Thursday, February 17, 2011

The argument of the village atheist

I was first exposed to Cormac McCarthy with “All the Pretty Horses” and whenever I read a masterpiece like that my habit is to read all of the authors books to see if this book was a flash in the pan, or if the author was a real literary genius.

About six books into my reading, I read some totally disgusting stuff written by Cormac McCarthy regarding incest and necrophilia and dismissed him as a whackjob, but I now believe that we was only experimenting with shock value in his lesser works.

On the other hand, Cormac is from out West (Texas) and he runs that world’s largest used bookstore, and I have been known to spend an entire day browsing the stacks, so this was a an indicator of his good taste:



When I heard that Cormac McCarthy teamed up with Tommy Lee Jones (A Harvard Man and roommate of Al Gore), I knew that I had to see the “Sunset Limited” and I was not disappointed.



It’s a masterwork of the English language, subtle nuances and turns of phrases that astonishes you with almost every sentence.

This excerpt from the Sunset Limited (now showing on HBO) brings Cormac’s literary genius into sharp focus.

“The argument of the village atheist whose single passion is to revile endlessly that which he denies the existence of in the first place.

Your fellowship is a fellowship of pain and nothing more...."

This topic of God vs. Atheism is fascinating because it’s true; atheists can be more zealous in their passions for that which does not exist as those with faith!

The Sunset Limited is now showing on HBO.