A splatter of paint here and there never hurt anyone.
a written sketch | an encountered text
sketch⬩text
monthly on The Matterhorn
SKETCH: The following is a word sketch - a meditation on writing.
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Seated at the window on a tall stool. The busy hum of the cafe, like bees tending to their hive, keeping us afloat, creating words-as-honey. I consider Milton’s bees — those playfully allegiant to the Devil. Unknowing of their existence as God’s mere marionettes. Winnie-the-Pooh’s honey — sustenance so powerful it becomes his Pharmakon1. We all crave something that sweet, that toxic, taking away all rational processes of the mind and body.
In the dissonant sounds, I discover a melody I am fond of and it floats onto paper. Halfway through, I lose it. My ears chase some echo of what once was, but it has drifted out the door and onto the streets. I can see it before me through the window, now silent. Those souls interacting whilst I sit in the solitude of my mind.
Sometimes the writing is just shit when you look back on it. You remind yourself not to look, yet. You have to play with ideas and language like this. Here, it’s a more communal experience. You can’t control the harmonies or the interruptions. A splatter of paint here and there never hurt anyone. It might be the bright spot complementing the rest, shining asynchronously. Or it might be erased as an underpainting, visible only to the creator. A secret layer of philosophy or beauty or words leading toward something unnamable, unimaginable. It glows out from the page at only you, swirling into the space of those parallel worlds all jumbled up into some kind of intensely blazing consciousness.
The words themselves imagine. They make a new space. Synergistically, they are. They are that something. They are existence. They are a thing beyond words though they are words. It is the space between the words, the absences, that birth discoveries sometimes so bold, so connected with the deeper infinite universe that they simply become tiny little energy particles or little quarks that move into that immortal realm we are all trying to reach even though we tell ourselves that a mortal life is best.
The world comes back into focus when my hands leave the keys. They were moving at lightning speed. Unaware of what I had created, I don’t dare read it back, saving it for later. When it will come to me like something once again new.
I snap into time and space. I ride my bicycle in the sharp February rain. Trying to cycle into a new trajectory. Seeking a peace in the world my fingers fail to find.
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TEXT: I share with you a recent encounter with a text.
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The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy2
We lost a great author when McCarthy died last year. Probably my favorite work from him is Blood Meridian, which I find to be an intriguing meditation on violence and the deep darkness within us, among other things. Luckily, for me, about half of his oeuvre still awaits my eyes, but I was drawn to his 2022 publications on a trip to Daunt Books in London this past November.
I’ve recently finished The Passenger, which is the last novel McCarthy published along with its companion book Stella Maris, which I am now eager to read. The story is about Bobby Western, a salvage diver who makes a mysterious discovery in the Gulf of Mexico and who continues to hold shame about his father’s involvement with the nuclear bomb. With layers of history, surrealism, and mystery, the story progresses in a way that allows for many tangents about philosophy and science to coexist with the central narration. It is strange and haunting, then at times punchy and personal.
One could do an extended intertextual reading between this book and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.3 These fictions play between the personal effects of this history as it happened, including surrealism to push our understanding into a metaphysical world. My father was adamant about viewing the film, in part because at one time his father worked in related spaces engineering helicopters for the military. The ghosts of the twentieth century are still so present in our own identities as well as the world order. However, we may never understand why some things happened as they did or be able to fully explain what should have been done at various times of historical warfare. Nolan and McCarthy each investigate the individual mind in relation to this period and its aftermath.
Similarly, we are haunted by how we may or may not be able to help others in our personal lives. McCarthy’s Bobby has anger and questions about his inability to save his sister (the subject of the second novel).
If you enjoy these layers as well as an experimental structure, both on the narrative level and on the level of words and punctuation, you may find this book intriguing. Those of you who have read it, I would love to hear your take in the comments.
Also, thanks to a Note discussion thread from
, there was a very interesting discussion about punctuation and dialogue at the time that I was reading this book. I mentioned The Passenger in that discussion and others, including Nathan, mentioned McCarthy more generally. McCarthy gives us no indicator of dialogue in terms of punctuation (and leaves off some other varieties, like certain apostrophes). The latest book I read — Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith — likewise uses no punctuation to indicate dialogue. I found that the effect on each of these novels was a more intimate, unmediated experience. I fell into the words. One also reads more closely, quite aptly, to avoid confusion. It made me more aware of the slight shifts in diction and tone between characters. I also felt that his dynamic play of language more than makes up for the sparseness of punctuation. But not all agree! A quick Google search will lead you to many online discussion threads of vehement feelings one way or the other. Perhaps this is exactly what McCarthy was after. Feel free to share your thoughts on this controversial topic.⎯⎯⎯⎯
What are you reading/viewing or writing/creating? Let’s hear it.
Thanks for being here.
I recorded a podcast about the Pharmakon here.
If you’re in the US, you can click on the above link to purchase the book through my Bookhsop.org affiliate page and support both local bookshops and my work. Thank you!
One could also compare Oppenheimer to George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck (about Edward Murrow and the McCarthy trials) to see the distinction between the styles. I think Clooney’s film is far superior when it comes to the subtle effects of language and intimate as well as broadcast conversation in response to the anti-Communist movement in the US. However, Oppenheimer is doing something different. I almost felt that these trials were more background for us to dive deeply into the mind of a troubled genius. I could go on, but I’ll pick up on this if anyone wants to discuss in the comments.
I must have missed that Notes thread on punctuation in dialogue, but that is something I have been thinking a LOT on lately. Leaving it out where I can. Tell what’s said rather than punctuating what’s said.
I’m reading Elena Ferrante right now and she does so masterfully.
Really liked this Kate! I need to check out more Cormac McCarthy - so far I've only read The Road and I think it's sheer bleakness stopped me reading more!