Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces

Estes, Andrew Keller. Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013. 239 pp. Paperback. $70. ISBN 9789042036291.Review by O. Alan NobleAndrew Keller Estes' new book reveals the usefulness of environmental criticism for reading Cormac McCarthy's novels. His central argument is that McCarthy's later works present a dialectic vision of nature as either utopian or dystopian without privileging either vision. A synthesis of these perspectives comes out occasionally: "some of McCarthy's texts hint at a new way forward, an escape from traditional ways of conceiving space and a better approach to environment" (16). Estes describes this as a "biocentric" map: "an egalitarian view of nature in which all members of the ecosphere have intrinsic rights" (41). As an introduction to trends in environmental criticism and their applications to contemporary literature, Estes' book is insightful. His application of this criticism to McCarthy's novels varies in effectiveness. Interpreting the voices in the novels within the framework of environmental criticism generally is helpful for situating McCarthy in the larger movement of modernity and its relationship to environments. The most daring claim of the book, that McCarthy offers a "new way forward," is regrettably less persuasive than it could be. Despite this deficiency, Estes has contributed a notable addition to McCarthy scholarship. His book will be an essential text for any scholars who wish to consider McCarthy and environmental criticism.Estes begins by presenting providing some theoretical context for environmental criticism and the American tradition of writing about nature, and then presents a survey of McCarthy scholarship. For readers who are new to this movement, the chapter on environmental criticism chapter will be particularly helpful. Estes lays out a brief survey of the important literature surrounding the major binaries that define environmental criticism (space/place, nature/culture, wilderness/civilization, etc.) and then connects that terminology to McCarthy's later works. In his second chapter, Estes gives a rich survey of the tradition in American literature of writing nature either in strongly positive or strongly negative terms. Estes traces each of these trends through American history, from the Edenic vision of Columbus and the demonic vision of Vespucci through the the utopian perspectives of Crevecoeur, Jefferson, and Emerson. Finally, Estes surveys McCarthy scholarship in general and choses three articles to focus on that pertain more closely to his thesis. Much of this survey feels extraneous to his argument. Of note is his treatment of John Cant's article on The Road included in Bloom's Modern Critical Views: Cormac McCarthy. Disappointingly, Estes chides Cant's reading of the "roadmap" as a metaphor for McCarthy's "literary past" (96). Estes objects because Cant "fails to point out that it is an oil company roadmap, something which implies a very specific view of nature" (96). It is unclear why Estes expects Cant to perform the same ecocritical reading of McCarthy as himself. Overall the theoretical half of Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces is insightful, although the reader may wish he had opted to devote more space to his close readings.Estes starts his close reading with Blood Meridian, asserting that the novel interrogates and unsettles several binaries. An example of this is the collapse of the wilderness/civilization distinction in the scalp hunters (114). Estes reads the environments as largely reflecting the negative view of nature in American literature. Seemingly in line with this evil world, Estes interprets the judge as a caricature of the enlightenment belief that the earth is a wilderness that we must subdue and enslave. The judge's view of nature is challenged by the consequences of western expansion and the slaughter of the American buffalo. By showing the destructive, logical conclusion to "mastering nature" Blood Meridian encourages readers to rethink their relationship with nature, according to Estes. …