Listen now | In an article over at Vanity Fair, news came out that Cormac McCarthy had a romantic and sexual relationship with a young girl, Augusta Britt.
I think Cormac and Augusta were really in love. That comes across in the article. The fact he mentioned her in his will says a lot too. Plus, you have to really listen to what she says about the relationship. Yes, the age gap will get some headlines. Yes, some will say he groomed her. Based on what she said in the article I don’t think that he did. If she thought so, we’d’ve heard about it long before now. Cormac wasn’t a conventional person and Augusta definitely isn’t.
I just read the article again. Augusta is her own person. She had strong survival instincts like her horses. However the relationship started, I would not reduce this to grooming. I think it’s insulting to her to call it such.
On behalf of people who remember being a 16 year old girl, there is nothing remotely surprising about an artist or author grooming one, or casting her as his "muse." It's a tale as old as tales. I find Augusta Britt the real person interesting. McCarthy, not so much.
I read the article and then found your page. Maybe Augusta Britt should have the final say on the relationship this many years later. Definitely messy, but it's her story to tell.
Jared ... your views are well stated, but I can't help but ask, "Is it important to know anything about the author as we read a work?" You clearly stated that you cannot ignore insights into a writer’s life once you are made aware. Although that is unfortunately true, for we have no way of unforgetting, at the same time, let us not forget that as we read someone such as MacCarthy, we are reading the work of an artist. Artists live by a different set of rules than that of most of the world. This is not to excuse him from what appears to be a grotesque basic violation of trust (and to use people for that purpose is truly vile), but as with all artists, they stretch themselves and take horrible risks to find what is buried within. Also, you can’t ignore the fact that as we read deeper into history, as with works from antiquity for example, we really know very little about their personal lives. They too may have been vile, but we will never know, thankfully, nor should we let that dictate the way in which we read them. Per the Meditations “Soon, you will have forgotten everything. Soon, everybody will have forgotten you!” … but the books remain. We need to learn to read them as “an exercise of intellectual ascetics, in order to free ourselves from certain prejudices and rediscover what (it) is”. That’s great advice from Pierre Hadot.
A few things to bear in mind when thinking about this situation that McCarthy found himself in.
First of all, there’s a lot of difference between a 16 year old in the 1970s a 16 year old in 2024. A teenager in the 70s had, and was expected to have, a much higher level of agency and self-reliance. I know this because I fall into that precise age bracket. I was there.
The average sixteen year old spent very little time under a parental wing. Activities revolving around school extra-curriculars, part-time work and a real time social life without social media meant an expectation and level of freedom and agency unrecognizable today.
I see teens today that are ferried to and from school, to and from a part time job (if they have one) and to and from “play dates,” leaving some kids unable to find their way to their first day of university classes on public transit.
It also bears mentioning that the legal age of consent in most of the USA in that decade was between 14 and 16 years depending on the state.
I’m far less critical of his grooming a 16 year old girl because I believe the age of consent chosen by modern legal minds is far more arbitrary than helpful. These imposed standards go against the grain of history where a girl old enough to menstruate was considered a woman. I doubt that cavemen waited for their young women to turn 18 before wooing them.
Put in the context of human development, I’m sure all the current moralists who cringe at this relationship live with their own sins of commission or worse, omission, when it comes to caring for others who are in need. You know, toss $5.00 in the red kettle at Christmas then go on to shame someone else’s mutually chosen paths.
Yes, I understand studies today on the adolescent mind say the prefrontal cortex is still developing (rewiring) and they are not capable of complex, or even responsible thinking. But that never stopped millions of young people in history from engaging in “adult” relationships - until someone needed an age to delineate childhood from adulthood. So a 19 year old guy who dates a 17 year old girl is a sex offender and appropriate for prison punishment.
I sense a little too much moral outrage in your comments. Sorry but I don’t give that much credibility unless someone proves she was a sexual prisoner or an unwilling participant.
My wife and I read Lonesome Dove and don’t recall any kind of salacious treatment of women or children, on the contrary, he was careful to make the tender care of the abused girl a major part of his story, so using a young woman as his muse isn’t disturbing at all to me. Maybe she was 18 when he wove her spirit into his works. Then it would be okay. Right?
The issue of his marriage and poor fathering bear some criticism from those who never “sinned” themselves, but the comments in your video brushed past that in favour of his “problematic” romance with a young g woman. These things happen daily, but how they relate to his particular craft is something worth considering.
It would be ignoring history if you didn't let this affect your reading, because if that Vanity Fair article is correct McCarthy himself inserted Britt into his novels.
This will definitely change the way I read him as well. I'm very conflicted, but also just half-surprised considering so many of my favorites, I have found, have done something questionable or have contrasting beliefs that may or not may be harmful to other groups of people. I only ever read The Road, and I planned to read all of his other works. Said plan has not changed in the slightest, regardless of this story (or issue however anyone wants to call it) simply because I want to be able to see the quality of those other books myself. Obviously I enjoyed McCarthy's prose, like the rest of the world did. He's become one of my inspirations in the recent years. But this will change things - my perception of him for instance - although I do genuinely hope I would still be able to enjoy his other work just as much I have enjoyed The Road, or at least be able to study his writing without thinking about this story half the time. I mean, of course I will remember. I just wouldn't want my experience to be completely soured by this, and I want to be able to take it all in with a more reasonable attitude.
Although I'm not gonna lie, it's kinda damning every time I hear news like this. I understand people are people, but more often than not I require more time to process things like this. Thank you for sharing nonetheless. Will check out the article myself.
I’m far less critical of his grooming a 16 year old girl because I believe the age of consent chosen by modern legal minds is far more arbitrary than helpful. These imposed standards go against the grain of history where a girl old enough to menstruate was considered a woman. I doubt that cavemen waited for their young women to turn 18 before wooing them.
Put in the context of human development, I’m sure all the current moralists who cringe at this relationship live with their own sins of commission or worse, omission, when it comes to caring for others who are in need. You know, toss $5.00 in the red kettle at Christmas then go on to shame someone else’s mutually chosen paths.
Yes, I understand studies today on the adolescent mind say the prefrontal cortex is still developing (rewiring) and they are not capable of complex, or even responsible thinking. But that never stopped millions of young people in history from engaging in “adult” relationships - until someone needed an age to delineate childhood from adulthood. So a 19 year old guy who dates a 17 year old girl is a sex offender and appropriate for prison punishment.
I sense a little too much moral outrage in your comments. Sorry but I don’t give that much credibility unless someone proves she was a sexual prisoner or an unwilling participant.
My wife and I read Lonesome Dove and don’t recall any kind of salacious treatment of women or children, so using a young woman as his muse isn’t disturbing at all to me. Maybe she was 18 when he wove her spirit into his works. Then it would be okay. Right?
I'm not really offended with 19 year olds dating 16 year olds. I agree with what you said, but also this isn't outrage where I am coming from, but genuine confusion. I have not said anything outright damning towards McCarthy himself, and I don't see anywhere in my comment where I stated I was condemning him. If it sounded like that then that is because again, I'm coming from a place of puzzlement.
I will still stand by what I said that this will affect my consuming of his work, but whether or not that is negative is a question for the future. I'm keeping Jared's words in mind, after all. I will approach this like I approached the man's work before - I'm gonna read them and study them. Period.
You might check out the book Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People by Claire Dederer. Her conclusion, which I think is reasonable, is the work is "stained" just like a garment can be stained. Maybe it is still valuable, but it is stained.
After reading the article, I'd say a small stain. But also, as Jared said, will impact how I read him in the future.
It changes the way we read Cormac McCarthy's work but that's about it. Some years ago, Pablo Neruda was also in the news for similar reasons. It surely changes the way we read these writers.
Isn't it an essential part of the human condition that we are all creatures of both good and evil? As Bob Dylan says (following Walt Whitman): "I contain multitudes." And as Harold Bloom repeatedly emphasizes, Satan is the most interesting character in Milton's "Paradise Lost." Some might argue that it is exactly this inevitable mixture of good and evil that inspires great works of art.
I don't know what it means exactly to read a work of fiction differently on account of new knowledge of a biographical fact. If it's a piece of non-fiction, then we can more closely scrutinize the accuracy of the recording and reporting of facts. But what do we do in case of fiction? A biographical fact about the author can sometimes help us better understand the work, but it doesn't add to or subtract from its inherent artistic merit. In any case, good readers are supposed to be always reading closely and critically.
Record scratch - second YouTube channel?!
I also need to know :0
It’s jaredplus
I cannot find the channel
Thanks a lot!
I think Cormac and Augusta were really in love. That comes across in the article. The fact he mentioned her in his will says a lot too. Plus, you have to really listen to what she says about the relationship. Yes, the age gap will get some headlines. Yes, some will say he groomed her. Based on what she said in the article I don’t think that he did. If she thought so, we’d’ve heard about it long before now. Cormac wasn’t a conventional person and Augusta definitely isn’t.
Augusta really should write a book.
I just read the article again. Augusta is her own person. She had strong survival instincts like her horses. However the relationship started, I would not reduce this to grooming. I think it’s insulting to her to call it such.
On behalf of people who remember being a 16 year old girl, there is nothing remotely surprising about an artist or author grooming one, or casting her as his "muse." It's a tale as old as tales. I find Augusta Britt the real person interesting. McCarthy, not so much.
I read the article and then found your page. Maybe Augusta Britt should have the final say on the relationship this many years later. Definitely messy, but it's her story to tell.
Jared ... your views are well stated, but I can't help but ask, "Is it important to know anything about the author as we read a work?" You clearly stated that you cannot ignore insights into a writer’s life once you are made aware. Although that is unfortunately true, for we have no way of unforgetting, at the same time, let us not forget that as we read someone such as MacCarthy, we are reading the work of an artist. Artists live by a different set of rules than that of most of the world. This is not to excuse him from what appears to be a grotesque basic violation of trust (and to use people for that purpose is truly vile), but as with all artists, they stretch themselves and take horrible risks to find what is buried within. Also, you can’t ignore the fact that as we read deeper into history, as with works from antiquity for example, we really know very little about their personal lives. They too may have been vile, but we will never know, thankfully, nor should we let that dictate the way in which we read them. Per the Meditations “Soon, you will have forgotten everything. Soon, everybody will have forgotten you!” … but the books remain. We need to learn to read them as “an exercise of intellectual ascetics, in order to free ourselves from certain prejudices and rediscover what (it) is”. That’s great advice from Pierre Hadot.
https://slate.com/culture/2024/11/cormac-mccarthy-vanity-fair-augusta-britt-vincenzo-barney-interview.html
A few things to bear in mind when thinking about this situation that McCarthy found himself in.
First of all, there’s a lot of difference between a 16 year old in the 1970s a 16 year old in 2024. A teenager in the 70s had, and was expected to have, a much higher level of agency and self-reliance. I know this because I fall into that precise age bracket. I was there.
The average sixteen year old spent very little time under a parental wing. Activities revolving around school extra-curriculars, part-time work and a real time social life without social media meant an expectation and level of freedom and agency unrecognizable today.
I see teens today that are ferried to and from school, to and from a part time job (if they have one) and to and from “play dates,” leaving some kids unable to find their way to their first day of university classes on public transit.
It also bears mentioning that the legal age of consent in most of the USA in that decade was between 14 and 16 years depending on the state.
Does this make McCarthy a good man?
Not exactly
But it certainly doesn’t make him a monster.
This is so true!
I’m far less critical of his grooming a 16 year old girl because I believe the age of consent chosen by modern legal minds is far more arbitrary than helpful. These imposed standards go against the grain of history where a girl old enough to menstruate was considered a woman. I doubt that cavemen waited for their young women to turn 18 before wooing them.
Put in the context of human development, I’m sure all the current moralists who cringe at this relationship live with their own sins of commission or worse, omission, when it comes to caring for others who are in need. You know, toss $5.00 in the red kettle at Christmas then go on to shame someone else’s mutually chosen paths.
Yes, I understand studies today on the adolescent mind say the prefrontal cortex is still developing (rewiring) and they are not capable of complex, or even responsible thinking. But that never stopped millions of young people in history from engaging in “adult” relationships - until someone needed an age to delineate childhood from adulthood. So a 19 year old guy who dates a 17 year old girl is a sex offender and appropriate for prison punishment.
I sense a little too much moral outrage in your comments. Sorry but I don’t give that much credibility unless someone proves she was a sexual prisoner or an unwilling participant.
My wife and I read Lonesome Dove and don’t recall any kind of salacious treatment of women or children, on the contrary, he was careful to make the tender care of the abused girl a major part of his story, so using a young woman as his muse isn’t disturbing at all to me. Maybe she was 18 when he wove her spirit into his works. Then it would be okay. Right?
The issue of his marriage and poor fathering bear some criticism from those who never “sinned” themselves, but the comments in your video brushed past that in favour of his “problematic” romance with a young g woman. These things happen daily, but how they relate to his particular craft is something worth considering.
Lonesome Dove is not a McCarthy novel, so I'm not sure how that bears on the matter.
This should only “change the way one reads a writer” if you blindly apply today’s morality and make a conscious choice to ignore history.
Isn’t there enough of that ignorance in the world already?
It would be ignoring history if you didn't let this affect your reading, because if that Vanity Fair article is correct McCarthy himself inserted Britt into his novels.
This will definitely change the way I read him as well. I'm very conflicted, but also just half-surprised considering so many of my favorites, I have found, have done something questionable or have contrasting beliefs that may or not may be harmful to other groups of people. I only ever read The Road, and I planned to read all of his other works. Said plan has not changed in the slightest, regardless of this story (or issue however anyone wants to call it) simply because I want to be able to see the quality of those other books myself. Obviously I enjoyed McCarthy's prose, like the rest of the world did. He's become one of my inspirations in the recent years. But this will change things - my perception of him for instance - although I do genuinely hope I would still be able to enjoy his other work just as much I have enjoyed The Road, or at least be able to study his writing without thinking about this story half the time. I mean, of course I will remember. I just wouldn't want my experience to be completely soured by this, and I want to be able to take it all in with a more reasonable attitude.
Although I'm not gonna lie, it's kinda damning every time I hear news like this. I understand people are people, but more often than not I require more time to process things like this. Thank you for sharing nonetheless. Will check out the article myself.
I’m far less critical of his grooming a 16 year old girl because I believe the age of consent chosen by modern legal minds is far more arbitrary than helpful. These imposed standards go against the grain of history where a girl old enough to menstruate was considered a woman. I doubt that cavemen waited for their young women to turn 18 before wooing them.
Put in the context of human development, I’m sure all the current moralists who cringe at this relationship live with their own sins of commission or worse, omission, when it comes to caring for others who are in need. You know, toss $5.00 in the red kettle at Christmas then go on to shame someone else’s mutually chosen paths.
Yes, I understand studies today on the adolescent mind say the prefrontal cortex is still developing (rewiring) and they are not capable of complex, or even responsible thinking. But that never stopped millions of young people in history from engaging in “adult” relationships - until someone needed an age to delineate childhood from adulthood. So a 19 year old guy who dates a 17 year old girl is a sex offender and appropriate for prison punishment.
I sense a little too much moral outrage in your comments. Sorry but I don’t give that much credibility unless someone proves she was a sexual prisoner or an unwilling participant.
My wife and I read Lonesome Dove and don’t recall any kind of salacious treatment of women or children, so using a young woman as his muse isn’t disturbing at all to me. Maybe she was 18 when he wove her spirit into his works. Then it would be okay. Right?
I'm not really offended with 19 year olds dating 16 year olds. I agree with what you said, but also this isn't outrage where I am coming from, but genuine confusion. I have not said anything outright damning towards McCarthy himself, and I don't see anywhere in my comment where I stated I was condemning him. If it sounded like that then that is because again, I'm coming from a place of puzzlement.
I will still stand by what I said that this will affect my consuming of his work, but whether or not that is negative is a question for the future. I'm keeping Jared's words in mind, after all. I will approach this like I approached the man's work before - I'm gonna read them and study them. Period.
You might check out the book Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People by Claire Dederer. Her conclusion, which I think is reasonable, is the work is "stained" just like a garment can be stained. Maybe it is still valuable, but it is stained.
After reading the article, I'd say a small stain. But also, as Jared said, will impact how I read him in the future.
I’m stained too. You’re not?
It changes the way we read Cormac McCarthy's work but that's about it. Some years ago, Pablo Neruda was also in the news for similar reasons. It surely changes the way we read these writers.
"Titan." Please.
The article is almost unreadable . Horribly written, and the whole story sounds like total bullshit. Just my 2 cents.
Isn't it an essential part of the human condition that we are all creatures of both good and evil? As Bob Dylan says (following Walt Whitman): "I contain multitudes." And as Harold Bloom repeatedly emphasizes, Satan is the most interesting character in Milton's "Paradise Lost." Some might argue that it is exactly this inevitable mixture of good and evil that inspires great works of art.
I don't know what it means exactly to read a work of fiction differently on account of new knowledge of a biographical fact. If it's a piece of non-fiction, then we can more closely scrutinize the accuracy of the recording and reporting of facts. But what do we do in case of fiction? A biographical fact about the author can sometimes help us better understand the work, but it doesn't add to or subtract from its inherent artistic merit. In any case, good readers are supposed to be always reading closely and critically.
Are you familiar with Roxanne Gay’s essay, “Can I Enjoy the Art but Denounce the Artist?”?
https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a16105931/roxane-gay-on-predator-legacies/
I think about this a lot and I find her stance very compelling. What do you think?