Though Suttree went along for the ride a couple days last week, I finally got the chance to spend more time with him last night. I find that now I smile in amusement at Harrogate’s doings, as one does with a friend one has come to know well enough where the escapade is expected though the outcome is never predictable. He has blown himself up underground in tunnels beneath the town–and escaped with his life–in another outrageous plan.
One thing I didn’t write about here, and perhaps it is because I’m still touching the words in solemn attempt to understand, was Suttree’s retreat to the woods. I think I know the reason, and I think I know what he got from it, but I believe it was more of a McCarthy method to give us some access into his character’s mind. To leave us alone with him for a while, to reconnect and watch over him.
I am at that horrid three-quarter mark in the book where, if the book is good, you are starting to regret that it will end. Very seldom do I read a book this slowly, and it was wisely done in this case as it is interspersed among others. It is almost as if, had this book been the sole focus of a week, I would have fallen into it and died. It has enough power to bring me back into its depth without losing the sense of the characters, the story, as I dabble elsewhere. It is like a secret cave of childhood where we hide fantasies and ourselves from the rest of the world.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology