Cormac McCarthy and the Deathly Hallows
Today is some sort of literary Harmonic Convergence: One of this country's very best writers is celebrating his 74th birthday on a day or, more precisely, an evening, that in the general vicinity of bookstore registers will be like D-Day but without the shooting and the sand.
It is a good day indeed for booklovers, I would say.
I was going to try to write a parody based on the title of this post, but the title was the best part of what I came up with--not a good sign. So instead I thought I'd link to two older posts of mine, coincidentally written within a week of each other in July of 2005: this one, in which I mark McCarthy's 72nd birthday by writing about Blood Meridian; and this one, which recounts the trip the Mrs. and I made to Wal-Mart(!?) to buy our copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (I know, I know--read to see why).
A quick word about the latter post: It seems that with the release of each Potter book there has also come along a peripheral discussion on the topic of, if I may broadly characterize it, "But is it any good?" (Embedded in that discussion is, inevitably, "Is it any good for us?") The same has been true this time around as well, though I'm deliberately avoiding a lot of the chatter this year lest I accidentally bump into spoilers and I, too, be reduced to tears. But that post says all that I would want to say about the matter anyway, so why repeat myself?
In yet another strange confluence, though, that same post mentions Oprah's Book Club and its influence on book marketing . . . and we all know what just happened in that little corner of the cosmos . . .
Anyway: Happy Birthday, Mr. McCarthy, and many happy returns of the day to you. Thank you for the gifts of your novels, which harrow the soul and give us not just glimpses but the most intense sorts of meditations on our darker and better natures. Thanks also for not yet beating me up over the title of this humble blog. And to Ms. Rowling, thank you for giving countless people--in particular my daughters--not just pleasure but much of consequence to think about, and thank you most particularly for treating children everywhere with such genuine respect and care.
