Il tagliapietre

by Cormac McCarthy, Maurizia Balmelli (Translator)

Sipario. In scena quattro generazioni della famiglia Telfair, scalpellini neri di Louisville, Kentucky. Il protagonista, Ben, ha imparato dal nonno Papaw che «un muro è fatto allo stesso modo in cui è fatto il mondo. Una casa, un tempio». Così, ora che la vocazione del taglio della pietra in famiglia si va esaurendo, Ben dovrà fare come la casa e il tempio, e come quelli resistere e restare. L’ultima opera ancora inedita dell’autore di “Il passeggero” e “La strada”, l’unica nata in forma teatrale, vede la stampa dopo quasi quarant’anni dalla sua stesura, e incastona la tessera finale in un mosaico immaginifico che non cessa di stupirci. Scritto alla fine degli anni Ottanta, poco dopo “Meridiano di sangue”, pubblicato nel 1994, contemporaneamente alla “Trilogia della frontiera”, il dramma in cinque atti “Il tagliapietre” non ha avuto la stessa fortuna dei capolavori suoi coevi e non ha mai visto una rappresentazione scenica se non parziale. Perché? Ben Telfair, protagonista dell’opera nonché suo deus ex machina, chiamato a riflessioni dall’alto peso specifico, è uno scalpellino nero poco più che trentenne che ha abbandonato gli studi in psicologia per dedicarsi alla lavorazione della pietra come suo nonno, l’ultracentenario Papaw. A legare i due uomini non c’è solo l’arte della costruzione muraria – «il mestiere» come Papaw ama definirlo, quasi non ve ne fossero altri. Ciò che Ben ha scelto di abbracciare è un intero sistema di valori, improntato a rettitudine e onestà. Il resto della famiglia ha scelto diversamente: la moglie di Ben, Maven, ambisce alla professione di avvocato; suo padre, Big Ben, alla pietra ha preferito il cemento e le ricchezze che è in grado di produrre, mentre suo nipote, Soldier, ha fatalmente ripudiato un materiale come l’altro. Ben ha radici solide e crede di poter aggiustare tutto. Ma non può. Per quale ragione, dunque, questo quintessenziale paladino mccarthiano non ha mai trovato posto su un palcoscenico? Troppo ricco il linguaggio, è stato detto, dilatato fra il dialetto del Sud e la solenne prosa biblica, troppo metafisico il sottotesto, troppo ardito l’alternarsi dei due Ben sulla scena. Forse, invece, “Il tagliapietre” ha solo scontato un gap temporale. Ora, dopo i dialoghi serrati di Bianco e Nero in “Sunset Limited” e la resilienza testarda del padre in “La strada”; dopo le struggenti peregrinazioni di Bobby Western nel “Passeggero”, è tempo che anche Ben Telfair si unisca alla schiera degli eroi mccarthiani che portano il fuoco e che “Il tagliapietre” vada a occupare il posto che gli compete.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Fiction, American, Theatre, Literature, Literary Fiction

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Cormac McCarthy was a highly acclaimed American novelist and screenwriter celebrated for his distinctive literary style, philosophical depth, and exploration of violence, morality, and the human condition. His writing, often characterized by sparse punctuation and lyrical, biblical language, delved into the primal forces that shape human behavior, set against the haunting landscapes of the American South and Southwest.
McCarthy’s early novels, including The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark, established him as a powerful voice in Southern Gothic literature, while Blood Meridian (1985) is frequently cited as his magnum opus—a brutal, visionary epic about violence and manifest destiny in the American West. In the 1990s, his "Border Trilogy"—All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain—garnered widespread popularity and critical acclaim, blending coming-of-age themes with philosophical introspection and tragic realism.
His 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film by the Coen brothers, and his harrowing post-apocalyptic tale The Road (2006) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was also made into a major motion picture. Both works brought him mainstream recognition and a broader readership later in his career.
Despite his fame, McCarthy remained famously private and rarely gave interviews, preferring to let his work speak for itself. His legacy endures through his powerful, often unsettling portrayals of humanity’s struggle with fate, violence, and redemption, making him one of the most influential and original voices in modern American literature.

Reviews

[Ned · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won't apologize for giving another 5 star rating to the most important author for me. It may not have been his longest or most profound (or maybe it was), but it is certainly well above all those other books that I rated at this level. My mind is rampaging about how to write my little, amateur review. This book even got me asking why I push these reviews out on this (likely) ephemeral electronic site, where most readers are people I haven't met, nor people I personally know and love. Perhaps a brother or daughter or cousin or even my wife will take a look sometime, so they are also amongst the virtual audience. I don't blog, I keep it close to the vest on social media, so my review might be one of the few "public" airings. Books are emotional for me, they challenge and comfort me, and one might even say my life is defined by the intervals by which they are read and how they coincide with life events and stages of my spiritual, social, intellectual and physical development. I need the space of a few hours today, with some snow gently falling, around the hearth, dealing with some minor family sadness of our own... to write a little summary & tuck it away in the physical space of the book before returning it my basement library, perhaps never to be opened or read again. As an aside, I did carefully razor/peel and de-gum the dust cover of this hardcopy (I don't read much other than paperbooks). It is a fetish of mine to remove the re-sale stickers and associated detritus from those that I read, and this one turned out nicely. An original edition, untarnished by a flashy cover or other advertisement, without forward, without any of the barking silliness that marketers use to line their pockets.

Actual Review (3:00 pm, same day)

Several personal aspects come together for me in this book, or perhaps as I move beyond middle age these are my tendencies. I shall try to avoid overindulge here. Cormac and I have probably both read the King James version to an excessive degree, me in church trying to stay entertained with the only allowed diversion, while some preacher (not all, but some) belabored the obvious. This book has expansive and deep spiritual dimensions, most certainly biblical in theme, tone and style.

First of all, the location is Louisville Kentucky, a place a lived for 5 years, long after the date when this is set (1971). It is a play, a genre I rarely read, but I have loved this author’s others (e.g. The Sunset Limited), with 4 generations of a black family living together under the same roof. A theme is the relationships amongst the men of the family, where the 30-something protagonist, Ben, worships his grandfather (PawPaw), endures his father (Big Ben) and tries to father his nephew (Soldier). The other theme is craft (stonemasonry) which, I realize, is metaphorical for McCarthy’s own life’s work, writing novels. The final scene, when Ben confronts his dead grandfather, was poignant for me as I had a dream recently (which I must capture here before it fades) of greeting on equal terms a young version of my own grandfather (whom I idolized) as a young, handsome, black-haired man with his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, looking fit and happy. The secret language and special mystery of knowledge transmuted in words and actions, and inactions or quietude, is what Ben receives from PawPaw (and I received as well, from my own PaPa, a farmer on his farm, in moments of purity with one of the finest human beings I have ever known). What else? I calculated (with help from Alexa) that Cormac was 60 when this was published (1994). Assuming a 3 year window from creation to publishing (my estimated), he was about 57-58 when this was likely written. I’m 57 and turn 58 in 3 days. So he wrote this at my age. Author to reader, one white guy talking and another listening, both struggling with the same kind of questions. There is tragedy in this book, as McCarthy always tackles the biggest themes on man’s stage, but mostly this story is about the pride, comfort and (even) folly of a man falling in love with his principles, in this case for workmanship. His worship of his benefactor, PawPaw, comes with some risk as he ultimately realizes that love, or “charity” as its known in the KJV, requires an act of faith. This story ends hopefully, as I am still hopeful at a ripening age, and it resonated with perfect pitch. But I am still holding back “The Road”, until just the perfect time (or when I’m strong enough).

p. 32 where PawPaw dispenses wisdom to Ben, his Grandson, about the family farm and the white people who live there: “He had me promise not to disturb the pale renters interred on our farm but I had no intention to do so. He says that for himself we can just throw him out in a sinkhole when he quits this world. But he’ll be buried with his ancestors black and white in full possession of the earth whereunder he lies. It balances out, he says. Yes. The arc of the moral universe is indeed long but it does bend to ward justice. At the root of all this of course is the trade. As he always calls it. His craft is the oldest there is. Among man’s gifts it is older than fire and in the end he is the final steward, the final custodian. When the last gimcrack has swallowed up its last pale creator he will be out there, preferring the sun, trying the temper of his trowel. Placing stone on stone in accordance with the laws of God. The trade was all they had, the old masons. They understood it both in its utility and in its secret nature. We couldn’t read nor write, he says. But it was not in any book. We kept it close to our hearts. We kept it close to our hearts and it was like a power and we knew it would not fail us. We knew that it was a thing that if we had it they could not take it from us and it would stand by us and not fail us. Not ever fail us.” You may notice the “arc of the universe…” quote, which was used by Obama, quoting MLK, taken from the transcendentalist Theodore Parker in 1853 (yes, I googled that).

p. 65, where Ben observes the spiritual foundations and purity of his craft: “Not cut stone. All trades have their origin in the domestic and their corruption in the state. Freemasonry is the work of free men while sawing stone is the work of slaves and of course it is just those works of antiquity most admired in the history books that require nothing but time and slavery for their completion. It is a priestridden stonecaft, whether in Egypt or Peru. Or Louisville Kentucky. I’d read a great deal in the Old Testament before it occurred to me that it was among other things a handbook for revolutionaries. That what it extols above all else is freedom. There is no historian and no archaeologist who has any conception of what stonework means. The Semitic God was a god of the common man and that is why he’ll have no hewn stones to his altar. He’ll have no hewing of stone because he’ll have no slavery.”

p. 91, it hit me, like a diamond between the eyes, that this is McCarthy talking about himself and what he is trying to achieve in his own writing craft: “I’ve looked at barns and houses and bridges and factories and chimneys and walls and in a thousand structures I’ve never seen a misplaced stone. In form and design and scale and structure and proportion I’ve yet to see an example of the old work that was not perfectly executed. They were designed by the men who built them and their design rose out of necessity. The beauty of those structures would appear to be just a sort of a by-product, something fortuitous, but of course it is not. The aim of the mason was to make the wall stand up and that was his purpose in its entirety. The beauty of the stonework is simply a reflection of the purity of the mason’s intention. Carly says I have this mystique thing about stonemasonry. She says nobody understands it. Even my father thinks its crazy. She says no one knows what I’m talking about. She says no one cares. In all his of course she’s right. And she says you cant change history and that ruins should be left to ruin. And she’s right. But that the craft of stonemasonry should be allowed to vanish from this world is just not negotiable for me. Somewhere there is someone who wants to know. Nor will I have to seek him out. He’ll find me.” Yes, I’ve found you Cormac.

p. 97, Ben’s spiritual journey starts with the problem of evil, to the steady influence of his bible-reading hero, eventually to approach the unknown with something like reverence: “As for the rest. As for the rest. I know that evil exists. I think it is not selective but only opportunistic. I don’t know where the spirit resides. I think in all things rather than none. My experience is very limited. But it is because of him that I am no longer reduced by these mysteries but rather am one more among them. His life is round and whole but it is not discrete. Because it is connected to a way of life which he exemplifies but which is not his invention. I know nothing of God. But I know that something knows. Something knows or else that old man could not know. Something knows and will tell you. It will tell you when you stop pretending to know.”

p. 111, Ben’s father has died by his own hand, and his anger and regret and is fresh and overwhelming, as he had judged his father harshly and missed his presence in life entirely: “Because I thought of my father in death more than I ever did in life. And think of him yet. The weight of the dead makes a great burden in this world. And I know all of him that I will ever know. Why could he not see the worth of that which had put aside and the poverty of all he hungered for? Why could he not see that he too was blest? … I lost my way. I’d thought by my labors to stand outside of that true bend of gravity which is the world’ pain.” Those of us with father’s, let us celebrate them, or reconcile with them, but do not ignore or hide from them.

p. 133: The last words in the play, so matched with my own memory of my grandfather’s hands and influence: “Hands I never tired to look at. Shaped in the image of God. To make the world. To make it again and again. To make it in the very maelstrom of its undoing. Then as he began to fade I knelt in the grass and I prayed for the first time in my life. I prayed as men must have prayed ten thousand years ago to their dead kin for guidance and I knew that he would guide me all my days and that he would not fail me., not fail me, not ever fail me.” Just wow, how perfect a prayer, how hopeful.

[Numidica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. One of Cormac McCarthy's few, maybe only, uplifting novels, written as a play. As always, McCarthy's amazing command of language is on display, and this book ultimately is about what we owe each other, and how we can forget that in favor of the seemingly urgent demands on our time and attention. It is about the one member of the younger generation in a family who has his act together, and does not want to be dragged down by the rest of the family. He says, "I see failure all around me, and I don't want to fail". In the interest of avoiding spoilers I won't discuss how his world view evolves, but the scene in which he meets God in a dream is beautifully written. The protagonist works with his 101-year-old grandfather as a stonemason, while also helping the "deserving" members of his extended family, but he is very careful in his choices of whom to help. He is in awe of the skill of his grandfather, acquired through 90 years of work in "the trade", and he wants to learn from him while he can. By the end, he has learned something that has nothing to do with stonework. Wonderful book.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sought out and read The Stonemason for completeness, really (now I've read all of McCarthy's novels and plays), but I was pleasantly surprised - this is probably one of his better dramatic works. I haven't seen this performed, so I'm evaluating it more or less as a written piece only. There are some interesting dramatic elements, like the lead character, Ben, narrating his dialogue from a separate area of the stage (his character's representation in the drama is a mute "double"). I'm not sure how this would come across when performed, but the idea is interesting enough. Here is an extract from the stage directions, which explains the use of the double - I enjoyed McCarthy's little philosophical asides here:

"What must be kept in mind is that the performance consists of two separate presentations. One is the staged drama. The other is the monologue - or - chautauqua - which Ben delivers from the podium. And while it is true that Ben at his podium is at times speaking for - or through - his silent double on stage, it is nevertheless a crucial feature of the play that there be no suggestion of communication between these worlds. In this sense it would not even be incorrect to assume that Ben is unaware of the staged drama. Above all we must resist the temptation to see the drama as something being presented by the speaker at his lectern, for to do so is to defraud the drama of its right autonomy. One could say that the play is an artifact of history to which the audience is made privy, yet if the speaker at his podium apostrophizes the figures in that history it is only as they reside in his memory. It is this which dictates the use of the podium. It locates Ben in a separate space and isolates that space from the world of the drama on stage. The speaker has an agenda which centers upon his own exoneration, his own salvation. The events which unfold upon the stage will not at all times support him. The audience may perhaps be also a jury. And now we can begin. As the mathematician Gauss said to his contemporaries: Go forward and faith will come to you."

The play deals with themes like death, purpose, loss, pride, family, self-destruction and redemption, with which readers of McCarthy's other works will be familiar. These central ideas are elusive enough that they can be contemplated, but not cleanly resolved at the play's completion.

[Wayne Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been so desperate for McCarthy's work that, having read all his novels, I am now reading his plays. The Stonemason is another powerful piece by Cormack telling the story of 4 generations of family members dwelling and working together and their eventual decline and loss. Starting with Pawpa, the 102 year old patriarch and cornerstone of the family, the family structure slowly crumbles, leaving us with a picture of humanity like only McCarthy can portray.

The man is 84, so I don't know if he will be publishing any more. I will surely miss his work.

[Come Musica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dopo aver finito la lettura di questo dramma in cinque atti di Cormac McCarthy ho avuto una sensazione analoga a quella provata alla fine della lettura de "La Strada", come qualcosa che ti rimane attaccato addosso a lungo.

Quest'opera teatrale sembra scritta da un uomo di colore, che attraverso la narrazione in prima persona, denuncia tutte le difficoltà dell'essere un uomo nero negli Stati Uniti.
Quattro generazioni a confronto, quattro modi di essere negli Stati Uniti degli anni settanta: Papaw, il nonno, Big Ben, il padre, Ben Telfair, un tagliatore di pietre di 32 anni, e il nipote Soldier.

“Ho passato in rassegna granai e case e ponti e fabbriche e camini e muri e su un migliaio di strutture non ho mai visto una pietra fuori posto. Quanto a forma e progettazione e scala e struttura e proporzioni devo ancora vedere un vecchio lavoro che non sia perfettamente realizzato. A progettarli erano gli uomini che li costruivano e il progetto nasceva dalla necessità. La bellezza di quelle strutture sembrava solo una specie di effetto secondario, qualcosa di casuale, ma ovviamente non è cosí. L’aspirazione del muratore era che il muro reggesse e questo era il fine nella sua interezza. La bellezza del lavoro di muratura riflette semplicemente la purezza d’intenti del muratore. ”

Un testo teatrale altamente poetico e in alcuni punti così struggente, sul senso delle radici, sul valore dei legami famigliari e sull'amore che unisce i vivi ai morti, sul potere del costruire (in senso reale e metaforico, sul senso del trascendente

“Altro non era che un uomo, nudo e solo nell’universo, e non aveva paura e io piangevo di una gioia e una tristezza che non avevo mai conosciuto prima e me ne stavo lí con le lacrime che mi scorrevano sulla faccia e lui mi sorrideva e protendeva entrambe le mani. Mani da cui erano scaturite tutte quelle benedizioni. Mani che non mi sono mai stancato di guardare. Plasmate a immagine di Dio. Per fare il mondo. Per rifarlo ancora e ancora. Per rifarlo fin dentro il vortice del suo disfacimento. Poi mentre cominciava a svanire mi sono inginocchiato nell’erba e ho pregato per la prima volta in vita mia. Ho pregato come gli uomini devono aver pregato diecimila anni fa perché i loro defunti li guidassero e sapevo che mi avrebbe guidato fino alla fine dei miei giorni e che non mi avrebbe tradito, non mi avrebbe tradito, non mi avrebbe mai tradito.”

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful play about four generations of family, stones, masonry, God, pain and suffering.

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe it's just because of my health, but this really worked for me. It is a rather lovely story that I only wish had been novelized rather than given the play treatment. One left (a screenplay!) for complete-o-rama of the 'Mac. The play has a guileless core and a sweetness to it that is hard to not admire. Written before McCarthy went Full Cowboy, this belongs to the Suttree side of the corpus. Skip The Sunset Limited and proceed directly here.

Now can I get a show of hands in agreement that Cormac writes better of the South than the Southwest? Okay, I think that's every single one of you. Friends forever!

[Evan Leach · Rating 4 out of 5]

This play focuses on an African-American family living in Louisville in the 1970's. The emphasis is on the relationship between a young man (Ben) and his grandfather, a master stonemason. This is a quiet, contemplative work, with much of the action occurring offscreen as Ben sits quietly in the family kitchen, thinking or talking with relatives.

According to Wikipedia, this play is rarely performed, and I don't necessarily find that surprising. I'm not quite sure how it would work as a performance piece, with its slow, easy pace and McCarthy's occasionally biblical dialogue. But on the page, I found this to be a peaceful, almost meditative play that came across as timeless rather than dull thanks to the author's gifts with language and dialogue. McCarthy fans will find plenty to enjoy in this short work. 4.0 stars, recommended!

[Preston Scott Blakeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

McCarthy is renown for his nightmarish tragedies but this elusive yet profoundly spiritual comedy has sadly slipped past even some of his most devoted readers. It is the simple and picturesque story of the love between grandson and grandfather, the grandfather seasoned in honest work, faithful in his commitment to Holy Scripture. And as the Telfair family patriarch abounds in his disciplined adoration for the King James, so it becomes evidently clear that McCarthy is a master of biblical prose himself. Our greatest living American writer has created yet another archetypal story of the mythical intersection between suffering and beauty.

[Cymru Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t set out to make 2020 the year or re-reading McCarthy. I picked up No Country again after about ten years and read it for a book club, and while at the library I saw his plays and screenplays that for some crazy reason I had never read before. I don’t know why I had neglected them for so long, having read everything else by the man, and I see now the error of relegating them to minor works. Of his plays (for screen or stage) The Stonemason is by far the best, worthy of any of the best of his novels, and strangely positive when compared to No Country, written thirteen years later, and especially The Evening Redness in the West, the best and darkest of his books.

Theodicy is the primary theme of Cormac’s oeuvre as I see it. It is not merely a question of God’s existence in his novels and plays, because God definitely exists to McCarthy, but rather a more daunting question of whether God is good. Most of us, I think it’s safe to assume, rarely question whether God is good or evil. For today’s world it is a question of God or no god. Atheist or not, we can easily admit the existence of evil, but the thought that a God who is real and controls everything could Himself be evil is simply too much. It is the ultimate contrarian point of view; in our age of the internet troll and social media it is bound to be extremely unpopular. I think this is why McCarthy’s writing often comes off a intensely bleak and “dark” ——because he actually entertains the notion of an evil God. He’s not asking you to simply believe, but positing the idea of something no one would want to believe. And his argument is believable. Judge Holden is the most obvious representative of this position, with Chigurh a dutiful lieutenant, more of an acolyte to the Judge’s dark principles rather than the embodiment of the awesome power of Blood reckoning Judge Holden assumes. Comparisons to Satan have been made in regards to both characters, but they don’t seem satanic to me, at least not in our contemporary notion of the devil—that of a trickster demon tempting people away from truth and leading them to ruin through their own iniquity. Judge Holden wouldn’t condescend to tempt one away from the truth, he believes (and is terrifyingly convincing) that he is the Truth. This is McCarthy saying that the ordering of the world, that is, Nature at its fundamental workings, is evil, or at least bent on blood and death and endless violence. Murder makes the world go round, not Love, according to the Judge, and the whole book is a testament to this belief enacted in concrete example. But does Cormac really believe this? A trickier question.

Blood Meridian tends to wash away the rest of McCarthy, unsurprisingly so. Reading passages from it next to No Country it barely seems like the same writer is at work, so different is the prose style and scope. The Stonemason comes ten years after Meridian, in between the two, and this chronology serves as an interesting track of McCarthy’s central spiritual debate. The Telfair family of stonemasons—Papaw and Benny in particular—demonstrate a counterforce to Judge Holden’s view. The sacred rite of (non-honorary) masonry offers an antidote to the view of Nature as evil, because it holds that one’s continued devotion to the Craft can outlast any dark truths the world can muster. The world is a continual source of iniquity, fine, but that doesn’t excuse us from the Work. In the Work is the path to the divine spark or pneuma, within us all, the fire within the rock that the two Telfair men hold sacred. This belief is every bit as actual, real, and “concrete” (forgive the pun) as any gunpowder the Judge can conjure. Where the Judge takes the means to kill from the rock, the stonemasons build houses that can last a thousand years. Where does Cormac stand on the issue? I see that same spark in even in Meridian, in The Kid, who despite his born insensitivity and natural talent for Judge Holden’s world still has an equally inate moral questioning inside him, what the Judge calls “a flaw in the fabric of his heart,” but here the judge is mistaken. The man of Meridian’s epilogue (ACHTUNG: this is easy to miss! There is a page of the book after it says THE END!!) who makes his way along the earth by means of a series of wholes stamped into the ground, who “strikes fire in the hole and draws out his steel,” is another enigmatic allusion that the Kid’s “flaw” is no mistake, but proof of something else——a counterforce. If this be true, that McCarthy can present such a convincing argument for the triumph of divine evil as he does in the character of the Judge, and yet still offer a spark of hope, that within the evil workings of the world an eternal flame cannot be excluded, might be the most optimistic statement any writer could make.

Papaw Telfair is that man striking fire in the whole and drawing out the divine spark by means of his devotion to the Craft. As a side note, that the protagonists are black (as all characters are in the play) I think summarily ends the question of whether McCarthy might be a “racist” for his use of the n-word. He clearly has a great respect for African Americans, as is evident in The Sunset Limited as well. The appreciation extends to their humanity, to seeing the divine ray of Good inside them, and this can be applied to people of any color.

[Alix · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Fingerei ignoranza per convincerti a restare. Se pensassi che ti si può ingannare. Ma solo chi ha dei bisogni può essere ingannato e tu bisogni non ne hai".

[Violet Baudelaire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mah.
Einaudi un po’ a grattare il fondo del barile…
La forma-teatro non è per McCarthy ‘ divenuta testata d’angolo ‘.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

My goodness, the main character’s dream about judgment day is instantly one of my favorite passages in all of McCarthy’s work:

“I stood with my job-book beneath my arm in which were logged the hours and the days and the years and wherein was ledgered down each sack of mortar and each perch of stone and I stood alone in that whitened forecourt beyond which waited the God of all being and I stood in the full folly of my own righteousness and I took the book from under my arm and I thumbed through it a final time as if to reassure myself and when I did I saw that the pages were yellowed and crumbling and the ink faded and the accounts no longer clear and suddenly I thought to myself fool fool do you not see what will be asked of you? How He will lean down perhaps the better to see you, regarding perhaps with something akin to wonder that which is his own handiwork, He whom the firmament itself has not power to puzzle. Gazing into your soul beyond bone or flesh to its uttermost nativity in stone and star and in the unformed magma at the core of creation. And ask as you stand there alone with your book—perhaps not even unkindly—this single question: Where are the others? Where are the others?”

[J]

In spite of the rich prose style and the usually violent content which are the bread and butter of his novels, McCarthy can actually write a pretty decent play. And of all things, a play about a working class african-american family. The characters aren't the deepest, but he has a good sense of how they are linked to and beholden to each other. And in Ben he continues to explore something that comes up more in his early novels, namely, the triumphs and failures of different generations of Americans to communicate across an increasingly wide cultural/historical divide. This could almost be an entry in August Wilson's Pittsburgh cycle.

[Fede La Lettrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

• Esperimento teatrale che rivela, in forma più concentrata e schematica, le tensioni che percorrono la narrativa di McCarthy: il peso dell’eredità, il fallimento del lavoro come forma di redenzione, l’impossibilità di sottrarsi alla legge della distruzione, tutto condensato in un microcosmo familiare.

• La famiglia afroamericana protagonista del testo vive di un mestiere antico e quasi sacrale: il taglio della pietra, ma il lavoro che unisce le generazioni è anche ciò che le logora e le divide.

• Il protagonista rappresenta il punto di rottura, figlio colto e avviato agli studi sceglie di rientrare nell’orbita del padre e del nonno ma scopre che la continuità non è più possibile. È il dramma del Novecento intero, quello di un mondo che non può più affidarsi all’autorità dei padri né sperare in un futuro salvifico.

• L’uso della forma teatrale con il suo scheletro essenziale di voci e conflitti costringe McCarthy a spogliare la sua prosa di ogni paesaggio e di ogni ampiezza narrativa. Restano i dialoghi aridi, circolari e spesso frantumati e i monologhi che assumono il carattere di profezie. Il testo sarà anche imperfetto per la messa in scena, ma è potentissimo in lettura.

• Il tagliapietre porta alle estreme conseguenze la sfiducia di McCarthy nella possibilità di fondare il senso sulla tradizione o sul lavoro. La pietra, che dovrebbe essere fondamento, si rivela invece cifra dell’inanità: lavorarla non salva dall’impoverimento morale né dalla disgregazione della comunità. La fede stessa, che in alcuni personaggi affiora come residuo, non ha funzione consolatoria. L’eredità è soltanto un peso sterile e l’unico vero protagonista è il fallimento della trasmissione.

• Un McCarthy più filosofo che narratore che riduce la sua arte all’osso per mostrare l’uomo nudo davanti alla pietra indifferente del mondo.

[Penny -Thecatladybooknook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This play is set in 1970. The Telfairs, black and white, have been stonemasons for generations. This play is about a black family and the patriarch of the family is 101yrs old. His adult grandson, Ben, gave up his education (university) to pursue learning the trade from his grandfather vs. being a teacher.

Papaw is the foundation of the family and McCarthy uses the art and trade of stonemasonry to examine how when your foundation is faulty, the whole house and family can come tumbling down. -

The reason the stonemason's trade remains esoteric above all others is that the foundation and the hearth are the soul of human society and it is that soul that the false mason threatens. So. It's not the mortar that holds the work together. What holds the stone, trues the wall as well.....

[Michael Lumsdaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this a lot. The characters were perhaps too well spoken and perceptive at points, but overall (like all of what I've read of his) it had a feeling of reality. It dealt with some really hard and desperate things and yet it was not despairing. I found it inspiring - the struggle to continue building as so much is torn down.

[Gabriele Carli · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Poiché il mondo è fatto di pietra lo scalpellino è preda di una vanità estrema e quale che sia la misura in cui aspetto e forma del mondo sono il lavoro dello scalpellino quel lavoro poi esiste al di là delle rivendicazioni tanto degli operai quanto dei proprietari terrieri.”

Ammetto di aver letto quest’opera di McCarthy solo per un senso di completezza, essendo solo da poco stata pubblicata in italiano. Diciamo che però, in generale, preferisco ripensare ad altre sue opere piuttosto che a questa.

[Chrystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world is a cruel place. The wisdom of the old can teach us how to survive in this dangerous world. If we ignore the old and don't place any value in their wisdom, we will stray from the path and be destroyed.

Ben's grandfather taught him the stonemason trade. Ben's father and his nephew have rejected the guidance of the grandfather. This shows how the younger generation can fall away from the truth but then it can skip a generation and regain its ground. There is hope for the future, it may not be visible in our lives but it may happen after we are gone.

There is a lot to think about here, as one tends to do after reading a Cormac McCarthy book. The image of the stonemason building with uncut stones gathered from the earth, which was built by God, is a rich symbol of how we must build our lives with purpose, using the materials provided by our Creator. We can't make anything new, we must build with what He has placed at our disposal. The building of our lives must either follow the pattern laid out by God, or it will fall.

"According to the gospel of the true mason God has laid the stones in the earth for men to use and he has laid them in their bedding planes to show the mason how his own work must go. A wall is made the same way the world is made. A house, a temple...What we are at arms against are those philosophies that claim the fortuitous in mens' inventions. For we invent nothing but what God has put to hand."

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 5 out of 5]

McCarthy offers a compelling glimpse into four generations of a Black family from Louisville in the early 1970s. Their reliance on the trade of stonemasonry plays a vital aspect in the family’s connectiveness and dissolution. Ben Telfair and his beloved grandfather Papaw, who is over a hundred years old, share an indelible bond committed to the skill and nostalgia needed to be masterful stonemasons. Sorrow, guilt, and regret haunt the Telfairs and challenge their principles of dignity and loyalty. With the solemnity and immediacy of his words, McCarthy examines the forces that can steer one person wayward into hardship and betrayal and another towards a purpose guided by hardwork, grace, and the love of another. A number of monologues delivered by Ben overflow with sage truth that deserve annotation. Here’s a classic passage as only McCarthy could compose it, stripped of apostrophes and brilliant in its structural originality: “I dont know what it means that things exist and then exist no more. Trees. Dogs. People. Will that namelessness into which we vanish then taste of us? The world was before man was and it will be again when he is gone. But it was not this world nor will it be, for where man lives is in this world only.”

[Edwin Arnaudin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful play of the black experience that belongs in the same conversation as A Raisin in the Sun and Fences. McCarthy's powerful language is on full display here with no epic descriptions in which to hide, and it succeeds masterfully.

Ben is a tragic character, one of those idealistic good guys who thinks he can help everyone yet winds up arguably doing more harm. His grandfather, Papaw (Pap-paw) is a fascinating man; Ben heeding his wisdom and both Big Ben and Soldier ignoring it makes for compelling drama, as do Ben's podium "sermons," which border on pretentiousness yet are far too interesting and compassionate to fall into that abyss. The plot itself doesn't pack an abundance of "wow" moments and some scenes feel far too short, but I'd love to see the play performed and am curious about its performance history.

[Alex Gabrielli · Rating 5 out of 5]

sta mattina mi sono svegliato che in testa avevo solo McCarthy, così ho pisciato, acqua e caffè, e ho preso questo dramma.
non ho mai letto McCarthy drammaturgo e per questo morivo d’un forte desiderio di conoscere.

non so, magari è il mattino, il caldo… il caffè.

seguendo il flusso e andando avanti con la lettura percepivo tutte quelle maledette lettere nere fresche di stampa che iniziavano a mutare forma… e mi giuro, cazzo se mi giuro, che era strano e che praticamente sentivo una tensione tra me e loro e loro si assorbivano e metamorfizzavano (?) e si impilavano l’un l’altro e alcune giravano come mosche, altre come strani filamenti a elica, e io nel mentre scandivo e m’impigliavo in tutto quel movimento e decifravo parola per parola… poi alcune sembravano dare forma alla scena, e percepivo i loro stati d’animo, e sentivo la gobba dell’autore, e McCarthy si, cazzo sì se è riuscito nella sua impresa metafisica maledetto.

ma probabilmente sono solo molto suscettibile.
e a dir la verità, non so quanto sia stato realmente visivo, credo poi che fossero più il mio processo mentale e sensibile che amplificavano la forma e il contenuto del testo per riempire un vuoto troppo tipico che sto passando.

e poi c’era dentro tutta una mia ricerca spirituale.
ma capirai, per come son fatto.

però no, mi immaginavo anche con la macchina da ripresa, e ho inscenato tutta una regia, e mi sono anche immaginato io su un palco, di fianco a me un giornalista che mi fa tante domande e un pubblico interessato e poi ne arriva una, di tentata domanda, che mi mette un po’ in discussione “lei che si enuncia sempre come un grande materialista, un cinico, un presuntuoso terrestre sottomesso a un narcisismo contemporaneo, come mai in questa sua opera si sente tanto questa componente spirituale, componente che poi non domanda ma risponde, risponde e comunica e…” e boh, direi, cazzo non lo so, è solo quello che voglio, quel film parla solo di quello che voglio e che cerco da una vita.

[Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is an easy trap to fall into to assume whenever a writer tells a story centered around a character's relationship with a trade that they are actually talking about writing. I can't say to a certainty that this was McCarthy's intent with The Stone Mason, and perhaps the early derision of Marx is meant to distance it from such an interpretation, but having read it through that lens, I felt that this play was a more profound reflection on the spiritual nature of that true vocational calling (seen through the analogue of masonry) than any other book written whether directly or obliquely on writing or artistic passion in general. Ben's Monologues are awesome in a way that does justice to the original and undegraded intent behind a word so worn out by the erosion of its thoughtless use. The characters are full, diverse, and human. The setting is specific in time and place and carries with it the warm, somber nostalgia of itself and yet is universal as all timeless works must be.

I have to admit to being a kind of zealot on McCarthy's behalf, but this was the last of his published work that I had yet to read, something I had saved for last because of its obscurity. He did not fail me. Not ever fail me.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This seemed like such a quiet play up until pretty much everything crumbled for this family.

While this was a lot different than the other two Cormac McCarthy's I've read so far (The Road and No Country for Old Men), it was similar in that every word is important, thoughtful, beautiful.

Grace I know is much like love and you cannot deserve it. It is freely given, without reason or equity. What could you do to deserve it? What?

Just read it. While it won't take up much of your time, it won't let your brain sleep until long after that last page is done. And isn't that what the best books should do?

A lot of the old time preachers used to preach all kinds of foolishness. Or it was to my ears. I heard any number of times how when colored folks got to heaven they'd be white. Well that dont make no more sense than a goose wearin gaiters. God didn't make the colored man colored just to see how he'd look. There aint nothin triflin about God. He made everybody the color He wanted em to be and He meant for em to stay that way. And if that suits Him its got to suit me too, else I's just a damn fool.

4 Stars

[Toolshed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know that small acts of valor may be all that is visible of great movements of courage within.
For we are all the elect, each one of us, and we are embarked upon a journey to something unimaginable. We do not know what will be required of us, and we have nothing to sustain us but the counsel of our fathers.

I like to see this as McCarthy's The Sound And The Fury, only in dramatic form and with an African-American family. Which is high praise, and rightfully so - a brilliant, brilliant work of a brilliant mind.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other than a few screenplays, this completes my exploration of Cormac McCarthy's bibliography. His plays, such as this one, really suit his dialog style and are easier to read than his novels. While obviously not as trustworthily authentic as it would be coming from a black author, his portrayal of a working-class black family in 1970s Louisville is very moving, and seems to capture the truth of a hard situation.

[Fabio Stancati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dare il massimo della valutazione ad un’opera oggettivamente “minore” (almeno sulla carta) di McCarthy può sembrare esagerato, ma in realtà questo testo teatrale, purtroppo mai rappresentato fino ad oggi (anche per ragioni di oggettiva difficoltà di messa in scena), condensa tutta la poetica del compianto autore americano e lo fa con una sintesi ed un linguaggio così asciutto che lasciano davvero senza parole. Quattro generazioni che si inseguono tra passato, presente, tetro futuro accompagnate da un narratore che è sia il suo protagonista, che il suo doppio, che si erge su un podio a latere della scena per rivelare pensieri ed emozioni.
Un’opera sulla famiglia e la sua natura, sulla morte, sull’anima, su Dio e sul lavoro come sbocco ontologico dell’anima e come trappola per la vita.
Meraviglioso.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odd reading a "play", but I was quickly sucked in to the relationships between Ben, Soldier, and PawPaw

[Alberto Palumbo · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️ e 1/2

[Micah Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

McCarthy never misses, not even in play form. Lots to chew on and musings on the value of hands on work.