Full Quote: “Once there were brook trout in the streams in
the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges
of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished
and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of
the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back.
Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than
man and they hummed of mystery.”
I think this epilogue of sorts speaks
to the mystery of earth’s creation and our place in it. Whether you believe in
evolution or divine creation, we all wonder why we are here. It is an age old question
that has been asked by all sentient beings. It is a mystery that seems to live in all
that is around us. The fish, the trees, all of nature which seems so perfect. How did
it become so? Still, there is little question that life cannot survive an ecological
disaster of the magnitude seen throughout this book. It was “a thing that could not be
put back. Not be made right again.” Without the beauty of nature and the resources it
provides us to live, perhaps we would stop wondering about our purpose. We would simply
fight to survive the best we could and the mystery that existed before would die out.
During the book you see the utter hopelessness of the situation. You hope that the
father and his son will discover life once they reach the sea, but in the back of your
mind, you don’t expect it to happen. Sadly, I think this epilogue does not provide much
optimism for the human race. I think McCarthy is trying to say that we should value the
luxuries that nature provides us, including the luxury of reflection on our very
existence.
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