On the borders of inhabited land and gender

Finally, Olivier editions offer the three parts of the trilogy "westernienne" Cormac McCarthy in one volume. A few years ago this is the case in English-speaking countries: The Border Trilogy. It was high time that this is the case in France, and if it is obviously done in large size considering the number of pages, it must be recognized that this is for a relatively reasonable price. Make no mistake: the recovery in one volume is probably one of the effects of the extraordinary public success of his latest novel, The Road / Road, not to mention the echo had met just before No Country for Old Men / No, this country is not for the old man with the Coen Brothers. But anyway, the three books available separately so far, as in large size pocket, are now gathered, allowing three volumes to reunite once and for all, and to respond.

Recall that the three works in question for titles: All the Pretty Horses / Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing / The great passage (1994) and Cities of the Plain / Cities in the plain (1998). The whole thus forming what was translated into French under the beautiful title that is "Trilogy borders".

We know that the western genre has always interested Cormac McCarthy, and that he had previously inflicted a shock treatment with his Blood Meridian / Blood Meridian (1985). McCarthy was there far enough in its review of the myths and gender itself, subjecting it to a violent onslaught until rarely achieved in literature. If the Trilogy borders - especially the first volume, "All the Pretty Horses" - met with greater success early on, this is probably because McCarthy bullies are not as much drive. Besides the fact that his style was changing in depth, and in the 90s, with these three works there, he went to a blueprint that now characterizes his writing and which has managed to fly with "The Road". This really was not the case before, and his first works, until "Blood Meridian" (which stands out as an outcome of his first manner), is reported most often by a raging baroque.

The three books in the trilogy the confines therefore accuse this turning point in the writing of McCarthy, increasingly denuded even if it still allows baroque swerving the best effect. Especially, the lyricism which still shows McCarthy strikes, especially when bed beside "No, this country is not for the old man" whose surgical precision only equaled the aridity. In the confines Trilogy, younger characters and require time, language is not yet completely won by the minerality of the landscape and feelings, even if they are often already affected by climate harshness and the rockery. The characters, John Grady Cole for the first volume and Billy Parham for the 2nd, are found associated in the last volume. Set before, during and after the 2nd World War, three novels of the passage, as proclaims the French title of the second volume. This passage, without saying too much on the issue - if you want to get an idea of ​​the content of three accounts, I refer you to the synopsis, findable in the pages linked above for each work - includes the relation to oneself -even at the other, and basically the mineral, plant and animal. The report to the natural environment, to the territory, but also to animals, domesticated or not (the wolves are at the center of the second novel), is so central that you can actually hard to imagine more American. Supported by a mixed language - somewhere between Texas, New Mexico and Mexico, they speak English or Spanish, and sometimes a bit of both - these novels dramatize a passage all the more problematic that the territory is rough and already conquered without actually be. Have the confines been explored? No doubt, but they remain distant, hard to reach and cross; live in these arid and inhospitable territories is not easier, yet these characters could they live elsewhere? Are they not consubstantial to this land? Its inhabitants are they not also inseparable, even if almost everything threatens to separate them? Whatever the bitterness - often very real - of these three novels set in the middle of the 20th century, it is neither in unbridled violence "Blood Meridian" (mid 19th century), nor in his return to uncontrolled skid at the end of the 20th century in "No, this country is not for the old man." One can hardly speak of enchanted for these novels of the Trilogy border, tormented as all the works of Cormac McCarthy, but it floats to the impression of a possible coexistence, even at times of a harmony between the beings and territory, but also with others, beasts and men.

Like all books McCarthy for a good twenty years ago, the French translation of the three volumes of the trilogy was provided by François Hirsch and Patricia Schaeffer. Both say bluntly: one can find fault with them more than one place. But I see for myself how bad it could be otherwise. Probably frightfully difficult to translate to the lexical precision but also for his pace, the inflections of voice, etc., that language is, beyond some strange choices, often made as well as it can be in ours . Note for those who might obstruct, two aspects: there is no McCarthy dissociation of the story and dialogues by punctuation, and many phrases and exchanges are in Spanish. Untranslated in the original text, these passages are not more French, and are not the subject of notes. If one has no concept of Spanish, it may be embarrassed for not understanding many sentences; if one or some of the basics that one is able to infer the meaning, it will be enough and a partial and imperfect understanding does not stop you in your reading (perhaps is it the desired effect).

If McCarthy recent readers have not yet tasted the beauties of this trilogy passing, we urge them, and quite naturally, to do so.

Furthermore, in terms of the revisitation / revision of western genre in literature, be advised for example Desperadoes / Blood of Dalton Ron Hansen, which predates "Blood Meridian" (1979), and one of children McCarthy, Tom Franklin: Hell at the Breech / The Cylinder of Hell (2003). Not to mention books by James Carlos Blake, expert on the subject.