(1979) Suttree

Somewhere in the gray wood by the river is the huntsman and in the brooming corn and in the castellated press of cities. His work lies all wheres and his hounds tire not. I have seen them in a dream, slaverous and wild and their eyes crazed with ravening for souls in this world. Fly them.

Plot Summary

Suttree begins with a thick description of the filthy and vile environment of Knoxville, Tennessee, where Cormac McCarthy spent many of his formative years. Cornelius Suttree lives in a houseboat along the Tennessee River, and despite the grime of the city and events such as a suicide dragged from the river, his fishing life seems quaint. Suttree is prone to dissatisfying self-reflection, particularly during his time spent in the workhouse at the beginning of the novel. This separates him from the simple and comically immature Gene Harrogate, who is in jail with Suttree for having sexual encounters with a farmer’s watermelons. When Suttree is not in the company of his drinking companions and comrades, he contemplates the meaning of his life. These insights into Suttree’s consciousness are the reader's primary method of becoming acquainted with an elusive protagonist. A turning point occurs when Suttree receives word of the death of his infant son, who he has abandoned along with his wife, and after a violent reception from his inlaws, grieves over his loss while filling the new grave with his own hands.

Returning to Knoxville, Suttree suffers through another winter drinking with friends. In spring, Suttree bonds with his Indian neighbor Michael, and regretfully assists in disposing of a friend’s long-dead father. After wandering in the woods, hallucinating from starvation in a search for either meaning or death, Suttree returns home to recover. Restless again, Suttree enlists in musseling with a family he meets on the river, traveling downstream and becoming involved with the oldest daughter, Wanda. However, a landslide on the river banks tragically kills her and sends Suttree back to Knoxville. Suttree tries to find comfort in his prostitute girlfriend, Joyce, who terminates the relationship in a moment of madness, smashing up the inside of their new car. With an eerie premonition of Callahan's passing, the slaughter of strong-willed Ab Jones by the police, the loss of the rag picker Suttree’s fears of death creep into reality. Suttree falls ill to typhoid fever, which induces a prolonged hallucination. Suttree finally decides to leave Knoxville after discovering Harrogate is back in jail and finding himself on the lam for the destruction of a police car. Recovering from his near-death experience, Suttree flees from the destruction of McAnally flats towards an uncertain future. 

Critical Analysis

Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree may be difficult to read, but many critics believe Suttree is his best work. Suttree is a unique and complex character whose flaws and foibles make him relatable even as his eccentric philosophical ruminations may alienate some readers. The reader mirrors Suttree’s search for meaning as he or she attempts to follow interwoven thoughts on his twin brother, frazzled events in altered states of consciousness, and morbid obsessions with death. In many ways, Suttreemirrors Dante’s Inferno, as both portray an allegorical search for meaning through a physical journey. At first, it may seem that Suttree’s mastery of the Tennessee River, both through his houseboat and fishing for a living, construct him as a modern Knoxvillian form of Charon, the ferryman in Dante’s hell. Yet, Suttree may also be read as the poet Dante who must descend into hell in order to find his way out of the dark wood. Suttree often finds himself physically and spiritually lost in the city of Knoxville. As in Dante’s journey, several characters Suttree encounters act as minor Virgils, who guide him both spiritually and physically through Knoxville. Yet, these same characters may also turn out to be more alike the souls damned for eternity.

While Dante’s journey is a Christian allegory, Suttree’s is an existential allegory, played out through his thoughts, memories, and dreams. An existentialist reading exposes Suttree as a stuck character who has not gotten past the obstacle of his dead infant twin, and as such cannot live life as fully, passionately, and angst-free as would be necessary for a successful existentialist. The abundance of characters in the novel do not always share a direct purpose, but a very slow trend of Suttree’s acceptance to their existence and role in his life reveals a window of hope. The uniting of those who interact with Suttree would show a certain commitment or willingness to share a burden with others. William Prather states Cornelius Suttree is nearing readiness for that stage: “Suttree is not about commitment and all, that it is instead about rejection, dissatisfaction, and the absence of hope….As [Suttree]…prepares to hitch out of the city, he is empowered by many of the rewards of absurd existence discussed by Camus: lucidity, an enhanced power of consciousness, the freedom to act with responsibility, and a posture of perpetual defiance.” (Prather 148-140, Luce 199) Frank Shelton and Diane Luce argue that Suttree’s recognition of the absurdity of the world, breeds the desire for absolute abolishment of the world: Any escape becomes a good escape. Thus, Suttree takes on a life of temporary pleasures and meanings, becoming emotionally and physically nomadic, save only the form of his twin, who continues to weigh on his psyche. Still searching for the token out of hellish Knoxville and the harrowing spirit of his stillborn twin, Suttree seeks more bearable forms of the underworld through his sublimated lifestyle.

Suttree’s internal battles are not the only source of his existential anxiety. Knoxville itself has a major impact on its inhabitants. Critics have debated over the city and its inhabitants’ characteristics. John W. Aldridge and Kenneth Lincoln both describe the derelict characters as Dickensian (Alrdige 93, Lincoln 74). Douglas J. Canfield finds the “carnivalesque” atmosphere a form of “grotesque folk humor” (Canfield 667,691). Jim Crace claims the Knoxville slums as tribal, defined as, “a group of people in a primitive or barbarous stage of development,” describing the various characters of this collective as, “city derelicts, rag pickers, possum hunters, and various junk yard angels who pass their days in bars… or in the work-house penitentiary” (Crace 682). He compares the collection of regional characters to Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, but without the allegorical context. Mark Royden Winchell also finds McCarthy’s fiction reminiscent of Faulkner, but without an underlying morality. However, while lacking a foundational morality, he asserts Suttree’s Knoxville may be a social and political statement. In another search for literary correspondences, Frank W. Shelton relates the filthy city to T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland.”

McCarthy’s representation of Knoxville as gruesome, immoral and hellish may reflect McCarthy’s personal disenchantment with Tennessee. This reading may explain many critics’ complaints about the novel’s shortcomings. Many critics feel the episodic plot lacks direction; John W. Aldrige describes a lack of “profundity” associated with Suttree’s failure to progress, a sentiment echoed by Kenneth Lincoln. According to Canfield the novel is “cluttered with details,” and even Edwin Arnold admits it is “difficult”. While these may be deserved criticisms, we can also read Knoxville through ideas in the Inferno. By showing that the novel’s meaning requires such awkward form, we may be able to refute its claims of imperfection. McCarthy describes Knoxville as if hell has risen to the surface of the earth. For instance, Suttree thinks that while his father may be in purgatory, he is in “a terrestrial hell” (14). Much like the souls in Dante’s hell, the novel is composed of forever static characters, endlessly repeating their drunken, sinful lives. One may argue that these characters suck Suttree into a life of sin, mirroring Dante’s temptation to pity the damned he encounters. However, Suttree must not separate himself from his companions, but rather from his dead kin.

While staring at his grandfather as he lies on his death bed, Suttree thinks “The dead would take the living with them if they could” (13). The dead, metaphorically, do take Suttree with them, as Suttree constantly battles to separate himself from his dead kin. The first instance occurs after Suttree leaves his friends to their drinking and revelry and begins the journey home: “In the long arcade of the bus station footfalls came back like laughter. He marches darkly towards his darkly marching shape in the glass of the depot door. His fetch come up from life’s other side like an autoscopic hallucination, Suttree and Antisuttree, hand reaching to the hand” (28)., Suttree finds company and comfort in his shadow, or the Antisuttree, which demonstrates a tendency toward introversion of his darker self. An omniscient viewpoint displays Suttree’s thoughts and behaviors, while Suttree from a third person perspective sagaciously hides these negatively patterned mannerisms, effectively creating a dual metaphor: Suttree’s persona versus the real Suttree, and the living Suttree beset by his dead infant twin. Other instances of twin behavior occur in dream sequences, a method of altered consciousness that reveals Suttree’s inner thoughts and turmoil:

They bore a dead child in a glass bier. Sinister abscission, did I ever see with my seed eyes his thin blue shape lifeless in the world before me? Who comes in dreams, mansized at times and how so? Do shades nurture? As I have seen my image twinned and blown in the smoked glass of a blind man’s spectacles I am, I am. (80)

Still haunted by the varying forms of his brother, Suttree lives a conflicted and thinner, less substantial life because of his loss. The “mansized” twin siphoning off a portion of Suttree’s life experiences creates a powerful mental construct that has real consequences The dead twin weighs heavy on Suttree’s conscience and a parasitic relationship between man and manchild is conceived. This psychological barrier is an important aspect of Suttree’s solitude and search for meaning.

Suttree also tries to escape his self-conscious psyche through altered states of consciousness. Perhaps an attempt to find meaning and unite with nature, or a failed suicide mission, Suttree’s long and bizarre journey through the woods and his own subconscious offers many interpretations of its significance in the protagonist’s spiritual voyage. Suttree’s voyage may recall Henry David Thoreau’s meditation on the teachings of nature in his work, Walden,. Yet, as opposed to Thoreau, he cannot connect successfully with nature, Jay Canfield implies that Suttree fears death and loneliness. This fear prevents the release of his dead twin, who is blocking Suttree’s possible transcendence. In contrast to Canfield, Thomas Young sees Suttree’s journey as resulting in epiphany, whereas Frank Shelton argues that it could merely be another method of escaping consciousness. We can also interpret Suttree as an ascetic, practicing a spiritual fast in the tradition of some eastern belief systems. All of these interpretations have one thing in common: Suttree is attempting to negotiate between the loss of self and connection with something greater than self. In his delirium he can be sure only that he alone, of all the figures he meets in the woods, is neither “figment” nor phantom. Like Shelton claims, McCarthy writes Suttree’s experience as an epiphany concerning his place in the universe. As he stops at a stream, Suttree he ponders,

… a world of incredible loveliness. Old distaff Celt’s blood in some black chamber of his brain moved him to discourse with the birches, with the oaks. A cool green fire kept breaking in the woods and he could hear the footsteps of the dead. Everything had fallen from him. He scarce could tell where his being ended or the world began nor did he care. He could feel the oilless turning of the earth beneath him and the cup of water lay in his stomach as cold as when he drank it. (286)

Edwin Arnold and Diane Luce explain how “the radical mediation which society works on this natural experience is apparent as soon as Suttree wanders out of the woods into Bryson City, North Carolina, some days later.” This contrast reveals the altered state of Suttree’s wilderness hunger strike, which can be interpreted as a spiritual experience or a crazed suicide attempt.

Despite his internal torpor, Suttree is not only a trustworthy character, but also charitable to others, and cursed with Catholic guilt. Critics disagree about how Suttree’s religious background relates to his search for purpose and meaning. John Lewis Longly Jr. argues “what ails Suttree is what ails us all” (Longley 82). Edwin Arnold implies that Suttree subjects himself to suffering, revealing his humanity, supported by Canfield’s belief that grief alienates Suttree from God, however, “Suttree’s acts of compassion in this novel seem to have redeemed his soul from its dark night of alienation and abjection” (Canfield 666). Rothfork views Suttree differently, a romantic waiting for redemption to arrive but not seeking it who finds wisdom in the painful truths of life. He imagines Suttree as a “Christ crucified,” seeking a loving God but finding no evidence (Rothfork 389). After Suttree reflects in the church of his childhood-- a landmark with similar significance to the author--on its stale and lifeless quality he confronts a priest who admonishes him for sleeping in God’s house. “It's not God's house,” Suttree argues with the priest, “Oh? Suttree waved his hand vaguely and stepped past the priest and went down the aisle. The priest watched him. He smiled sadly, but a smile for that” (255). Despite his acts of debauchery and rejection of traditional religion, Suttree‘s friendly acts of charity towards his friends and neighbors reveal his Christian ethic. However, Suttree remains mysterious as the narration often leaves his personal thoughts and reflections to speculation;, Although his charity may redeem him from the many sins and mistakes of his life, Aldridge identifies his role as an onlooker, separate from his world.

While his outward actions towards others resemble Christian ethics, Suttree internally struggles with despair and death--two issues that do not worry the orthodox believing Christian. Frank Shelton establishes that McCarthy’s insertion of the suicide of another man at the beginning of the novel creates in Suttree the potential for suicide. Subsequently, at the end of the first section, Suttree stands looking down into the water from the same spot on the bridge from which the man jumped, thinking, “To fall through dark to darkness. Struggle in those opaque and fecal deeps, which way is up. Till the lungs suck brown sewage and funny lights go down the final corridors of the brain, small watchmen to see that all is quiet for the advent of eternal night” (29). Evident in Suttree's identification with the suicide is his horror of, yet attraction to, death and particularly suicide, a motif which runs throughout the novel. It is easy to recognize the potential for suicide, especially when Suttree willingly wanders into the woods without provisions or supplies. His nearly fatal illness may be a form of passive suicide, but Suttree appears to be much stronger than that; surely he wouldn’t actually end his life. The fact that he “flies them” and escapes from the “slaverous and wild” and “crazed with ravening for souls in this world” (471) shows that he is stronger than the temptation of suicide. Yet, one of the main reasons that death attracts Suttree is its enticing ability to relieve the torments and burdens of consciousness.

Death would be the next step in Suttree’s isolation from his former life. Unlike those among whom he lives, he has had alternatives. Member of a prominent and prosperous family, he has turned his back on his past and his southern white background and is thus alienated by his own choice, not by social or economic forces as are most of the other residents of McAnally Flats. Even though life in McAnally Flats is brutal and disheartening, Suttree lives there to escape the reality of his previous experience. He is alienated from his former life and family, and has been adopted by a family of Knoxville outcasts. However, escaping to McAnally Flats does not solve Suttree’s problems, as the threat of death always lingers in the back of his mind. John Longley writes, “Death is always at hand; in the city, on the river, in the mountains. Often he is heard at a distance, on horse-back, accompanied by hounds and the sound of horns.” Death is inevitable and constant; it is one part of life that will never change, however, it isn’t necessarily more present in McAnally Flats than in other places. Suttree’s son’s funeral shows that death can reach anyone, anywhere, and at any time in their lives.

Wandering in the cemetery before the funeral of his son, Suttree passes a vault and laments “Inside there is nothing. No bones, no dust. How surely are the dead beyond death. Death is what the living carry with them. A state of dread, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do not remember and nothingness is not a curse. Far from it” (153). By the end of the novel, almost all of Suttree's friends are dead. He has survived several near-fatal events, and by the narrowest of margins. Perhaps death seems more omnipresent in McAnally Flats because we, as readers, are only exposed to those certain years of Suttree’s life.

Challenging but rewarding, McCarthy’s Suttree is likened to Joyce’s Ulysses, and the dense descriptions of Knoxville and numerous trials and adventures of Suttree portray a rich historical perspective of the city and an intimate view of a challenging character. At the end of the novel, Suttree seems to have found some resolution; if not totally in balance with the ugly complexity of life, he has at least separated himself from Knoxville, the one manifestation of his duality he was not able to successfully escape the entire novel. Suttree brings to light many of the important and unanswerable questions in life including the intricate nature of death and the unique human attraction to suicide, and sets the tone for McCarthy’s later works.

by Lily Dancy-Jones, Rebecca Miller, and Stacy Miller