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Cormac McCarthy Returns to the Kekulé Problem
Magazine article published in Nautilus.
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2017
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About the author
Cormac McCarthy
68 books28k followersCormac 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
February 12, 2022
Acquiring Linguistic Immunity
The psychologist Carl Jung held that the unconscious is indistinguishable from reality. Although he is approaching the issue from an entirely different direction, Cormac McCarthy agrees. The unconscious shares something essential with what we casually call reality. It is beyond language, beyond our ability to express.
Every animal has an unconscious. It’s their internal operating system. “If they didn’t have an unconscious, they’d be plants.” The unconscious is much more primitive in evolutionary terms than what we call the consciousness we experience. That doesn’t make it less intelligent no matter how intelligence is measured. But it has a hard time with language: “...the fact that the unconscious prefers avoiding verbal instructions pretty much altogether—even where they would appear to be quite useful—suggests rather strongly that it doesnt much like language and even that it doesnt trust it.”
“Why is the unconscious so loathe to speak to us? Why the images, metaphors, pictures? Why the dreams, for that matter.” Is is a question Freud didn’t ask and therefore implied an evolutionary inferiority of the unconscious. McCarthy suggests that language is a non-biological and consequently non-evolutionary, infection that found a comfortable and unoccupied niche in the human brain. Like a Coronavirus, it spread rapidly throughout the entire species. “Almost instantaneously,” he says, proliferating out of Southwestern Africa until we all had contracted the disease:
This upsets the unconscious which still controls almost all of what we do, including thinking. McCarthy is clear about this: “... the actual process of thinking—in any discipline—is largely an unconscious affair. Language can be used to sum up some point at which one has arrived—a sort of milepost—so as to gain a fresh starting point. But if you believe that you actually use language in the solving of problems I wish that you would write to me and tell me how you go about it.” Of what use therefore is this free-rider of language in human development?
The unconscious is a “process here to which we have no access.” It is a mystery opaque to total blackness. There is no doubt that it exists. And it does most things adequately. But what it doesn’t do at all very well is tell stories. “At some point the mind must grammaticize facts and convert them to narratives. The facts of the world do not for the most part come in narrative form. We have to do that.” This is what gives language, and its mate consciousness, an edge. Consciousness can tell stories about the unconscious but not vice versa. This provides a tremendous social boost to the species. But this also seems to cause a bit of intra-personal resentment as the non-linguistic parts of ourselves are ignored. In short, language seems to be the direct source of our neuroses. So much for Freud’s ‘talking cure.’
So the unconscious pokes and prods with vague insights, dreams, and intuitions. McCarthy, I think rightly, judges that “Itʼs hard to escape the conclusion that the unconscious is laboring under a moral compulsion to educate us.” It is more or less constantly trying to correct the excesses committed through language. This is not the unconscious as Freud’s ‘dark side.’ The unconscious is the elder, and wiser, statesman who knows what’s good for us. And it’s not about to fight on unfavourable ground. “The unconscious is just not used to giving verbal instructions and is not happy doing so. Habits of two million years duration are hard to break.” So the unconscious sits and waits for us to run out of words, until we respect it enough to pay attention.
Jung likened our conscious selves to corks floating on an enormous ocean of unconsciousness. Allowing that unconscious to be transformed into language without compromising its integrity was his lifetime’s work. He also believed that the unconscious is what connected us to one another, to the past and in the future, something language only pretends to do. It seems to me that McCarthy is suggesting a renewal of this idea, and I can’t disagree.
The psychologist Carl Jung held that the unconscious is indistinguishable from reality. Although he is approaching the issue from an entirely different direction, Cormac McCarthy agrees. The unconscious shares something essential with what we casually call reality. It is beyond language, beyond our ability to express.
Every animal has an unconscious. It’s their internal operating system. “If they didn’t have an unconscious, they’d be plants.” The unconscious is much more primitive in evolutionary terms than what we call the consciousness we experience. That doesn’t make it less intelligent no matter how intelligence is measured. But it has a hard time with language: “...the fact that the unconscious prefers avoiding verbal instructions pretty much altogether—even where they would appear to be quite useful—suggests rather strongly that it doesnt much like language and even that it doesnt trust it.”
“Why is the unconscious so loathe to speak to us? Why the images, metaphors, pictures? Why the dreams, for that matter.” Is is a question Freud didn’t ask and therefore implied an evolutionary inferiority of the unconscious. McCarthy suggests that language is a non-biological and consequently non-evolutionary, infection that found a comfortable and unoccupied niche in the human brain. Like a Coronavirus, it spread rapidly throughout the entire species. “Almost instantaneously,” he says, proliferating out of Southwestern Africa until we all had contracted the disease:
“The sort of isolation that gave us tall and short and light and dark and other variations in our species was no protection against the advance of language. It crossed mountains and oceans as if they werent there. Did it meet some need? No. The other five thousand plus mammals among us do fine without it. But useful? Oh yes. We might further point out that when it arrived it had no place to go. The brain was not expecting it and had made no plans for its arrival. It simply invaded those areas of the brain that were the least dedicated... language had acted very much like a parasitic invasion.”
This upsets the unconscious which still controls almost all of what we do, including thinking. McCarthy is clear about this: “... the actual process of thinking—in any discipline—is largely an unconscious affair. Language can be used to sum up some point at which one has arrived—a sort of milepost—so as to gain a fresh starting point. But if you believe that you actually use language in the solving of problems I wish that you would write to me and tell me how you go about it.” Of what use therefore is this free-rider of language in human development?
The unconscious is a “process here to which we have no access.” It is a mystery opaque to total blackness. There is no doubt that it exists. And it does most things adequately. But what it doesn’t do at all very well is tell stories. “At some point the mind must grammaticize facts and convert them to narratives. The facts of the world do not for the most part come in narrative form. We have to do that.” This is what gives language, and its mate consciousness, an edge. Consciousness can tell stories about the unconscious but not vice versa. This provides a tremendous social boost to the species. But this also seems to cause a bit of intra-personal resentment as the non-linguistic parts of ourselves are ignored. In short, language seems to be the direct source of our neuroses. So much for Freud’s ‘talking cure.’
So the unconscious pokes and prods with vague insights, dreams, and intuitions. McCarthy, I think rightly, judges that “Itʼs hard to escape the conclusion that the unconscious is laboring under a moral compulsion to educate us.” It is more or less constantly trying to correct the excesses committed through language. This is not the unconscious as Freud’s ‘dark side.’ The unconscious is the elder, and wiser, statesman who knows what’s good for us. And it’s not about to fight on unfavourable ground. “The unconscious is just not used to giving verbal instructions and is not happy doing so. Habits of two million years duration are hard to break.” So the unconscious sits and waits for us to run out of words, until we respect it enough to pay attention.
Jung likened our conscious selves to corks floating on an enormous ocean of unconsciousness. Allowing that unconscious to be transformed into language without compromising its integrity was his lifetime’s work. He also believed that the unconscious is what connected us to one another, to the past and in the future, something language only pretends to do. It seems to me that McCarthy is suggesting a renewal of this idea, and I can’t disagree.
January 28, 2020
I never thought about the “Kekule Problem”. In fact I never knew about it, though I did know that the configuration of the benzene molecule, a ring, came to a scientist in a dream in the form of an ouroboros, a snake with its tail in its mouth. The “Kekule Problem”, as McCarthy terms it, is why did the scientist’s unconscious give him the answer in an image rather than simply in words? McCarthy’s aha moment came when he put together how old the unconscious is compared to human speech, and that the answer is that the unconscious has been communicating to us in images for so long that is continues to out of a kind of habit even though now it could more efficiently communicate to us in words. In the course of his struggle with this problem he also had the insight that language acts in our brain much as a virus would. An insight he is very proud of. I guess he’s never read any W. S. Burroughs. I’ve had Burroughs quote “Language is a virus from outer space” running through my mind, in Burroughs’ voice, for decades. It has always seemed apt to me, as language itself has always felt foreign to me, at least until I wandered into a poetry practice that allowed me to work at language from the top down and settle it into my life as if it were always naturally there. In short, I enjoyed this essay and welcomed the thoughts on language and the unconscious it stirred in my mind, but I didn’t find McCarthy’s conclusions all that illuminating.
I would also like to add that I did not entirely agree with McCarthy's definition of the unconscious -- "A machine for running an animal." In his opinion all animals have an unconscious, if they didn't they would be plants. I actually suspect that plants not only have an unconscious, but are more in touch with it, are more run by it, than we are. Our greatest failing is that we actively endeavor to become independent of the unconscious. If we could only be more like plants, talking writing plants...
I would also like to add that I did not entirely agree with McCarthy's definition of the unconscious -- "A machine for running an animal." In his opinion all animals have an unconscious, if they didn't they would be plants. I actually suspect that plants not only have an unconscious, but are more in touch with it, are more run by it, than we are. Our greatest failing is that we actively endeavor to become independent of the unconscious. If we could only be more like plants, talking writing plants...
October 25, 2022
Well, guess what Alice/Alicia discusses with her therapist in the upcoming Stella Maris? That's right: Chemist August Kekulé and the relation between language and the unconscious - which is also the topic of McCarthy's 2017 essay "The Kekulé Problem". I'll get to the bottom of your novel, Cormac, just you wait! :-)
Quotes:
- "the unconscious is a machine for operating an animal." - "The unconscious is a biological operative and language is not."
- " the actual process of thinking—in any discipline—is largely an unconscious affair. (...) The truth is that there is a process here to which we have no access."
- "How the unconscious goes about its work is not so much poorly understood as not understood at all."
My review of The Passenger: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My review of Stella Maris: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Quotes:
- "the unconscious is a machine for operating an animal." - "The unconscious is a biological operative and language is not."
- " the actual process of thinking—in any discipline—is largely an unconscious affair. (...) The truth is that there is a process here to which we have no access."
- "How the unconscious goes about its work is not so much poorly understood as not understood at all."
My review of The Passenger: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My review of Stella Maris: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
August 8, 2023
"...the unconscious is a machine for operating an animal."
"You may have read a thousand books and be able to discuss any one of them without remembering a word of the text."
—Cormac McCarthy
"You may have read a thousand books and be able to discuss any one of them without remembering a word of the text."
—Cormac McCarthy
July 18, 2017
Why the snake? That is, why is the unconscious so loathe to speak to us? Why the images, metaphors, pictures? Why the dreams, for that matter.
Fascinating short article of unconventional speculative musings on the image-based (non-language) communication of our unconscious minds -- ties in with McCarthy’s use of dreams (and science) in his novels. First nonfiction article published by Cormac McCarthy, as a Senior Fellow of the Santa Fe Institute (a scientific research institute)
Fascinating short article of unconventional speculative musings on the image-based (non-language) communication of our unconscious minds -- ties in with McCarthy’s use of dreams (and science) in his novels. First nonfiction article published by Cormac McCarthy, as a Senior Fellow of the Santa Fe Institute (a scientific research institute)
March 26, 2023
This is an article McCarthy published on Nautilus, accessible online at https://nautil.us/the-kekul-problem-2....
I've used this text to understand more in-depth his latest book "Stella Maris" (2022). And discussed it in my Portuguese blog at: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
I've used this text to understand more in-depth his latest book "Stella Maris" (2022). And discussed it in my Portuguese blog at: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
March 17, 2018
I really liked the topic Cormac McCarthy delves into here. Language, dreams, the human brain. All three are topics which intrigue me.
I found the theory that he drew out interesting, that perhaps language is more of an unconscious process than it is a taught one. And that cavemen back in the day probably had language and thoughts, but not the means to pass it forward to the generations to come--besides the form of art.
I guess what McCarthy is trying to get to is a couple of things:
1. Language doesn't know evolution. It always existed.
2. Some things that we think are a result of our conscious thoughts are actually the works of the unconscious, such as solving a mathematical problem, or speaking and using words.
3. The unconscious mind is...a separate entity? Possibly. He linked dreams to this thought, explaining that repetitive dreams, for instance, are our unconscious minds giving us hints and thoughts about things that we should be consciously wary of. I found this part so exciting, because that could be a link to why we all have similar 'symbolic' dreams.
That's about as much information as I could gather from this read.
My problem with this read was that McCarthy's use of vocabulary was too technical for my comfort. Sure, it's a step out of my comfort zone, and has introduced me to some new words. However, despite the fact that I consider English to be my first language (or at least primary language) I still had to reread many of the sentences and paragraphs in order to be able to register the information he had laid out.
I found the theory that he drew out interesting, that perhaps language is more of an unconscious process than it is a taught one. And that cavemen back in the day probably had language and thoughts, but not the means to pass it forward to the generations to come--besides the form of art.
I guess what McCarthy is trying to get to is a couple of things:
1. Language doesn't know evolution. It always existed.
2. Some things that we think are a result of our conscious thoughts are actually the works of the unconscious, such as solving a mathematical problem, or speaking and using words.
3. The unconscious mind is...a separate entity? Possibly. He linked dreams to this thought, explaining that repetitive dreams, for instance, are our unconscious minds giving us hints and thoughts about things that we should be consciously wary of. I found this part so exciting, because that could be a link to why we all have similar 'symbolic' dreams.
That's about as much information as I could gather from this read.
My problem with this read was that McCarthy's use of vocabulary was too technical for my comfort. Sure, it's a step out of my comfort zone, and has introduced me to some new words. However, despite the fact that I consider English to be my first language (or at least primary language) I still had to reread many of the sentences and paragraphs in order to be able to register the information he had laid out.
December 22, 2024
Really interesting essay regarding the nature of our subconscious. Had never really thought about it. Here’s the link if anyone else wants to read it: https://nautil.us/the-kekul-problem-2...
October 31, 2022
fascinating
January 16, 2023
An ornery rebuttal of his previous essays detractor. Provides maybe even more salient points. King shit.
July 22, 2022
A fun little essay on the unconscious and its relationship to language by McCarthy, whose writings always seem to plumb the unconscious so well, which is probably what makes this essay the most intriguing.
Some quotes:
"The unconscious is a biological system before it is anything else. To put it as pithily as possibly—and as accurately—the unconscious is a machine for operating an animal."
"There is no selection at work in the evolution of language because language is not a biological system and because there is only one of them. The ur-language of linguistic origin out of which all languages have evolved."
"But the fact that the unconscious prefers avoiding verbal instructions pretty much altogether—even where they would appear to be quite useful—suggests rather strongly that it doesnt much like language and even that it doesn't trust it."
"The unconscious is just not used to giving verbal instructions and is not happy doing so. Habits of two million years duration are hard to break."
And the link to the article: https://nautil.us/the-kekul-problem-6...
Some quotes:
"The unconscious is a biological system before it is anything else. To put it as pithily as possibly—and as accurately—the unconscious is a machine for operating an animal."
"There is no selection at work in the evolution of language because language is not a biological system and because there is only one of them. The ur-language of linguistic origin out of which all languages have evolved."
"But the fact that the unconscious prefers avoiding verbal instructions pretty much altogether—even where they would appear to be quite useful—suggests rather strongly that it doesnt much like language and even that it doesn't trust it."
"The unconscious is just not used to giving verbal instructions and is not happy doing so. Habits of two million years duration are hard to break."
And the link to the article: https://nautil.us/the-kekul-problem-6...
Read
June 2, 2023I don't understand the definition of symbolic / metaphorical representation as "language" as a distinct thing, given that we understand the unconscious to communicate almost entirely through ambiguous symbolism. If metaphor is what distinguishes "language" from the more automated and literal communications of birds or chipmunks, did metaphor predate language from within our unconscious? Is symbol possibly the primordial antecedent or even progenitor of language?
December 7, 2023
Notice how Cormac revokes the endless citation mania of academia - rather basking in his own principles, just as the purity of the unconscious. Indeed, in dream-states I often perceive pages full of eloquent writing and legitimately coherent story, alongside boundless cinematic exploration, a feat impossible when awake. If only one could capture this free reign, 'hear the music' when there are so many distractions present in the wide mist.
September 5, 2025
“I suggested once in conversation at the Santa Fe Institute that language had acted very much like a parasitic invasion....The difference between the history of a virus and that of language is that the virus has arrived by way of Darwinian selection and language has not. The virus comes nicely machined. Offer it up. Turn it slightly. Push it in. Click. Nice fit. But the scrap heap will be found to contain any number of viruses that did not fit.”
Read
November 14, 2022The ultimate psychological smackdown — two million years of the unconscious working in images vs. a hundred thousand years of words. Required reading for those attempting to understand McCarthy’s THE PASSENGER.
February 2, 2024
Interesting take on the subconscious but I feel Mister McCarthy is not quiet there...er...or rather, as he would put it, my conscious language faculties must synthesize words to articulate the gap in his reasoning my subconscious senses. I will have to read this again several times.
January 25, 2021
This makes sense, though it feels rather disorganized. I'll admit that I didn't totally get this, so I may not be the best to judge.
March 10, 2022
Cormac McCarthy’s first piece of published non-fiction. Incredibly thought provoking. I think everyone should have to read this. The unconscious mind is a fascinating thing.
November 20, 2022
I'll have to give this another read because it's somehow just as dense as his prose, but I think I get the gist - and a fascinating gist it is.
March 31, 2023
Brilliant. I'm so glad I read this after Stella Maris and the Passenger. He truly is one of the greatest writers ever.
October 15, 2023
It came off a bit strange to me how confidently he talks about what the unconscious is and how it operates.
December 27, 2023
“so what are we saying here? that some unknown thinker sat up one night in his cave and said: wow. one thing can be another thing. yes.”
May 4, 2024
A delightful and well written article
August 12, 2024
A delightful and well written article
Read
June 8, 2025interesting essay
July 29, 2025
My subconscious had opinions on this but it'll only show me them later in a dream. Or will it?
August 23, 2025
all my dumb decisions can be attributed to a more primitive subconscious joey
December 30, 2023
So much of this ended up in Stella Maris.
April 7, 2023
Unsurprisingly I found McCarthy’s insights interesting, the idea of language as an infection and the manner in which our subconscious works on problems in our sleep were very fun to read about
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews