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A review by brandonpytel
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
4.0
Reluctantly read this as part of a book club but ended up really vibing it. Cormac McCarthy has that signature style that if you can get past the first 50 pages and really get into, you’re nearly always in for a treat (a treat, of course, being a stretch for any McCarthy novel, but you get the point).
Cornelius Suttree is a wanderer in or outside of Knoxville, Tennessee, exiled from his past – of which is only vaguely alluded to in the form of a funeral, one or two references of a wife, and a conversation or two between him and his family members. He finds “home” with the criminals, outcasts, and homeless of rural Tennessee. This uncovered past is part of the mystery of the novel as much as it leads to the reader’s frustration – we can only make guesses as to why Suttree ditched his previous life for one of hoboing and wandering.
But still, as much as Suttree’s good-natured personality gets him in with this lower-tier crowd, so does it make him stand out: something about Suttree is presented different than the rest – he’s attractive, smart, independent – he doesn’t belong there yet he fits in.
In that way, Suttree is given much more agency than his fellow drifters. Whereas those rural bodies sneak by through crime, drinking, comradery, and questionable business ventures, Suttree seems to have the means, if he wished to, to dish the life he’s carved out for himself. Instead, he sinks further into the hauntedness and stagnancy of the place, always returning and living off occasionally selling fish, receiving inheritances, or falling in with the “right” people.
McCarthy doesn’t use a plot to tell this story but rather muses on overarching themes of masculinity, roots and familial ties, home, race, and friendships, the last of which is embodied in the hilarious relationship between Suttree and Harrogate, also referred to as the city mouse, whose notable ventures include poisoning bats, jerry rigging boats out of car hoods, stealing change from phones, and exploring the underground tunnels (very Tom Sawyer-esque, yet strangely doesn’t become much of a plot-point).
Suttree chooses this life, this self-destructive path that he cannot avoid as much as we want him to ascent from, that by the time the novel ends, we can only assume he will revert back to that place he’s not from and only barely belongs, for reasons we will never quite understand. And still, he’s a sympathetic enough character, living around funny enough people, juxtaposed by that gothic, sometimes hellish, Southern prose that is so McCarthy, that the book is worth reading for both entertainment and curiosity, having us root for Suttree while concerned for his wellbeing, regardless of how much of that wellbeing, and descent, is of his own doing.
Cornelius Suttree is a wanderer in or outside of Knoxville, Tennessee, exiled from his past – of which is only vaguely alluded to in the form of a funeral, one or two references of a wife, and a conversation or two between him and his family members. He finds “home” with the criminals, outcasts, and homeless of rural Tennessee. This uncovered past is part of the mystery of the novel as much as it leads to the reader’s frustration – we can only make guesses as to why Suttree ditched his previous life for one of hoboing and wandering.
But still, as much as Suttree’s good-natured personality gets him in with this lower-tier crowd, so does it make him stand out: something about Suttree is presented different than the rest – he’s attractive, smart, independent – he doesn’t belong there yet he fits in.
In that way, Suttree is given much more agency than his fellow drifters. Whereas those rural bodies sneak by through crime, drinking, comradery, and questionable business ventures, Suttree seems to have the means, if he wished to, to dish the life he’s carved out for himself. Instead, he sinks further into the hauntedness and stagnancy of the place, always returning and living off occasionally selling fish, receiving inheritances, or falling in with the “right” people.
McCarthy doesn’t use a plot to tell this story but rather muses on overarching themes of masculinity, roots and familial ties, home, race, and friendships, the last of which is embodied in the hilarious relationship between Suttree and Harrogate, also referred to as the city mouse, whose notable ventures include poisoning bats, jerry rigging boats out of car hoods, stealing change from phones, and exploring the underground tunnels (very Tom Sawyer-esque, yet strangely doesn’t become much of a plot-point).
Suttree chooses this life, this self-destructive path that he cannot avoid as much as we want him to ascent from, that by the time the novel ends, we can only assume he will revert back to that place he’s not from and only barely belongs, for reasons we will never quite understand. And still, he’s a sympathetic enough character, living around funny enough people, juxtaposed by that gothic, sometimes hellish, Southern prose that is so McCarthy, that the book is worth reading for both entertainment and curiosity, having us root for Suttree while concerned for his wellbeing, regardless of how much of that wellbeing, and descent, is of his own doing.