a character like the Judge. “They judge, but are never just.”
In the end, we are left with no catharsis or justice. The novel ends ends not in resolution, but in continuation. The world continues on, indifferent to what our characters experience. The Outer Dark is a Southern Gothic story that challenges the reader to sit in the discomfort of accepting that we live in a cold, cruel and indifferent world. There is no redemption or forgiveness.
The Outer Dark can be found here on Amazon via the Page Chewing affiliate link.
