To understand Cormac McCarthy’s midlife crisis, look at America’s landscape. The fierce writer of biblical prose(圣经式文风) spent most of his first four decades anchored(扎根于；固定于) to Tennessee, a child of Appalachia with a lilting(抑扬顿挫的) drawl(拖腔；慢吞吞的说话方式) and a regional outlook. By the early 1970s, he had published three Faulknerian novels—none of which sold well—and was struggling to finish a fourth book that aimed to chronicle his hometown of Knoxville in the way James Joyce had written about Dublin.(到1970年代初，他已出版三部福克纳式小说——都卖得不好——还在苦苦写完第四部，想以乔伊斯写都柏林的方式记录家乡诺克斯维尔。) McCarthy’s pockets were empty and his second marriage was failing. His then-wife, Annie DeLisle, recalled that on New Year’s Eve 1973, the year he turned 40, he suddenly announced that it was time for a change. As a friend put it, “He just walked off and left everything except his boots and his typewriter.” Pointing his truck west on I-40(40号州际公路：横贯美国东西的大动脉), McCarthy started driving and spent time in Tucson; Santa Fe; and Juárez, Mexico, before settling in El Paso, where he began researching a new novel called Blood Meridian.
要理解科马克·麦卡锡的中年危机，得先看看美国的风景。这位以圣经式文风著称的猛烈作家，前四十年大多扎根在田纳西。他是阿巴拉契亚之子，说话带着抑扬顿挫的拖腔，视野也局限于一方水土。到1970年代初，他已出版三部福克纳式小说——没有一部卖得好——还在苦苦挣扎着完成第四部。这本书想以詹姆斯·乔伊斯写都柏林的方式，记录他的家乡诺克斯维尔。麦卡锡口袋空空，第二段婚姻也濒临破裂。他当时的妻子安妮·德莱尔回忆，1973年除夕，也就是他满四十岁那年，他突然宣布该改变了。用朋友的话说：“他抬脚就走，除了靴子和打字机，什么都没带。”他开着卡车驶上40号州际公路向西，在图森、圣菲和墨西哥华雷斯都待过，最后定居埃尔帕索，开始为一部叫《血色子午线》的新小说做调研。
Few life swerves(急转弯；突然转向) are so productive. The book represented a fresh direction. Instead of another story set in the forests and shambling(破败的；蹒跚的) urban peripheries(边缘地带) of Appalachia, Blood Meridian (1985) was an epic Western. It ambitiously set out to(着手；旨在) align the nation’s past with humankind’s age-old thirst for violence: Wolves cull(淘汰；剔除) one another, and so do people. From then on, the fearsome stakes of the West—territorial competition, crime, blood, death—defined McCarthy’s fiction and yielded his strongest work.(从那以后，西部那些令人恐惧的利害关系——领土争夺、犯罪、流血、死亡——定义了麦卡锡的小说，也催生了他最强的作品。)
很少有人生的急转弯能如此高产。这本书代表了一个新方向。《血色子午线》（1985）不再是发生在阿巴拉契亚森林和破败城市边缘的故事，而是一部史诗性的西部小说。它雄心勃勃地要把美国的过去与人类由来已久的暴力渴望对齐：狼群互相淘汰，人也一样。从那以后，西部那些令人恐惧的赌注——领土争夺、犯罪、流血、死亡——定义了麦卡锡的小说，也催生了他最强的作品。
His next five novels, including the best sellers All the Pretty Horses (1992) and No Country for Old Men (2005), used desert plains and bleak landscapes to unspool a grim pessimism, shocking readers with stark visions of depravity while preserving the slenderest candlelight of hope: a few good souls carrying the fire.(他接下来的五部小说，包括畅销书《所有漂亮的马》和《老无所依》，用沙漠平原和荒凉景观铺展阴郁的悲观主义，以赤裸的堕落景象震撼读者，同时保留着最微弱的一线希望：几个好人守护着火种。) It was as though Appalachia’s dense woods and city fringes(边缘；外围) had prevented him from seeing the page clearly. Out west, there is nothing but sky.
他接下来的五部小说，包括畅销书《所有漂亮的马》（1992）和《老无所依》（2005），都用沙漠平原和荒凉景观铺展出一种阴郁的悲观主义，以赤裸的堕落景象震撼读者，同时保留着最微弱的一线希望：几个好人守护着火种。仿佛阿巴拉契亚茂密的森林和城市边缘让他看不清纸面。而在西部，除了天空，什么都没有。