Photograph courtesy of the Illustration courtesy of the |
Wilder, Weirder West Yes, the Texas Book Festival is upon us, and some of us Texas lit fanatics are just fanatical enough to suggest that if the festival were to celebrate just one book, it ought to be the fabulously dark, picaresque novel Blood Meridian , by Texas' most powerful writer, Cormac McCarthy. Presenting a vision of the western frontier far wilder and weirder than the mythic one we Americans have cherished over the years, Blood Meridian tells the story of a nameless young adventurer who joins up with a gang of scalp hunters working their way West. There's a reward of $50 per Apache scalp, but the gang isn't so picky about the heads they harvest them from. No heroes here, only bodies piled up in a blasted landscape where terms like rape, pillage and atrocity begin to sound like naive euphemisms for deeds so horrid they'd likely have Heironymous Bosch hammering his delete key. One of the most interesting things about Blood Meridian is that McCarthy's horrific but terrifically-told tale is based on real events, the single best account of which was written by Samuel Chamberlain -- a writer who had his own touch of dark genius.
Strong stuff, these visions of a wilder, weirder West. Sam Chamberlain alchemized them into a fantastically illustrated memoir. Cormac McCarthy translated them into great literature. But be forewarned, ye thrifty Texas Book Festival attendees, these visions don't come cheap: The TSHA books go for $50 apiece, with deluxe limited editions for $150. A fine condition collector's copy of the first edition of Blood Meridian (published in 1985), goes for $750 and up. For noncollectors, there's always the paperback edition and, of course, the library. (10/30/97) |
More Wilder, Weirder, Western WWW:
Other publications of the Texas State Historical Association
The Cormac McCarthy Society: conferences, discussion groups, books on his books, links, etc.
Texana Ranger |
Chamberlain was a Boston boy whose youthful aspirations ran to fighting, romance,
and theology. The first two pursuits somehow won out, however, and Chamberlain
went West and joined the 1st Dragoons in time to fight many of the key battles of
the Mexican War. In his memoir My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue,
published posthumously, Chamberlain also claimed to have joined the gang of scalp
hunters led by ex-Texas Ranger John Glanton, and it was this account that Cormac
McCarthy expanded and re-imagined in Blood Meridian. Unlike McCarthy's novel,
however, Chamberlain's high-body count tale alternates between scenes of
unspeakable atrocities and innumerable romantic conquests. What makes My
Confession so exquisitely interesting is the fact that Chamberlain's text was
illustrated with his own watercolor illustrations and sketches, some of which are
quite eye-popping. The combined effect could be described as a sort of 19th
century multimedia journalism with a melodramatic flair. The book documents
mostly real events but they are infused with fantasy, romantic ideals, and dime-novel
imagery. Think of a swashbuckling war correspondent, a Peter Arnett crossed
with James Bond (or better yet, a Matt Helm) who wanted to preserve all his
conquests for posterity -- on the battlefield and in the boudoir.
This year, the Texas State Historical Association published the first
completely unexpurgated edition of My Confession, in a large format
(10" x 13") to accommodate facsimile reproductions of Chamberlain's journal
pages and 160 full color illustrations. Annotated by William H. Goetzmann,
one of America's top historians, his peerless prose prepares readers to be
astonished and amazed as they embark on Chamberlain's wild adventures. Also,
at spots in the narrative trail, Goetzmann
cautions us that while Chamberlain may not, in fact, have done everything he
claimed, what he did see and do is more than enough reason to pay careful
attention to the whole package.
