October '10 Reading: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

[Scheherazade]

In October we will be reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

Please post your comments and questions in this thread.

[Virgil]

Oh great. I got my book and i'm starting this evening. :)

[Dark Muse]

Hahah glad you found your book. I just started reading today.

[katelbach]

Just read the first 2 chapters. Is there a set date for discussion to begin (i.e. the last week of the month) or can we just start whenever we like?

[Dark Muse]

You can join in whenever you like.

[Dark Muse]

Thus far I have to say I have rather mixed feelings about the sparseness of the prose in which this story is written. There is something about it that one the one hand intrigues me, and I think it does said up the atmosphere of the book. You can really feel the starkness of it. Yet on the other hand I also find that it makes the story a bit hard to follow at times, becasue it seems to jump around so much, and is written in a way that feels almost fragmented, it is hard to keep track of what is going on within the story, because I cannot acutally form a clear picture of events, places, characters in my mind.

Also, what do people think about the way the dialogue is set up? How there is nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the story. To me it gives the story an almost impersonal feelings, setting up an aloofness between the reader and the characters, there is less of a feeling of interaction.

I do not know if this make sense or not, but in a way the story has much more of a feeling as if you are being told a story. Usually when I am reading a really good and engaging book, I will be sucked up into it, and it will come to life for me, and I will have strong emotional reactions to the characters, and it will be as if I have become a part of that world. But with this book, it feels more like you are sitting around the campfire listening to someone tell you a story, which perhaps is appropriate considering the Old West setting. There is almost something folkloric in the way the story is told.

[Virgil]

Read the first two chapters and wow on the prose. And the narrative is really intense. I haven't picked up on the themes yet, but I have to say that McCarthy is the finest American prose writer of my life time.

[Dark Muse]

I am curious of what people think of the little outlines which are given at the beginning of each chapter. As certainly there is a reason why McCarthy choose to do this. Do you find that it bares any particular significance to the story, or the way in which the story is narrated? And has it enhanced your reading at all, or do you find the slight spoilers to be a distraction?

I find that because of the sparseness of the prose, at times it does help as a guideline in helping me to follow what is going on within the story and track the events. Sometimes when I start to feel as if I am getting a little lost in what is supposed to be going on, I will flip back to reread what it says at the beginning to give me a better frame of mind for the story. There is also something about it that reminds me of News Paper headlines.

[Virgil]

I am curious of what people think of the little outlines which are given at the beginning of each chapter. As certainly there is a reason why McCarthy choose to do this. Do you find that it bares any particular significance to the story, or the way in which the story is narrated? And has it enhanced your reading at all, or do you find the slight spoilers to be a distraction?

I find that because of the sparseness of the prose, at times it does help as a guideline in helping me to follow what is going on within the story and track the events. Sometimes when I start to feel as if I am getting a little lost in what is supposed to be going on, I will flip back to reread what it says at the beginning to give me a better frame of mind for the story. There is also something about it that reminds me of News Paper headlines.

Not sure what to think of them. Reminds me of some classical works where there is a little summary at the beginning. I've been ignoring them for the most part.

[Rores28]

I will say that the first three pages of the book I have probably read something like 15 or so times because I think it really is that good. However, for me the prose does not stay consistently amazing. There is plenty in there that is just mediocre, but when he's on he is really on.

I agree too with the idea that you feel as if you are being told a story, and the sparseness definitely sets what I think is a very appropriate mood, unlike a recent Poe story that I read....

The plot so far is decent, though not stunning, I'm on page 55. But I've generally found this to be the case with McCarthy... I'm reading less for the plot and more for the prose and ambiance.

**Spoiler**

The scene where the natives attack the rag tag army and the imagery of all the horses dying and people getting scalped is pretty haunting.

[Dark Muse]

The plot so far is decent, though not stunning, I'm on page 55. But I've generally found this to be the case with McCarthy... I'm reading less for the plot and more for the prose and ambiance.

**Spoiler**

The scene where the natives attack the rag tag army and the imagery of all the horses dying and people getting scalped is pretty haunting.

I agree about the ambiance, the story is very atmospheric, I have to say I am currently on the fence about what I think about the prose, I do not dislike like yet I do not know if I can quite say I love it either. There is something about which intrigues me, but I have not come up with a definitive opinion about it.

I myself just finished chapter 4 and I really loved the vividness and chaos of that scene, I loved the way in which he descried the Comanche warriors, and the way in which they were dressed.

[plainjane]

This is my second attempt to read Blood Meridian. The first time I made it to about page 81, this time I simply picked up at that page and am now on page 105, middle of Chapter 8.

I love McCarthy's prose, for example [at random]...the first sentence of Chapter 5....."With darkness one soul rose wondrously from among the new slain dead and stole away in the moonlight."
Wow. When one considers all the ways that scene could have been written, it stands out like a diamond among paste.

So, it isn't McCarthy's prose that gives me problems, I just have trouble slogging through all the mindless violence and hideous blood shed. I'm sure that is the way it was, at least many times, but the enumeration of each casual act of violence is mind numbing.

I read The Road a couple of years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it, the bleakness didn't bother me, and the violence was somehow different in The Road.

[Virgil]

So, it isn't McCarthy's prose that gives me problems, I just have trouble slogging through all the mindless violence and hideous blood shed. I'm sure that is the way it was, at least many times, but the enumeration of each casual act of violence is mind numbing.


Maybe for some and I would assume on a limited basis. No one could live a life with repeative violence like that. Certainly not the average person or even most extreme persons. And you don't get such violence from any of the authors who lived in that time. McCarthy is looking in retrospect and mythologizing to some degree. That is not to say such violence didn't exist. McCarthy takes it to an extreme.

I agree with the rest of your points by the way.

[JuniperWoolf]

Mine's on the way.

[Dark Muse]

Maybe for some and I would assume on a limited basis. No one could live a life with repeative violence like that. Certainly not the average person or even most extreme persons. And you don't get such violence from any of the authors who lived in that time. McCarthy is looking in retrospect and mythologizing to some degree. That is not to say such violence didn't exist. McCarthy takes it to an extreme.

I agree with the rest of your points by the way.

While it may be true that the violence within this book is portrayed in a more extreme sense than the actuality, in my feelings of reading the book I did not so much view it as mythologizing the time period, but I saw it more as de-Romanticizing the ideal in which the Wild West is often portrayed. Showing a side of it which is generally ignored in the movies and more modern day portrayals of that period of time.

[plainjane]

Maybe for some and I would assume on a limited basis. No one could live a life with repeative violence like that. Certainly not the average person or even most extreme persons. And you don't get such violence from any of the authors who lived in that time. McCarthy is looking in retrospect and mythologizing to some degree. That is not to say such violence didn't exist. McCarthy takes it to an extreme.

I agree with the rest of your points by the way.

I suspect the violence was not as limited as we might like to think. The gun was the only law in lots of places, most I'd venture to say, and how things went depended on the integrity, or lack thereof of the biggest gun. I feel like we grew up on a more sanitized version of the Old West, at least I did...the westerns didn't show the true reality to my mind. The first really and truly depressing western I remember seeing was that one that Clint Eastwood made, The Unforgiven...I think was the name. Now I'll throw in a disclaimer here...I wasn't a big fan of westerns when I was young, so I didn't see an extremely wide variety of films.

I do feel you are right when you say that McCarthy is mythologizing, but I am afraid it was the reality in some places. Think how much more there was to the story of The Magnificent Seven. The group that the Seven stopped certainly was terrorizing the populace, and it was only dumb luck, and Hollywood, that caused it to cease. What McCarthy is bringing out is only alluded to in most of the westerns I've seen.

[Virgil]

While it may be true that the violence within this book is portrayed in a more extreme sense than the actuality, in my feelings of reading the book I did not so much view it as mythologizing the time period, but I saw it more as de-Romanticizing the ideal in which the Wild West is often portrayed. Showing a side of it which is generally ignored in the movies and more modern day portrayals of that period of time.
Good point. I would agree with that. De-romanticizing. :thumbsup:


I suspect the violence was not as limited as we might like to think. The gun was the only law in lots of places, most I'd venture to say, and how things went depended on the integrity, or lack thereof of the biggest gun. I feel like we grew up on a more sanitized version of the Old West, at least I did...the westerns didn't show the true reality to my mind. The first really and truly depressing western I remember seeing was that one that Clint Eastwood made, The Unforgiven...I think was the name. Now I'll throw in a disclaimer here...I wasn't a big fan of westerns when I was young, so I didn't see an extremely wide variety of films.

I do feel you are right when you say that McCarthy is mythologizing, but I am afraid it was the reality in some places. Think how much more there was to the story of The Magnificent Seven. The group that the Seven stopped certainly was terrorizing the populace, and it was only dumb luck, and Hollywood, that caused it to cease. What McCarthy is bringing out is only alluded to in most of the westerns I've seen.
I think Dark Muse's term, "de-Romanticizing" is a better term than mythologizing. My point about the violence was that no one could live in a world where every other day is filled with life threatening violence. At some point one's luck would run out and he would be on the short end and be dead. :wink5: I'm sure there was lots of violence, but human nature is a mix of good and bad. It just seems too extreme to be that violent.

[David Lurie]

It just seems too extreme to be that violent.

even now in 2010 there are places where extreme violence exists, a movie like this one could be illuminating http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929425 (the book of the same title from which it draws inspiration is even more terrifying).

[katelbach]

Up to about p70 and agree with the general sentiments re: de-romanticizing, mythologizing and the end of chapter 4, which prompted me to put the book down to take in the immensity of the events! The rhythm of the prose is what i find most alluring, but i also share the confusion over the sub-headings at the start of each chapter. Not sure what that's about but someone will likely illuminate us at some point this month. Also found that the speed at which the narrative progresses put me off-step a bit, but i'm used to it now and i find it adds more unpredictability to the whole and leaves me feeling expectant and intrigued as to what may lie in the next few pages.

[Dark Muse]

What to think to McCarthy's tendency to deny his central characters an identity. Though this is only my 2nd book of his, in the The Road he did the same thing with "The Boy" now in this book was "The Kid." While the readers are introduced to the various other characters which come and go from the story, "The Kid" remains nameless.

[papayahed]

The rhythm of the prose is what i find most alluring, but i also share the confusion over the sub-headings at the start of each chapter.

I've found several times that I've had to go back and read what I just read because I got caught up in the prose and had to go back and find out what the heck happened.


What the ehck was the purpose of the judge denouncing the preacher? Is it saying something about religion? The ease at which someone's life could change? The judge can do whatever he wants?

[Dark Muse]

I've found several times that I've had to go back and read what I just read because I got caught up in the prose and had to go back and find out what the heck happened.

Yes I have to do the same things at times, I will get lost in what is acutally going on in the story.


What the ehck was the purpose of the judge denouncing the preacher? Is it saying something about religion? The ease at which someone's life could change? The judge can do whatever he wants?

I wondered about that too, it was a strange incident, and didn't the judge at the end say that he never even met the preacher before?

I think it may have been a statement about the power of the judge, because of the fact that he denounced a man of god with some vile claims against him without providing any proof to what he said, and yet everyone believed him without question and turned against the preacher.

Maybe it was also about the general nature of people and how easily they could be turned to violence and hate .

[Virgil]

even now in 2010 there are places where extreme violence exists, a movie like this one could be illuminating http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929425 (the book of the same title from which it draws inspiration is even more terrifying).

Actually I was thinking of mafia myself as people who live a continuous life of violence. However even there, it's not an almost everyday thing. That's my point. It's not that any single violent incident is unusual; it's the repeative nature. Actually even in Blood Meridan it's not an every day thing. McCarthy conflates the narrative so that it appears to be so.

[Rores28]

Yes I have to do the same things at times, I will get lost in what is acutally going on in the story.



I wondered about that too, it was a strange incident, and didn't the judge at the end say that he never even met the preacher before?

I think it may have been a statement about the power of the judge, because of the fact that he denounced a man of god with some vile claims against him without providing any proof to what he said, and yet everyone believed him without question and turned against the preacher.

Maybe it was also about the general nature of people and how easily they could be turned to violence and hate .

I can't remember if it said or not (and dont have the book with me) but was "the judge" just his name or was he actually a judge?

I agree that this showed how quickly ppl could be turned to violence, also since it was the judge, and he had no evidence, specifically how unfair that violence is. Maybe there is some statement about religion there but I haven't run across anything else major to make me think there is any specific commentary on religion... though there is the church filled with all the dead people...

[Dark Muse]

I can't remember if it said or not (and dont have the book with me) but was "the judge" just his name or was he actually a judge?

I think he is a real judge becasue at the begining of the chapter in the little outline it says "Judge Holden"

[Dark Muse]

Because I myself have studied the Tarot and have done some reading of cards myself and collect different Tarot decks, I found the fortune telling scene to be quite interesting, even if I did not understand half of what was acutally being said LOL.

But I was intrigued so I decided to look up the card which the kid drew, Cuatro de Cuaps, which turns would be the four of cups, and I found this website which offers a good description of the meaning of the card, which I think quite aptly could be applied to the character of the kid.

http://esoterismos.com/arcano-menor-cuatro-de-copas/

The site is in Spanish, I was not able to post the link for the translated version, you can just copy and paste the link into google and than click where it says translate page.


Possible Spoiler for end of Chapter 7

I was a bit confused about the episode with the shooting of the old woman. Did they kill her just becasue they wanted to take her scalp? Or was she suppose to be already dying?

I read and reread over that part to try and make some sense of it, but I don't quite understand just what was happening there.

[iamnobody]

I think the answer is both. It seems that she is likely to die anyway, and they are supposed to be getting scalps.

I'm glad this book was chosen, it was on my TBR list anyway and so far a very good read.

[Virgil]

Earlier I retracted my point that McCarthy was mythologising and agreed that he was de-Romanticizing.

I have to amend all that now that I'm a third of the way through the novel. I don't know if I'm going to be able to express this, but I think McCarthy is on one level de-Romanticizing but on another level he is re-Romanticizing, all of which becomes a mythologizing.

Yes, he is de-Romanticizing by bringing down the Romantic vision of westerns to a raw naturalism, but the from the very extreme of naturalism, McCarthy puts forth a new Romanticized view of the early western frontier that ultimaltely rests upon its own mythos.

Let me take three passages from chapter VIII. But I want to take them out of sequence, backwards actually. Let's start with that concluding scene where the black jackson kills the white Jackson.


The white man swung his head, one eye half closed, his lip loose. His gunbelt lay coiled on the ground. He reached and drew the revolver and cocked it. Four men rose and moved away.

You aim to shoot me? said the black.

You don’t get your black *** away from this fire I’ll kill you graveyard dead.

He looked to where Glanton sat. Glanton watched him. He put the pipe in his mouth and rose and took up the apishamore and folded it over his arms.

Is that your final say?

Final as the judgement of God.

The black looked once more across the flames at Glanton and the he moved away in the dark. The white man uncocked the revolver and placed it on the ground before him. Two of the others came back to the fire and stood uneasily. Jackson sat with his legs crossed. One hand lay on his lap and the other was outstretched on his knee holding a slender black cigarillo. The nearest man to him was Tobin and when the black stepped out of the darkness bearing the bowieknife in both hands like some instrument of ceremony Tobin started to rise. The white man looked up drunkenly and the black stepped forward and with a single stroke swapt off his head.

Two thick ropes of dark blood and two slender rose like snakes from the stump of his neck and arched hissing into the fire. The head rolled to the left and came to rest at the expriest’s feet where it lay with its eyes aghast. Tobin jerked his foot away and rose and stepped back. The fire steamed and blackened and a grey cloud of smoke rose and the columnar arches of blood slowly subsided until just the neck bubbled gently like a stew and then that too was stilled. He was sat as before save headless, drenched in blood, the cigarillo still between his fingers, leaning toward the dark and smoking grotto in the flames where his life had gone.

Glanton rose. The men moved away. No one spoke. When they set out in the dawn the headless man was sitting like a murdered anchorite discalced in ashes and sark. Someone had taken his gun but his boots stood where he’d put them. The company rode on. They had not gone forth one hour upon that plain before they were ridden upon by the Apaches.

What is startling here is how much religious diction accentuates the scene. "Final judgement of God," "instrument of ceremony," "anchorite," and "discacled." But even more startling is how the white Jackson becomes a ceremonial sacrifice in the manner of the Old Testament burnt offerings. From Leviticus, chapter 1:

(1)Then the LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying,
2"Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When any man of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring your offering of animals from the herd or the flock.

3'If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer it, a male without defect; he shall offer it (F)at the doorway of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the LORD.

4'He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.

5'He shall slay the young bull before the LORD; and Aaron's sons the priests shall offer up the blood and sprinkle the blood around on the altar that is at the doorway of the tent of meeting.

Another word for the burnt offerings is halocaust, meaning whole burnt. Now the second passage, earlier in the chapter:


In the morning two of the Delawres were gone. They rode on. By noon they had begun to climb toward the gap in the mountains. Riding up through wild lavender or soapweed, under the Animas peaks. The shadow of an eagle that had set forth from those high and craggy fastnesses crossed the line of riders below and they looked up to the mark where it rode in that brittle blue and faultless void. They came up through the pinon and the scruboak and they crossed the gap through the high pine forest and rode on through the mountains.

In the evening they came out upon a mesa that overlooked all the country to the north. The sun to the west lay in a holocaust where there rose a steady column of small desert bats and to the north along the trembling perimeter of the world dust was blowing down the void like the smoke of distant armies. The crumpled butcherpaper mountains lay in sharp shadowfold under the long blue dusk and in the middle distance the glazed bed of a dry lake lay shimmering like the mare imbrium and herds of deer were moving north in the last of the twilight, harried over the plain by wolves who were themselves the color of the desert floor.

"The sun to the west lay in a holocaust..." That is where the title of the novel comes from: Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West. Thorugh the violence, McCarthy is creating a mythos. I don't believe it's associated with either Christianity or Judaism, but he's taking the imagery and diction from Christianity and Judaism and constructing a myth that rises to the level of religion from the events of the novel. The naturalistic blood elements - the ravenous world of wilderness - have a spiritual dimension that I assume as the novel goes on rises to a sacredness. Here is the third passage from that chapter. It's a homily by an old Mexican man, speaking in broken English, to the kid, Toadvine, and others from the comapny.


He looked up. Blood, he said. This country is give much blood. This Mexico. This is a thirsty country. The blood of a thousand Christs. Nothing.

He made a gesture toward the world beyond where all the land lay under darkness and all a great stained altarstone. He turned and poured his wine and poured again from the waterjar, temperate old man, and drunk.

The kid watched him. He watched him drink and he watched him wipe his mouth. When he turned he spoke neither tho the kid nor Toadvine but seemed to address the room.

I pray to God for this country. I say that to you. I pray. I don’t go in the church. What I need to talk about them dolls there? I talk here.

He pointed to his chest. When he turned to the Americans his voice softened again. You are fine caballeros, he said. You kill the barbarous. They cannot hide from you. But there is another caballero and I think no man hides from him. I was a soldier. It is like a dream. When even the bones is gone in the desert the dreams is talk to you, you don’t wake up forever.

He drained his cup and took up his bottle and went softly away on his sandals into the farther dim of the cantina. The man at the wall moaned and called upon his god. The Vandiemenlander and the barman spoke together and the barman gestured at the dark in the corner and shook his head and the Americans chambered down their last cups and Toadvine pushed the few tlacos toward the barman and they went out.

The wine and its association with blood and the act of killing are mingled into a religious affiliation, a creation of a western myth of the sacred.

[Rores28]

Because I myself have studied the Tarot and have done some reading of cards myself and collect different Tarot decks, I found the fortune telling scene to be quite interesting, even if I did not understand half of what was acutally being said LOL.

But I was intrigued so I decided to look up the card which the kid drew, Cuatro de Cuaps, which turns would be the four of cups, and I found this website which offers a good description of the meaning of the card, which I think quite aptly could be applied to the character of the kid.

http://esoterismos.com/arcano-menor-cuatro-de-copas/

The site is in Spanish, I was not able to post the link for the translated version, you can just copy and paste the link into google and than click where it says translate page.


Possible Spoiler for end of Chapter 7

I was a bit confused about the episode with the shooting of the old woman. Did they kill her just becasue they wanted to take her scalp? Or was she suppose to be already dying?

I read and reread over that part to try and make some sense of it, but I don't quite understand just what was happening there.

I think in some way this is meant to be ambiguous... it seems like many of the characters motivations are actually somewhat murky or obscured...

I think there is a theme going on here as to whether men forge their own destinies or the world is too big for man and so it basically shapes his destiny for him. If the second is true then man's motivation will be driven by things outside his control and understanding... and so I think McCarthy tries to put those things outside the reader's understanding as well..


Also I'd like to retract my statement earlier about the prose... the density of amazing prose is growing as I progress through the novel.

[iamnobody]

Is it just me? Is anyone else feeling drained by the relentless brutality of this book?
I'd almost decided to quit reading, (I really don't want any more) but I will soldier on.
However I must amend my previous statment. While I do think this very good writing, this is Not a good read. (please no more murdered babies)

[Dark Muse]

Is it just me? Is anyone else feeling drained by the relentless brutality of this book?
I'd almost decided to quit reading, (I really don't want any more) but I will soldier on.
However I must amend my previous statment. While I do think this very good writing, this is Not a good read. (please no more murdered babies)

The scene with the dead babies was quite gruesome, but I have to say I had to appreciate how Dantesque it seemed to me.

I cannot say that I am really drained by the prevalence of the violence of the book, but though the prose and the writing of the book is quite good and at times almost takes on a poetic air, it does seem as if the book lacks any sort of actual plot or story. It has the feeling at times of being "The Road", placed in a Western setting.

Beyond the idea of the de-Romanticization of the Western mythos, or a sanctifying of Western myth, I do not grasp yet exactly what statement McCarthy is intended to make with what seems to be the constant senseless acts of violence which are pervasive throughout the book.

I wonder in what way is it meant to be relevant to modern society and mankind as a whole today?

[Virgil]

Beyond the idea of the de-Romanticization of the Western mythos, or a sanctifying of Western myth, I do not grasp yet exactly what statement McCarthy is intended to make with what seems to be the constant senseless acts of violence which are pervasive throughout the book.

Yeah, I can't say i grasp it too. But I'm pretty sure that's what he's after.

[Dark Muse]

I have not heard of a malpais before, so I looked it up, and here are some images of the terrian in which they are in:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Malpa%C3%ADsg%C3%BC%C3%ADmar.jpg/220px-Malpa%C3%ADsg%C3%BC%C3%ADmar.jpg

http://www.webpages.ttu.edu/dleverin/photos/800_summer_2006_NM_valley_of_fires_leverington.jpg

http://www.corbisimages.com/images/67/7CCE7B82-2B14-4B65-916F-A4EE86853FE8/DM010614.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2547/4104071353_3a72effbf9.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2738/4104874132_d7b4cdba37.jpg

http://www.northamericanparks.com/images/chimney_rock_ghost_ranch.jpg

[Virgil]

Looks very harsh. I've spent a bit of time in the southwest desert (on the American side) and it's hard living. I don't know how people did it without air conditioning and running water.

[Dark Muse]

Looks very harsh. I've spent a bit of time in the southwest desert (on the American side) and it's hard living. I don't know how people did it without air conditioning and running water.

Yes, it looks very harsh, and I think the baroness and the unforgiving elements itself in such a location, particularly during a time period in which there are not any modern day convince reflects the violence in the story. Their actions and the way in which they live reflects the landscape in which they live in.

[Rores28]

The scene with the dead babies was quite gruesome, but I have to say I had to appreciate how Dantesque it seemed to me.

I cannot say that I am really drained by the prevalence of the violence of the book, but though the prose and the writing of the book is quite good and at times almost takes on a poetic air, it does seem as if the book lacks any sort of actual plot or story. It has the feeling at times of being "The Road", placed in a Western setting.

Beyond the idea of the de-Romanticization of the Western mythos, or a sanctifying of Western myth, I do not grasp yet exactly what statement McCarthy is intended to make with what seems to be the constant senseless acts of violence which are pervasive throughout the book.

I wonder in what way is it meant to be relevant to modern society and mankind as a whole today?

Maybe I'm just not looking deep enough but I don't understand where the confusion comes in. What statement is he trying to make? People are ****ed up and destructive, and this senseless violence has never and will never cease and its ugly and we all essentially turn a blind eye to it. What relevance today??? its all happening right now all over the world. There are constant examples of horrific violence being perpetrated with very flimsy rationalizations attached to them.

I think it also paints in lurid detail what the foundations of the country are. You are sitting behind a computer screen fed, and warm, and wealthy, because of brutal and immoral violence.

[Rores28]

Is it just me? Is anyone else feeling drained by the relentless brutality of this book?
I'd almost decided to quit reading, (I really don't want any more) but I will soldier on.
However I must amend my previous statment. While I do think this very good writing, this is Not a good read. (please no more murdered babies)

I am not drained but I think that Cormac may want you to feel that way. If just reading about it can make you feel this way, imagine what orders of magnitude more troubling were the actual events. Babies and women were not immune to the native american / "american" wars. Large numbers were killed and brutally so. If you live in America this is the bedrock of your cultural legacy.

[Dark Muse]

Maybe I'm just not looking deep enough but I don't understand where the confusion comes in. What statement is he trying to make? People are ****ed up and destructive, and this senseless violence has never and will never cease and its ugly and we all essentially turn a blind eye to it. What relevance today??? its all happening right now all over the world. There are constant examples of horrific violence being perpetrated with very flimsy rationalizations attached to them.

I think it also paints in lurid detail what the foundations of the country are. You are sitting behind a computer screen fed, and warm, and wealthy, because of brutal and immoral violence.

Yes perhaps so, that just seemed so simplistic that perhaps I was overlooking the obvious, as there really is nothing profound or new in that view. It seems he went through a lot of trouble to write this book just for that.

[Rores28]

Yes perhaps so, that just seemed so simplistic that perhaps I was overlooking the obvious, as there really is nothing profound or new in that view. It seems he went through a lot of trouble to write this book just for that.

I agree and I dont think Cormac is hailed for his deep philosophy. When I first started reading his stuff I was a little surprised, because the Road and No Country both seemed to me to have the same sort of philosophical unoriginality / shallowness..... maybe I'm not getting something but in those other two books I also struggled to find deeper or more probing themes than the readily apparent.

I really think Cormac is a poet. The way he has painted this picture to me is beautiful and there are many many passages in that book that, at least to me, are superbly written. I'm not done but I don't think the book is going to blow my mind with any sort of revelation but it is going to be at the height of aesthetics as far as what I've read.

[Dark Muse]

I agree and I dont think Cormac is hailed for his deep philosophy. When I first started reading his stuff I was a little surprised, because the Road and No Country both seemed to me to have the same sort of philosophical unoriginality / shallowness..... maybe I'm not getting something but in those other two books I also struggled to find deeper or more probing themes than the readily apparent.

I really think Cormac is a poet. The way he has painted this picture to me is beautiful and there are many many passages in that book that, at least to me, are superbly written. I'm not done but I don't think the book is going to blow my mind with any sort of revelation but it is going to be at the height of aesthetics as far as what I've read.

Yes you may be right. I do think that when it comes down to it the book will be more about the aesthetic than anything else. This is only my 2nd time reading his work, the first being "The Road" and though the books are much the same in many ways, and while "The Road" did not offer any mind-altering revelations, I somehow felt I got a little more out of "The Road" than I have been able to draw from this book.

[Rores28]

At first I liked the Road better but as I get farther through BM I'm liking it more. The Road had alot of pathos for me... one of the few if possibly only book that got me teary eyed. There are just so many passages in this book that are written so well and the ambiance is so perfect and mythic, that I think the aesthetics of this book trump the pathos of The Road.

[Dark Muse]

At first I liked the Road better but as I get farther through BM I'm liking it more. The Road had alot of pathos for me... one of the few if possibly only book that got me teary eyed. There are just so many passages in this book that are written so well and the ambiance is so perfect and mythic, that I think the aesthetics of this book trump the pathos of The Road.

Though I do appreciate aesthetics since this is a novel and not a poem, I fear for me pure aesthetics is not quite enough so I am going to have to say "The Road" stands as being better between the two, becasue it offers more than just visual imagery and well placed words.

[Dark Muse]

The story which the Judge tells in Chapter 11 about the man who killed the traveler and than after he confessed to his son what he had done, his son became a killer, has really made the novel make more sense to me, or at least gain a better understanding behind the purpose of McCarthy writing the novel.

I had been struggling with the idea of accepting the fact that he went through all the trouble to write this book simply to proclaim that mankind is as base violent and cruel and people kill each other senselessly. And while the analogy offered in the Judges story does not necessarily offer up any new revelations, it puts the whole of the novel in greater perceptive.

Though I haven't read No Country For Old Men, I saw the movie, and the Judges story reminded me a lot of the story told in NCFOM by the older Sheriff to the young deputy about this incident which happened I think in 1800's in which a man went crazy and committed a heinous act of murder and for me it reflects the idea that while people like to talk about how much things have changed, or how crime is worse now than it used to be, and hark back to some mystical golden age, in truth things really haven't changed that much when it comes to basic human nature, people are people and at base they don't really change that much.

[Virgil]

Wow, I fineished the slaughter of the Indian village and that was gruesome. It is hard to read a novel with no moral core, or perhaps that is the moral core.

I don't know why Rores28 and D-M have a problem with the theme of man's inhumanity. That's a fairly common theme. Though I don't think that's the only theme here. This novel is an achievement. I haven't finished, but the only American novel of the 2nd half of the 20th century that rivals this is Ralph Ellison's Invisible man.

[Dark Muse]

Wow, I fineished the slaughter of the Indian village and that was gruesome. It is hard to read a novel with no moral core, or perhaps that is the moral core.

Yes, though this book is chalk full of violence I found those scenes about the slaughter of the village to be particularly gripping and effective, and it was one of the first moments in which the violence of the novel really actually outraged me.



I don't know why Rores28 and D-M have a problem with the theme of man's inhumanity. That's a fairly common theme. Though I don't think that's the only theme here. This novel is an achievement. I haven't finished, but the only American novel of the 2nd half of the 20th century that rivals this is Ralph Ellison's Invisible man.

It is a common theme but perhaps that is part of the problem for me, the fact that this novel does not seem to offer a whole lot more beyond that. And considering the ambitiousness of the prose, I just don't see wasting ones time to point out such a blatant and obvious point without offering the reader anything else. Part of it for me may be a combination of the fact that he is a talented writer, mixed with all the hype about him and this book, I expected something more.

[Virgil]

It is a common theme but perhaps that is part of the problem for me, the fact that this novel does not seem to offer a whole lot more beyond that. And considering the ambitiousness of the prose, I just don't see wasting ones time to point out such a blatant and obvious point without offering the reader anything else. Part of it for me may be a combination of the fact that he is a talented writer, mixed with all the hype about him and this book, I expected something more.

I think the something else is rooted in the religious views that are linked to nature. I can't articulate it yet coherently, but I think the actions, the violence, nature, and some sort of religion that is rooted in the natural elements are all interlinked.

[Dark Muse]

I think the something else is rooted in the religious views that are linked to nature. I can't articulate it yet coherently, but I think the actions, the violence, nature, and some sort of religion that is rooted in the natural elements are all interlinked.

Yes, I have noticed that, though like you I do not know yet quite what conclusions to draw upon it, but I recall one line which recall struck out at me because it seemed very pagan in nature.

I do not know remember how it was exactly worded, but someone commented about how the Bible was a lie, and the judge I think it was made a comment about God being in the stone and the earth or something to a similar effect to that.

And there were a few other occurrences in which there does seem to be a very naturalistic approach to religion.

[Virgil]

I'm pretty sure it's a pagan outlook but I don't think it's a traditional pagan. The violence goes beyond anything pagan that I can think of. But it's certainly not Christian or Judaic.

[Dark Muse]

I'm pretty sure it's a pagan outlook but I don't think it's a traditional pagan. The violence goes beyond anything pagan that I can think of. But it's certainly not Christian or Judaic.

The idea of seeing God in nature is a very Pagan outlook, as for the violence, while as it has already been mentioned before it is pushed to the extreme, but there were many Pagan cultures that were revolved around warrior gods. As I think there is one point in which the Apaches were described as being like Viking warriors, and the Vikings did primarily worship a war god, for the Celts the warrior culture was also a part of their spiritual beliefs.

[Virgil]

The idea of seeing God in nature is a very Pagan outlook, as for the violence, while as it has already been mentioned before it is pushed to the extreme, but there were many Pagan cultures that were revolved around warrior gods. As I think there is one point in which the Apaches were described as being like Viking warriors, and the Vikings did primarily worship a war god, for the Celts the warrior culture was also a part of their spiritual beliefs.

You're right.

[Dark Muse]

This sort of relates to the topic of the Pagan themes within the book, as well as the idea of the myth of the American West as it presented, but one of the things which struck out at me while I am reading is the way in which McCarthy draws frequently from aspects of European myth.

He alludes to Medusa and the Gorgons on separate occasions, he often uses the word changeling in association with Indian, or Mexican children, and as mentioned above, he described the Apaches as being Viking like. He also uses the word barbarian frequently, which is a term I associate more often with the European tribes than I do with Native Americans, which were more commonly termed "Savage."

In a book about the American West, I have to say I often find some of this European imagery to stick out and feel as if it is out of place. The images it conjures up does not fit with the landscape of the story for me.

[Virgil]

This sort of relates to the topic of the Pagan themes within the book, as well as the idea of the myth of the American West as it presented, but one of the things which struck out at me while I am reading is the way in which McCarthy draws frequently from aspects of European myth.

He alludes to Medusa and the Gorgons on separate occasions, he often uses the word changeling in association with Indian, or Mexican children, and as mentioned above, he described the Apaches as being Viking like. He also uses the word barbarian frequently, which is a term I associate more often with the European tribes than I do with Native Americans, which were more commonly termed "Savage."

In a book about the American West, I have to say I often find some of this European imagery to stick out and feel as if it is out of place. The images it conjures up does not fit with the landscape of the story for me.

Interestiong. I haven't picked up on that. I have picked up on Christian and Judaic allusions. I think McCarthy is after some universalizing religion deep in the heart of nature.

[Dark Muse]

Interestiong. I haven't picked up on that. I have picked up on Christian and Judaic allusions. I think McCarthy is after some universalizing religion deep in the heart of nature.

The idea of the universality of religion is an interesting, and I can see where it would make sense in considering the Pagan themes which are merged with the Judeo-Christian god, but how does this statement about religion relate to the persistent violence in the book?

Is it a way of pointing out that all religions are at base the same and the hypocrisy of the Judeo-Christian religions of trying to act as if it is on a moral high ground over the Pagan religions.

One of the things which has struck out at me in this book, is the irony of the scalp collectors. The fact that certain Native tribes did use scalping to collect war trophies and a sign of their bravery in war, was often used to demonize them among the whites and to strike fear in people of Indians, and as propaganda about how savage they were and that they were more like wild animals than human beings.

Yet here is a group of Americans which have been hired to gallop around slaughtering villages to collect their scalps and turn them for a bounty, and even as they ride around killing women and children, they still speak of the Indians as being the savages.

[Dark Muse]

What the hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So the judge buys a couple of pupies just to throw them off a bridge, and than someone else shoots them

[Virgil]

The idea of the universality of religion is an interesting, and I can see where it would make sense in considering the Pagan themes which are merged with the Judeo-Christian god, but how does this statement about religion relate to the persistent violence in the book?

Is it a way of pointing out that all religions are at base the same and the hypocrisy of the Judeo-Christian religions of trying to act as if it is on a moral high ground over the Pagan religions.

No, I think it's that death is connected to the numinous. Animal or human sacrifice as a spiritual act is very common among lots of religions. Oh, this all reminds me of the Aztecs, and their territory was around the setting as well. I wonder if there's a connection.


One of the things which has struck out at me in this book, is the irony of the scalp collectors. The fact that certain Native tribes did use scalping to collect war trophies and a sign of their bravery in war, was often used to demonize them among the whites and to strike fear in people of Indians, and as propaganda about how savage they were and that they were more like wild animals than human beings.

Yet here is a group of Americans which have been hired to gallop around slaughtering villages to collect their scalps and turn them for a bounty, and even as they ride around killing women and children, they still speak of the Indians as being the savages.
Agreed. Of course McCarthy is being ironic. I don't know if they were hired or are collecting on scalps. I wonder how much of this is based on real types of events. I hope to God it's not.

[Dark Muse]

Agreed. Of course McCarthy is being ironic. I don't know if they were hired or are collecting on scalps. I wonder how much of this is based on real types of events. I hope to God it's not.

Maybe hired was not the right word, but I recall that Tovidine, the Kid, and I think also the Delewares were recurited by Glanton, they had been arrested, and if they agreed to hunt scalps they would be freed.

[Virgil]

Maybe hired was not the right word, but I recall that Tovidine, the Kid, and I think also the Delewares were recurited by Glanton, they had been arrested, and if they agreed to hunt scalps they would be freed.

Oh I missed that. Today I read where they made it to that Mexican town and were paid for the scalps, the towns where they bathed and partied with the whores. The people in town treated them as heros. But I enjoyed the break from the violence and the partying was engaging. I thought that was a fun chapter. :D

[Dark Muse]

Oh I missed that. Today I read where they made it to that Mexican town and were paid for the scalps, the towns where they bathed and partied with the whores. The people in town treated them as heros. But I enjoyed the break from the violence and the partying was engaging. I thought that was a fun chapter. :D

It is in Ch. 6, and it was acutally The Kid, Toadvine, and the judge, when they first met Glanton:


His name is Glanton, said Toadvine. He's got a contract with Trias. They're to pay him a hundred dollars a head for scalps and a thousand for Gomez's head. I told him there was three of us. Gentlemens, we're gettin out of this ****hole.

[Virgil]

Oh great. Thanks a lot. :) I must have missed that. I wondered what the heck they were doing wondering around the desert killing Indians.

[Dark Muse]

Oh great. Thanks a lot. :) I must have missed that. I wondered what the heck they were doing wondering around the desert killing Indians.

That is one of the good things about the chapter outlines. It makes it easy to go back and look up things which happened in previous chapters.

[Rores28]

Oh great. Thanks a lot. :) I must have missed that. I wondered what the heck they were doing wondering around the desert killing Indians.

haha I glossed over that at first two and had to go back after a few pages to see what was going on.... its pretty easy to do because of the brevity that almost borders on nonchalance at times that McCarthy employs to tell you something. Although when it comes to less crucial plot elements such as descriptions of landscapes.........


Also the part with the puppies was awesome. I actually had to reread it to make sure what I thought happened actually had. The senselessness (that is a weird looking word) of the violence is climbing to epic heights.

Also there is def something going on with man and the world and God. It seems maybe he is drawing on Gaia theory here....

It is interesting to note the various mythic and religious allusions. Like he's trying to cram a little piece of all the beliefs of man into one thread.

I think I am going to reserve judgment on the meaning until I have finished.. it still seems really nebulous

[Dark Muse]

Also the part with the puppies was awesome. I actually had to reread it to make sure what I thought happened actually had. The senselessness (that is a weird looking word) of the violence is climbing to epic heights.

Awsome is not the word I would use for killing puppies. Even Glanton, who I think is a compete psychopath, saved the life of a dog.

[Dark Muse]

Is there any particular significance in the presence of the judge and an expriest as being part of this scalping party, considering that both figures are traditionally representative of morality, truth, justice. In addition to the fact that with the suggestion of an idea of a universality or religion, that a priest would by symbolic of a religious morality, while the judge would represent a secular morality.

Also, I was wondering is the expriest the same priest that the judge had denounced early in the book?

[Virgil]

Is there any particular significance in the presence of the judge and an expriest as being part of this scalping party, considering that both figures are traditionally representative of morality, truth, justice. In addition to the fact that with the suggestion of an idea of a universality or religion, that a priest would by symbolic of a religious morality, while the judge would represent a secular morality.


Great thought. I think it fits, yes.

[Dark Muse]

In Chapter 14 is there ment to be something of signifigance in the line:


When the judge and Glanton appeared at the front door in thier suits, the judge in white and Glanton in black, the only person about was one of the small holsters asleep on the steps.

It seems as if McCarthy is blatantly pointing out the obvious color symbolism, or else why mention the color of their suits at all here, and yet, the judge is hardly a paragon of virtue, goodness, purity, or innocence.

Is it meant to be ironic? Is it meant to be a statement about God and the Devil, as a way of pointing out that they are in fact one in the same.

Prior to this scene the judge gives a speech which makes him sound a little bit like he does have something of a God complex, because he says that anything exists without his knowledge exists without his consent. He is insulted by the freedom that birds have, and he does seem to be on a quest of a sort of omniscience, seeking a total dominion over the world so that he may have absolute control over his own fate.

[Virgil]

I'm not up that far I'm afraid. I will comment when I reach it. It might be the weekend given my schedule.

[stlukesguild]

Yes, he is de-Romanticizing by bringing down the Romantic vision of westerns to a raw naturalism, but the from the very extreme of naturalism, McCarthy puts forth a new Romanticized view of the early western frontier that ultimaltely rests upon its own mythos.

Exactly! McCarthy de-Romanticizes the old notion of "How the West was Won" and makes no bones about the mindless violence and the mindless killers... but at the same time this west is portrayed in the most poetic and visionary of prose... worthy of Melville:

All to the north the rain had dragged black tendrils down from the thunderclouds like tracings of lampblack fallen in a beaker and in the night they could hear the drum of rain miles away on the prairie. They ascended through a rocky pass and lightning shaped out the distant shivering mountains and lightning rang the stones about and tufts of blue fire clung to the horses like incandescent elementals that would not be driven off. Soft smelterlights advanced upon the metal of the harness, lights rang blue and liquid on the barrels of the guns. Mad jackhares started and checked in the blue glare and high among those clanging crags jokin roehawks crouched in their feathers or cracked a yellow eye at the thunder underfoot...

The riders slumped forward and rightly skeptic of the shimmering cities on the distant shore of that sea whereon they trod miraculous...

They passed through a highland meadow carpeted with wildflowers, acres of golden groundsel and zinnia and deep purple gentian and wild vines of blue morninglory and a vast plain of varied small blooms reaching onward like a gingham print to the farthest serried rimlands blue with haze and the adamantine ranges rising out of nothing like the backs of seabeasts in a devonian dawn...

They rode through the long twilight and the sun set and no moon rose and to the west the mountains shuddered again and again in clattering frames and burned to final darkness and the rain hissed in the blind night land. They went up through the foothills among the pine trees and barren rock and they went up through juniper and spruce and the rare great aloes and the rising stalks of the yuccas with their pale blooms silent and unearthly among the evergreens.

I am ever struck by the contrast between the mindless violence, the mythological judge who is the veritable devil... Satan who claims this land.. this earth... and the stunning poetic splendor of the land itself.

"The sun to the west lay in a holocaust..." That is where the title of the novel comes from: Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West. Thorugh the violence, McCarthy is creating a mythos. I don't believe it's associated with either Christianity or Judaism, but he's taking the imagery and diction from Christianity and Judaism and constructing a myth that rises to the level of religion from the events of the novel.

Yes... a mythos of the America West... which is central to the whole American myth of Manifest Destiny... but a mythos ground in violence, murder, and rape... as well as in religion.

[stlukesguild]

It seems as if McCarthy is blatantly pointing out the obvious color symbolism, or else why mention the color of their suits at all here, and yet, the judge is hardly a paragon of virtue, goodness, purity, or innocence.

Is it meant to be ironic? Is it meant to be a statement about God and the Devil, as a way of pointing out that they are in fact one in the same.

Harold Bloom suggested a link between Judge Holden and Melville's Moby Dick... going so far as to suggest that the judge... was almost a synthesis of Ahab and the Great White Whale. He is indeed a behemoth of a man... huge, white (albino), hairless... something bestial... beast-like... Satanic.

[Dark Muse]

It seems as if McCarthy is blatantly pointing out the obvious color symbolism, or else why mention the color of their suits at all here, and yet, the judge is hardly a paragon of virtue, goodness, purity, or innocence.

Is it meant to be ironic? Is it meant to be a statement about God and the Devil, as a way of pointing out that they are in fact one in the same.

Harold Bloom suggested a link between Judge Holden and Melville's Moby Dick... going so far as to suggest that the judge... was almost a synthesis of Ahab and the Great White Whale. He is indeed a behemoth of a man... huge, white (albino), hairless... something bestial... beast-like... Satanic.

That is an interesting thought!

[Rores28]

I think McCarthy is on record as saying Moby Dick was his favorite book... or something like that....

I've also heard it said that The Kid is a sort of anti-Ishmael.

In addition to what some of you have said the Judge (at least to the point in the story where I'm at) seems to be a sort of unstoppable force. It's been pointed out that he is excellent at anything and everything that he tries his hand at, and has employed a degree of ingenuity that would make MacGyver jealous (I'm thinking of the home made gun-powder)

[stlukesguild]

Of course the Judge is brilliant... in McCarthy's mythologizing he is Satanic... if not Satan incarnate... which becomes increasingly obvious as the novel moves forward. Unlike the Glanton clan he is intelligent and fully aware of ethical questions... and yet is completely without the least morality... to the point of frightening the others. His rifle, bearing the Latin (?!) inscription Et in Arcadia ego comes from a well-used phrase loosely translated as "Even in paradise, there also goes death". We might also take Holden as representing death. As the novel unfolds it becomes clear that he is one of the "greatest"/most horrific villains in literature.

I think McCarthy is on record as saying Moby Dick was his favorite book...

Quite likely. There are many similarities. McCarthy has clearly sought to create a modern American myth based upon the conquering of the West as opposed to Melville's mythology of the sea... which was far more apt for the earlier America. McCarthy's language... his almost Baroque... one hesitates to say Shakespearean... richness of language and imagery... his use of contrasting/conflicting styles... and even the employment of the archaic language all build upon Melville... as well as Melville's sources: Shakespeare and the Bible.

[Rores28]

I'm growing increasingly convinced of the parallels to Moby Dick. I know in the Yale Lecture series
http://oyc.yale.edu/english/american-novel-since-1945

Hungerford makes this point and I got as far as her saying The Kid was a sort of Anti-Ishmael - at which points she starts unleashing spoilers so if you are going to listen save it till the end.

As far as I've listened she's made the point that whereas with Ishmael you have uninhibited access to his cogitations the kid is very closed off and you mostly have to gauge his motivations through his actions. This is as far as I've gotten but I think it's an interesting point. This same dichotomy of open / close I think is revealed in the respective opening lines.

Call me Ishmael.

See the child.

Another parallel is the idea of equality among these men. In Moby Dick there is a sort of relative meritocracy, savages are still slightly below white man but not to the degree as seen in the respective society. You see fleshed out particularly when **SPOILER** the tavern owner mistakenly thinks the entire party is black due to the dirt on them and asks them to move to another table. Despite there different ranks and races they all sit together and none of them suggest for second that Jackson get up and move. I believe if memory serves in Moby Dick there was special mention of everybody eating at the same table as well.

Shortly after this the judge lends a mystical quality to a gold coin he has with a magic trick which I think has similarities to the idea of the doubloon Ahab uses to facilitate compliance.

Something else I think is interesting is how not on a ship and not at sea the company is. There is constant description of an arid landscape and it is often apparent that the men ride there own horses which often get sick injured etc... I dont know if this is intentional or "means" anything but it sorta causing something to stir in my brain.

Also as to the comment earlier about Glanton in black and the judge in white. I wonder if this has more to do with the range and the equality of the company. Like the company is a microcosmic representation of all man spanning the whole demographic spectrum. Also maybe it is meant to blur the lines of morality etc...

[Virgil]

In Moby Dick there is a sort of relative meritocracy, savages are still slightly below white man but not to the degree as seen in the respective society.

I don't want to stray off topic, but the savages are not below the white man in Moby Dick. They hold pride of place as the harpooners, the highest respected position on board ship.

[Rores28]

I don't want to stray off topic, but the savages are not below the white man in Moby Dick. They hold pride of place as the harpooners, the highest respected position on board ship.

Ok thanks. I couldn't quite remember, but I remembered equality as a strong theme on the ship, and I don't think your post was off-topic.

[plainjane]

Earlier I retracted my point that McCarthy was mythologising and agreed that he was de-Romanticizing.

I have to amend all that now that I'm a third of the way through the novel. I don't know if I'm going to be able to express this, but I think McCarthy is on one level de-Romanticizing but on another level he is re-Romanticizing, all of which becomes a mythologizing.

Yes, he is de-Romanticizing by bringing down the Romantic vision of westerns to a raw naturalism, but the from the very extreme of naturalism, McCarthy puts forth a new Romanticized view of the early western frontier that ultimaltely rests upon its own mythos.



Great post Virgil. I'm still following the discussion, but I had to stop reading. I read a little past the old woman being scalped...for no apparent reason besides she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. From what I've read in this thread, that's about the least of their atrocities.

I don't know if I'll ever finish Blood Meridian, I just don't have the stomach for it I suppose.

[Virgil]

Great post Virgil. I'm still following the discussion, but I had to stop reading. I read a little past the old woman being scalped...for no apparent reason besides she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. From what I've read in this thread, that's about the least of their atrocities.

I don't know if I'll ever finish Blood Meridian, I just don't have the stomach for it I suppose.
Well, I just reached the part where two puppies are slain for fun. You know, killing hundreds of innocent Indians and then scalping them and selling the scalpsis one thing, but shooting two puppies is where I draw the line. :wink5:

[plainjane]

Well, I just reached the part where two puppies are slain for fun. You know, killing hundreds of innocent Indians and then scalping them and selling the scalpsis one thing, but shooting two puppies is where I draw the line. :wink5:

Well, ya know, there is something to that actually. It sounds like McCarthy's characters reversed the usual "serial killer syndrome", you know, the one where the kid pulls the wings off of flies and graduates to small mammals and then humans. Or maybe they were simply regressing.

[Virgil]

I must say that this is as dark a novel as I've ever read. So dark it makes me shiver. I've yet to see anything redeeming in any of these men. If this wasn't so beautifully written, I would be disgusted.

[Rores28]

Finished this last night.... for me this is one of the greatest things I've ever read. For me its up there with my other favorites Moby Dick, Brothers Karamazov, Notes, Hamlet. SOme of the passages were written better than I imagined something could be written.

[Dark Muse]

Well, I just reached the part where two puppies are slain for fun. You know, killing hundreds of innocent Indians and then scalping them and selling the scalpsis one thing, but shooting two puppies is where I draw the line. :wink5:

I do not know if you are being sarcastic, but you sound like me. Out of everything that happened in the book that is one of the things which outraged me the most.

I was just like......I can't believe they killed the dogs?........why would anyone do such a thing?

Ok so they have been going around slaughtering women and children......but why would they kill the dogs?

[Virgil]

I do not know if you are being sarcastic, but you sound like me. Out of everything that happened in the book that is one of the things which outraged me the most.

I was just like......I can't believe they killed the dogs?........why would anyone do such a thing?

Ok so they have been going around slaughtering women and children......but why would they kill the dogs?

I was being both tongue in cheek and serious. You're right. However repulsive there was a rationale behind the killing of women and children; they killed the pups for shear fun. Like I said, this is as dark a novel as I've ever read.

I have to apologize for not keeping up. I'm only up to chapter XV, which is only a little beyond half way. I've been busy and too wiped out to read during the week when I come home from work. But I will finish.

[Dark Muse]

I was being both tongue in cheek and serious. You're right. However repulsive there was a rationale behind the killing of women and children; they killed the pups for shear fun. Like I said, this is as dark a novel as I've ever read.

Yes, exactly, while their killing of the Indians, and the women and children were horrible atrocities, I know the reasons for why they did these things, it is something which actually happened.

But the killing of the dogs was truly, utterly pointless and an act for nothing more than the desire to kill, it was not an act of prejudicial hate, or greed, or religious bigotry.

It was purely killing for the sake of killing.

Plus the plain and simple truth is that my greater sympathies always lie more with animals than with people.

[stlukesguild]

I think McCarthy was fully aware of just how the killing of the puppies would outrage... and push our perceptions of these men even further. We've probably all heard of the Nazi death camp guards who could callously execute Jews all day... and then cuddle and kiss their beloved dogs. Gunter Grass, in his novel Local Anesthetic has the girlfriend of a central character propose to burn a dog publicly in a swank district of Berlin as a protest against the Vietnam War (??:shocked:). Her argument is that the killing of an animal outrages the complacent public who have become immune to death tolls and atrocities of humans in the news and in the movies. Clearly both writers were onto something.

By the way... the characters in Grass' novel eventually couldn't bring themselves to do it.

[Rores28]

**MAJOR SPOILERS**

The ending.

So it seems as if the judge and the kid had homosexual relations in the outhouse and that the some men walked in on it. Then the judge may or may not have killed the kid.

And it seems the judge knew the entire time. When he says something like "if Glanton knew he would have killed you" and "you thought no one could see you" and the kid says something like "you seen me"

It seems to be implied too then that the kid was having a homosexual relationship with Tobin. In the end though why get with the judge. The judge is the only one he knows that he can safely approach to get out his desires? Like even though the judge is completely sadistic and bloodthirsty he still to all the possibilities of the world, which is maybe one of the things that makes him so disarming.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but this then also has a parallel to the homosexual relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael.... I don't know if I said that before.

[Rores28]

Did anyone else notice the phrase "fairybook beast" used three times in the book?

Any significance here. I don't know that to be a particularly common phrase.

[Dark Muse]

What is the significance in the relationship between the judge and the idiot?

The judge lacks any sort of compassion, basic morality, respect for life human or otherwise, if it does not serve him some useful purpose, so just why does the judge save the idiots life and than keep him around as a sort of sidekick?

Since there first encounter I was certain that either Glanton or the judge were going to shoot him. Is it just because he is white that they don't kill him?

[Rores28]

What is the significance in the relationship between the judge and the idiot?

The judge lacks any sort of compassion, basic morality, respect for life human or otherwise, if it does not serve him some useful purpose, so just why does the judge save the idiots life and than keep him around as a sort of sidekick?

Since there first encounter I was certain that either Glanton or the judge were going to shoot him. Is it just because he is white that they don't kill him?

Yea this was a bit of mystery to me as well. My knee-jerk reaction was that it paralleled the way in which the men had followed the judge somewhat blindly. There is a sense that destinies and origins are inscrutable to men and they are instead lead by forces outside of their control and outside of their understanding. I'm sorta thinking of the line "or whether their hearts aren't made of another kind of clay." The idiot is at first in a cage, then gets baptized, then goes on adventures of savage killing, then is the judges pet. I would say he exemplifies how fictile are the hearts of men, and maybe more than that how their motivations are remote.

I think too this begs the question "was the idiot better off in a cage wallowing in his own feces or outside with the Glanton gang."

Maybe too this is indicative of how the devil (the judge is at least in some sense a satanic symbol) cannot exist without men. And so the judge has to constantly keep someone aware of his existence in order to survive.

I don't know if you've read the end of the book but if not this is a spoiler..... When it is said and repeated that the judge is a favorite and will never die I think the most obvious way to take this is in the satanic sense, however, if you listen to the Yale online lectures Hungerford puts forward the notion that the judge is in fact referring to himself as a literary figure that will never die, and his immortality than would be solely in the hands of the readership that remembers him.

[Dark Muse]

Yea this was a bit of mystery to me as well. My knee-jerk reaction was that it paralleled the way in which the men had followed the judge somewhat blindly. There is a sense that destinies and origins are inscrutable to men and they are instead lead by forces outside of their control and outside of their understanding. I'm sorta thinking of the line "or whether their hearts aren't made of another kind of clay." The idiot is at first in a cage, then gets baptized, then goes on adventures of savage killing, then is the judges pet. I would say he exemplifies how fictile are the hearts of men, and maybe more than that how their motivations are remote.

I think too this begs the question "was the idiot better off in a cage wallowing in his own feces or outside with the Glanton gang."

Maybe too this is indicative of how the devil (the judge is at least in some sense a satanic symbol) cannot exist without men. And so the judge has to constantly keep someone aware of his existence in order to survive.

I don't know if you've read the end of the book but if not this is a spoiler..... When it is said and repeated that the judge is a favorite and will never die I think the most obvious way to take this is in the satanic sense, however, if you listen to the Yale online lectures Hungerford puts forward the notion that the judge is in fact referring to himself as a literary figure that will never die, and his immortality than would be solely in the hands of the readership that remembers him.

I have not yet got to the end, a couple chapters away.

Wow, you make some excellent points about the dynamic between the idiot and the judge. Though it never occurred to me to look at it that way, what you say does make perfect sense and fits in with the themes of the story and the character of the judge, as well as those who seemed to get sucked in around him and it explains how it is that everyone seems to simply follow him even if at times they do not always seem to be satisfied with what he is doing, or their position in subservience to him.

For example the expriest trying to egg the Kid on to shoot the judge, and yet the kid seeming unable to do so though he does not appear to have any inherent genuine loyalty or particularly liking of the man. As well at one point Toadvine had made a direct threat against the judges life, but than backed down even though he had the perfect opportunity to shoot him.

There is also the strange shift of power which occurs between Glanton and the judge, previously Glanton was in charge of the gang and just brought the judge on offering him his freedom in exchange for joining his scalping party, and because Glanton himself seemed to be quite the madman I had thought at some point there would come to be a confrontation between Glanton and the judge, yet somehow Glanton just sort of lets the judge take over and becomes his follower.

The statement about the fickleness of men's hearts and the way in which they do become blind followers and seem subject to the outside forces and influences around them circles back to the beginning of the book in which the judge was able to turn the crowd of people against the priest without presenting any real evidence against him, but just by stating unsupported claims, and using his position as an authoritive figure.

[Rores28]

The statement about the fickleness of men's hearts and the way in which they do become blind followers and seem subject to the outside forces and influences around them circles back to the beginning of the book in which the judge was able to turn the crowd of people against the priest without presenting any real evidence against him, but just by stating unsupported claims, and using his position as an authoritive figure.

True that.. I had forgotten about that part.

When you finish I highly recommend the Yale Lecture's. I loved the book when I completed it. And I loved it even more after listening to the lectures.

[Dark Muse]

True that.. I had forgotten about that part.

When you finish I highly recommend the Yale Lecture's. I loved the book when I completed it. And I loved it even more after listening to the lectures.

Now that the book does seem to be developing a bit more of a deeper meaning than just "people suck" I am starting to enjoy it more. I am quite enjoying the concept of the judge as the devil, and though I haven't read Moby Dick, I find the idea of McCarthy creating a sort of American/Wild West version of the story to be an interesting one. And I like the way in which many of the different characters do seem to take on a certain symbolism within the story.

[Dark Muse]

Is the kid meant to be a sort of Christ like figure?

Throughout most of the book he lays low and there is a large portion in the middle of the story in which he isn't mentioned at all giving him the appearance of not really taking a very active role in the actions of the others and than suddenly he emerges near the end of the story for this sort of showdown with the judge.

Being in the company of the priest gives the whole thing this air of the epic battle of good vs evil, and that whole encounter with the judge, of them being alone out in the desert and the judge trying to tempt the kid to come back to him does seem to be a bit reminiscent of the last temptation.

[katelbach]

Just finished it after about 4 weeks, which says a lot, though i have been heavily preoccupied with my newest trivial pursuit - archery, fittingly.

My opinions haven't veered much from my initial thoughts really. The prose is largely mesmerising but the atmospheric sparseness and the tangential approach to what is actually a very linear narrative left me struggling to engage with the story and characters - a potential protagonist effectively disappearing for 200 pages didn't help! Looking back, it seems i've remembered the novel in terms of separate scenes rather than a whole - Toadvine and the burning down of the hotel / clash with the apaches / scene in the abandoned church / stand off with Judge at the Creek / final scene at the dance. These would have worked well as short stories on their own, especially considering McCarthy's poetic tendencies. That said, the novel still works, and impressed me deeply, it was just a big struggle to get through as i couldn't just dip into it for 20 pages at a time without feeling detached from any kind of narratiove progression.

I DO get the doggie scene though, as, for me, i was warming to Judge and the idea that he was a lover of the Earth and nature etc. This scene blew that out of the water, and, as with others forumites, had me thinking along the God and/or Devil (incarnate or otherwise) lines re: his symbolism to the whole.

Just realising as i type how deeply this book has affected me and how it will stay with me for a long time. Should've given it 5 stars rather than 4, despite the feeling that i've just finished a marathon.

[Dark Muse]

**MAJOR SPOILERS**

The ending.

So it seems as if the judge and the kid had homosexual relations in the outhouse and that the some men walked in on it. Then the judge may or may not have killed the kid.

And it seems the judge knew the entire time. When he says something like "if Glanton knew he would have killed you" and "you thought no one could see you" and the kid says something like "you seen me"

It seems to be implied too then that the kid was having a homosexual relationship with Tobin. In the end though why get with the judge. The judge is the only one he knows that he can safely approach to get out his desires? Like even though the judge is completely sadistic and bloodthirsty he still to all the possibilities of the world, which is maybe one of the things that makes him so disarming.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but this then also has a parallel to the homosexual relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael.... I don't know if I said that before.

What purpose does the homo-erotic suggestion serve to the story at large? It seems to just sort of come out of left field at the end. I did not even initially pick up on it until you mentioned it and I had to go back and reread over the scene. But I don't get what exactly is being said in that scene?

[katelbach]

I didn't pick up on the homo-eroticism either, though i was very sleepy when i finished the book. Think i thought Judge had killed the kid, but wasn't really convinced as the climate at that time/location was not one of wreckless violence as it was 30 years earlier on the malpais and they wouldn't have let Judge just stroll back to the dance. Perhaps it's just deliberately ambiguous as we read no more about the kid. I like the fact that it was left open to interpretation.

[Rores28]

Part of me wants to say it was ambiguous for ambiguity's sake. Like Cormac knew there would be more mystique and scholarly discussion if he created a very ambiguous event.

I think there is definitely more than enough to lead one to believe that something more than simply killing him took place. I mean why is it necessary that the judge is naked and also why embrace. Furthermore, in the scene preceding there is some implication that the kid could not perform with women.

But yea if it is... I'm not quite sure I'm getting its significance.

[Dark Muse]

Part of me wants to say it was ambiguous for ambiguity's sake. Like Cormac knew there would be more mystique and scholarly discussion if he created a very ambiguous event.

I think there is definitely more than enough to lead one to believe that something more than simply killing him took place. I mean why is it necessary that the judge is naked and also why embrace. Furthermore, in the scene preceding there is some implication that the kid could not perform with women. .

Did the judge also have relations with the idiot? Becasue were not they seen on more than one occassion naked together?

[Rores28]

Hah, I hadn't even thought of that... you're sick. :)

Yea I guess I took their nudity to be a product of the heat, but I mean the company wasn't typically walking around naked... so perhaps

[Dark Muse]

Hah, I hadn't even thought of that... you're sick. :)

Yea I guess I took their nudity to be a product of the heat, but I mean the company wasn't typically walking around naked... so perhaps


LOL!

At first I presumed that their nudity was just part of the judges naturalistic tendencies, but I do recall one scene in which they seemed to be just hanging around naked together for no apparent reason, and after the discussion about what he may have done with the kid, well it just cast those moments in a rather different light and made me start to wonder.

[Virgil]

Not sure if anyone is up to discussing this novel further. I completed it in the last week and really want to put out my thoughts. I'll do this in a couple of different posts. On this post I really just want to highlight McCarthy's incredible prose style. Let me focus on this passage, the opening seven paragraphs from chapter XII.


For the next two weeks they would ride by night, they would make no fire. They had struck the shoes from their horses and filled the nailholes in with clay and those who still had tobacco used their pouches to spit in and they slept in caves and on bare stone. They rode their horses through the tracks of their dismounting and they buried their stool like cats and they barely spoke at all. Crossing those barren gravel reefs in the night they seemed remote and without substance. Like a patrol they condemned to ride out some ancient curse. A thing surmised from the blackness by the creak of leather and the chink of metal.

They cut the throats of the pack animals and jerked and divided the meat and they traveled under the cape of the wild mountains upon a broad soda plain with dry thunder to the south and rumors of light. Under a gibbous moon horse and rider spanceled to their shadows on the snowblue ground and in each flare of lightning as the storm advanced those selfsame forms rearing with a terrible redundancy behind them like some third aspect of their presence hammered out black and wild upon the naked grounds. They rode on. They rode like men invested with a purpose whose origins were antecedent to them, like blood legates of an order both imperative and remote. For although each man among them was discrete unto himself, conjoined they made a thing that had not been before and in that communal soul were wastes hardly reckonable more than those whited regions on old maps where monsters do live and where there is nothing other of the known world save conjectural winds.

They crossed the del Norte and rode south into a land more hostile yet. All day they crouched like owls under the niggard acacia shade and peered out upon that cooking world. Dustdevils stood at the horizon like the smoke of distant fires but of a living thing there was none. They eyed the sun in its circus and at dusk they rode upon the cooling plain where the western sky was the color of blood. At the desert well they dismounted and drank jaw to jaw with their horses and remounted and rode on. The little desert wolves yapped in the dark and Glanton’s dog trotted beneath the horse’s belly, its footfalls stitched precisely among the hooves.

That night they were visited with a plague of hail out of a faultless sky and the horses shied and moaned and the men dismounted and sat upon the ground with their saddles over their heads while the hail leaped in the sand like small lucent eggs concocted alchemically out of the desert darkness. When they resaddled and rode on they went for miles through cobbled ice while a polar moon rose like a blind cat’s eye up over the rim of the world. In the night they passed the lights of a village on the plain but they did not alter from their course.

Toward the morning they saw fires on the horizon. Glanton sent the Delawares. Already the downstar burned pale in the east. When they returned they squatted with Glanton and the judge and the Brown brothers and spoke and gestured and then all remounted and all rode on.

Five wagons smoldered on the desert floor and the riders dismounted and moved among the bodies of the dead Argonauts in silence, those right pilgrims nameless among the stones with their terrible wounds, the viscera spilled from their sides and the naked torsos bristling with arrowshafts. Some by their beards were men but yet wore strange menstrual wounds between their legs and no man’s parts for these had been cut away and hung dark and strange from out their grinning mouths. In their wigs of dried blood they lay gazing up with the ape’s eyes at brother sun now rising in the east.

The wagons were no more than embers armatured with the blackened shapes of hoop-iron and tires, the redhot axles quaking deep within the coals. The riders squatted at the fires and boiled water and drank coffee and roasted meat and lay down to sleep among the dead.

What a magnificent passage, and the more I look at it, the more intricacies I see in it. First the whole passage is formed around the clause “they rode.” Notice how three quarters of the sentences have “they” as the subject and most of the action sentences have “rode” or something that implies riding forward as the verb. There is even the short “they rode on” sentence in the second paragraph that is the central core of this, the rest mostly a fleshing out of the scene.

Second what is striking about McCarthy’s style is just how often he uses similes. I can’t help but feel he picked that up from Faulkner, but I think McCarthy takes it even forward. There are at least two kinds of use for similes here. One just to be descriptive and visual: “they buried their stool like cats” or “dustdevils stood at the horizon like the smoke of distant fires.” This creates vibrant imagery for the reader to sink his teeth into. Second McCarthy seems to use the simile as a comparison that leads to a thematic association: “They rode like men invested with a purpose whose origins were antecedent to them, like blood legates of an order both imperative and remote. “ I would argue that such a comparison outside of a reader’s experience. Where does one know men whose origins are antecedent to them? And why would such men ride with a purpose? What purpose? And then he doubles up the simile by comparing the men with “blood legates.” What are blood legates? A legate is a legal agent, and I guess that fits as a description the mission the men are on, but a “blood legate” is a poetic crafting of the language. McCarthy is suggesting through this simile that the men are riding by some unconsciously driven impulse. And this connects to the simile in the first paragraph, “Like a patrol they condemned to ride out some ancient curse. “

Other distinctions of his prose are the original use of metaphor, imagery and diction. There are the metaphors, the sun as a circus (a disk), hail as a plague, and castration as menstrual wounds. Some of the imagery is so sharp: filling the horseshoes holes with clay or drinking jaw to jaw with their horses. Only McCarthy could come up with that. As to the diction, look at his use of adjectives, “gibbous moon” or “niggard acacia” or “cooking world.” Ignore those writing books that tell you to eliminate adjectives. They don’t know what they’re talking about. And look at his verb choices: “spanceled,” “stitched,” “armatured.” Hardly common words. The metaphors, diction, and imagery charge the language so that it’s really poetic prose.

And there is the rhythm of the sentences, rhythm partly based on polysyndeton, or the frequent use of the conjunction “and.” I think this gives it a particular American sounding quality. 19th century American style was largely based on the language from King James Bible, and there are echoes from it. I think also the sentence lengths tend to repeat, not just the sentence lengths but also the phrasing lengths seem to come at constant intervals.

And finally I love the repeated use of images and actions and words. Notice how cats are mentioned twice, squatting of the men are mentioned twice, eyes are repeated, and moon and sun as discs in some fashion are repeated. These repetitions stitch the narrative together, interlock it as a unified piece. This is top notch writing.

[Rores28]

Not sure if anyone is up to discussing this novel further. I completed it in the last week and really want to put out my thoughts. I'll do this in a couple of different posts. On this post I really just want to highlight McCarthy's incredible prose style. Let me focus on this passage, the opening seven paragraphs from chapter XII.



What a magnificent passage, and the more I look at it, the more intricacies I see in it. First the whole passage is formed around the clause “they rode.” Notice how three quarters of the sentences have “they” as the subject and most of the action sentences have “rode” or something that implies riding forward as the verb. There is even the short “they rode on” sentence in the second paragraph that is the central core of this, the rest mostly a fleshing out of the scene.

Second what is striking about McCarthy’s style is just how often he uses similes. I can’t help but feel he picked that up from Faulkner, but I think McCarthy takes it even forward. There are at least two kinds of use for similes here. One just to be descriptive and visual: “they buried their stool like cats” or “dustdevils stood at the horizon like the smoke of distant fires.” This creates vibrant imagery for the reader to sink his teeth into. Second McCarthy seems to use the simile as a comparison that leads to a thematic association: “They rode like men invested with a purpose whose origins were antecedent to them, like blood legates of an order both imperative and remote. “ I would argue that such a comparison outside of a reader’s experience. Where does one know men whose origins are antecedent to them? And why would such men ride with a purpose? What purpose? And then he doubles up the simile by comparing the men with “blood legates.” What are blood legates? A legate is a legal agent, and I guess that fits as a description the mission the men are on, but a “blood legate” is a poetic crafting of the language. McCarthy is suggesting through this simile that the men are riding by some unconsciously driven impulse. And this connects to the simile in the first paragraph, “Like a patrol they condemned to ride out some ancient curse. “

Other distinctions of his prose are the original use of metaphor, imagery and diction. There are the metaphors, the sun as a circus (a disk), hail as a plague, and castration as menstrual wounds. Some of the imagery is so sharp: filling the horseshoes holes with clay or drinking jaw to jaw with their horses. Only McCarthy could come up with that. As to the diction, look at his use of adjectives, “gibbous moon” or “niggard acacia” or “cooking world.” Ignore those writing books that tell you to eliminate adjectives. They don’t know what they’re talking about. And look at his verb choices: “spanceled,” “stitched,” “armatured.” Hardly common words. The metaphors, diction, and imagery charge the language so that it’s really poetic prose.

And there is the rhythm of the sentences, rhythm partly based on polysyndeton, or the frequent use of the conjunction “and.” I think this gives it a particular American sounding quality. 19th century American style was largely based on the language from King James Bible, and there are echoes from it. I think also the sentence lengths tend to repeat, not just the sentence lengths but also the phrasing lengths seem to come at constant intervals.

And finally I love the repeated use of images and actions and words. Notice how cats are mentioned twice, squatting of the men are mentioned twice, eyes are repeated, and moon and sun as discs in some fashion are repeated. These repetitions stitch the narrative together, interlock it as a unified piece. This is top notch writing.

Nice analysis of the prose. Can you give me a page reference on that... I marked my book all to hell with passages that I liked and I somehow missed that one... the paragraph ending with conjectural winds is pretty amazing.

For me two passage, however, towered above the rest in poetic beauty. The entire first three pages with particular respect to the "or if their hearts weren't another kind of clay paragraph."

And for me the greatest passage in the entire book is the paragraph in which the judge is standing with the cold-forger, the false moneyer... I dont have the book on me but I'd really like to discuss not just how aesthetically stunning this passage is but also what exactly it means.

[Virgil]

Nice analysis of the prose. Can you give me a page reference on that... I marked my book all to hell with passages that I liked and I somehow missed that one... the paragraph ending with conjectural winds is pretty amazing.

For me two passage, however, towered above the rest in poetic beauty. The entire first three pages with particular respect to the "or if their hearts weren't another kind of clay paragraph."

And for me the greatest passage in the entire book is the paragraph in which the judge is standing with the cold-forger, the false moneyer... I dont have the book on me but I'd really like to discuss not just how aesthetically stunning this passage is but also what exactly it means.
There are lots of great passages. Like I said in my post, those are the first seven paragraphs of chapter XII, pages 151-153 in my Modern Library edition.

[Virgil]

As to the themes of this novel, it’s hard for me to grasp them at one reading. The constant and repeated violence, violence without any redemptive qualities, suggests to me just how low humanity can devolve and degenerate. This is nature tooth and claw of which one survives or dies. But it’s more than that. These men made choices to pursue their missions, to receive pay for the slaughter of Apaches. Naturalism, of which it reached its height at the beginning of the 20th century considers humanity to be brutish and completely immoral if placed in the right conditions. But this novel is more than Naturalism. Consider this important passage:


They moved on. There were eagles and other birds in the valley and many deer and there were wild orchards and brakes of bamboo. The river here was sizable and it swept past enormous boulders and waterfalls fell everywhere out of the high tangled jungle. The judge had taken to riding ahead with one of the Delawares and he carried his rifle loaded with the small hard seeds of the nopal fruit and in the evening he would dress expertly the color of birds he’d shot, rubbing the skins with gunpowder and stuffing them with balls of dried grass and packing them away in his wallets. He pressed the leaves of trees and plants into his book and he stalked tiptoe the mountain butterflies with his shirt outheld in both hands, speaking to them in a low whisper, no curious study himself. Toadvine sat watching him as he made his notations in the ledger, holding the book toward the fire for the light, and he asked him what was his purpose in all this.

The judge’s quill ceased its scratching. He looked at Toadvine. Then he continued to write again.

Toadvine spat into the fire.

The judge wrote on and then he folded the ledger shut and laid it to one side and pressed his hands together and passed them over his nose and mouth and placed them palm down on his knees.

Whatever exists, he said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.

He looked about the dark forest in which they were bivouacked. He nodded toward the specimens he’d collected. These anonymous creatures, he said, may seem little or nothing in the world. Yet the smallest crumb can devour us. Any smallest thing beneath yon rock out of men’s knowing. Only nature can enslave man and only when the existence of each last entity is routed out and made to stand naked before him will he be properly suzerain of the earth.

What’s a suzerain?

A keeper. A keeper or overlord.

Why not say keeper then?

Because he is a special type of keeper. A suzerain is rules even where there are other rulers. His authority countermands local judgments.

Toadvine spat.

The judge placed his hands on the ground. He looked at his inquisitor. This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation.

Toadvine sat with his boots crossed before the fire. No man can acquaint himself with everything on this earth, he said.

The judge tilted his great head. The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.

I don’t see what that has to do with catchin birds.

The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I’d have them all in zoos.

That would be a hell of a zoo.

The judge smiled. Yes, he said. Even so.
[from chapter XIV, pages 197-199 in my Modern Library edition]

Naturalism doesn’t contain the hubris that the judge shows in this passage. And while naturalism may or may not show a sort spirituality imbued in nature, this novel takes it beyond that. There is a linked relationship between the blood violence and whatever orders and holds nature together. Harold Bloom in the introduction to my Modern Library edition and in a Wikipedia entry on this novel it has been suggested that Gnosticism is the novel’s overarching belief structure. Gnosticism was a 2nd century Christian sect (actually not just Christian) that based their theology on secret knowledge. I don’t know enough about Gnosticism to make an intelligent judgment but the judge does seem to strive for knowledge beyond nature. You can look up the Wikipedia entry on Gnosticism and frankly I can’t see what it has to do with the events of this novel. But that’s what multiple readings are for.


In contrast to the human depravity theme—a contrast I think that illuminates the theme—the kid many years later while traveling about trying I think to find some meaning to life stumbles upon another slaughter scene.


The company of penitents lay hacked and butchered among the stones in every attitude. Many lay about the fallen cross and some were mutilated and some were without heads. Perhaps they’d gathered under the cross for shelter but the hole into which it had been set and the cairn of rocks about its base showed how it had been pushed over and how the hooded alterchrist had been cut down and disemboweled who now lay with the scraps of rope by which he had been bound still tied about his wrists and ankles.

The kid rose and looked about at this desolate scene and then he saw alone and upright in a small niche in the rocks an old woman kneeling in a faded rebozo with her eyes cast down.

He made his way among the corpses and stood before her. She was very old and her face was gray and leathery and sand had collected in the folds of her clothing. She did not look up. The shawl that covered her head was much faded of its color yet it bore like a patent woven into the fabric the figures of stars and quartermoons and other insignia of a provenance unknown to him. He spoke to her in a low voice. He told her that he was an American and that he was a long way from the country and that he had traveled much and seen many things and had been at war and endured hardships. He told her that he would convey her to a safe place, some party of her countrypeople who would welcome her and that she should join them for he could not leave her in this place or she would surely die.

He knelt on one knee, resting the rifle before him like a staff. Abuelta, he said. No puedes escucharme?

He reached into the little cove and touched her arm. She moved slightly, her whole body, light and rigid. She weighed nothing. She was just a dried shell and she had been dead in that place for years.
[from chapter XXII, page 315, Modern Library edition]

Finally we reach a point of human redemption. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall an old woman popping up in several scenes through the novel. If so, then the old woman is a running motif which finally culminates here. Is this hollow redemption? The old woman is dead. But the kid’s compassion and humanizing impulse is real. This little scene in the second to last chapter, religious in its images and associations, recasts the whole novel and provides a moral core that was clearly and consciously absent. However this is not the final scene, and wow what a final conflict between the judge and the kid. I won’t spoil the ending, but that too recasts novel once again.

This novel is deep. I can’t believe it’s only 330-something pages. Reading it feels like you have gone through another world. Through its compressed powerful, symbolic scenes and compressed poetic language, this is the shortest epic I can ever remember reading. It is definitely up there as one of the great novels.

[Rores28]

I agree that the novel seems as if it is much longer than 330 pages, which is strange considering how much of it is just landscape description.

The genuine events happen so quickly and with such little commentary that is capable of being very condensed...

As to the overarching theme. He uses the term man a lot and with the intent of Man with a capital M, he is constantly talking about obscure origins and destinies, and he often makes some sort of reference to some sort of holistic force. He often times mentions men's shadows, or avatars, or residues etc.. being cast amongst nature and he also refers to nature in human terms talking about rocks "seeing" I think at one point and describing the sun as a phallus I believe. I think the book implicitly posits that their is an inscrutable force pushing and pulling and governing the behavior of individual men who fail to see how. But this force or God is the emergent property of society both spatially and temporally... that is to say God is the aggregate of human activity occurring now and passed down through history. So men have the power to choose and shape their destiny but it is so suffocated by the juggernaut of society and culture at large that it is often obscured sufficiently that our intentions do not yield fruit and are squashed by the larger cultural currents.

**SPOILER** At the end, the kid's coming to terms with his homosexuality I think exemplifies the needs to break away from the social machine as well as demonstrating the consequences and futility of doing so.

The Judge to me is basically head of that juggernaut. Think about the chanting at the end when he says he will not die over and over. I don't think this is a simple "evil will never die there will always be bad men" theme, despite the reference to Paradise Lost. Even think about how the judge seems to possess so many skills, maybe the skills of all men? The judge is not all powerful. He can't shoot lighting from his fingertips, or teleport, or fly. But he does seem to possess skills at the genetic limit of every human capacity.

In one interview I remember hearing Cormac basically saying he didn't think society would last another x amount of years, before we ended up destroying ourselves.

Technology vs Nature ... or Modern vs Primitive as well as Good vs Evil seem to be apparent but maybe too simplistic, but maybe I'm just being swayed by the aesthetic quality of the writing

In the yale lecture series Prof Hungerford offers a pretty cool interpretation that has more to do I think with Cormac than the narrative.

[Virgil]

I agree that the novel seems as if it is much longer than 330 pages, which is strange considering how much of it is just landscape description.

The genuine events happen so quickly and with such little commentary that is capable of being very condensed...

As to the overarching theme. He uses the term man a lot and with the intent of Man with a capital M, he is constantly talking about obscure origins and destinies, and he often makes some sort of reference to some sort of holistic force. He often times mentions men's shadows, or avatars, or residues etc.. being cast amongst nature and he also refers to nature in human terms talking about rocks "seeing" I think at one point and describing the sun as a phallus I believe. I think the book implicitly posits that their is an inscrutable force pushing and pulling and governing the behavior of individual men who fail to see how. But this force or God is the emergent property of society both spatially and temporally... that is to say God is the aggregate of human activity occurring now and passed down through history. So men have the power to choose and shape their destiny but it is so suffocated by the juggernaut of society and culture at large that it is often obscured sufficiently that our intentions do not yield fruit and are squashed by the larger cultural currents.

Hmm, that societal point you make is interesting, but you would have to provide some examples of that. I don't understand your point about shadows, avatars, whatever. What does that have to do with "holistic forces?"


**SPOILER** At the end, the kid's coming to terms with his homosexuality I think exemplifies the needs to break away from the social machine as well as demonstrating the consequences and futility of doing so.
What? I must have missed the homosexuality. I think the judge's sexuality is questioned throughout, but the kid? In fact, the kid is with a female prostitute at the end, isn't he? There is constant mention of the Gang going to whores throughout the novel.

[Rores28]

Hmm, that societal point you make is interesting, but you would have to provide some examples of that. I don't understand your point about shadows, avatars, whatever. What does that have to do with "holistic forces?"


What? I must have missed the homosexuality. I think the judge's sexuality is questioned throughout, but the kid? In fact, the kid is with a female prostitute at the end, isn't he? There is constant mention of the Gang going to whores throughout the novel.

Sorry, shadows etc... was more adding concrete examples of the symbolism of hazy destinies and causal chains rather than directly supporting the holistic theme.

As to the ending... there are two fairly common competing theories about what happens at the end of the novel,which of course is intentionally ambiguous, (I'm being increasingly convinced of what a self-conscious writer Cormac is) that either the judge kills the kid in the shed, or sodomizes him.

I'm pretty much in the camp of sodomy (I hope that isn't quoted out of context) briefly for these reasons.

1. The scene with the prostitute actually seemed to imply to me that the kid couldn't perform
2. The judge is naked when the kid embraces him in the shed
3. The men are shocked by what they see in the shed... this still seems to be a culture in which simple violence would not be so surprising but homosexuality may be
4. There is constant reference to the judge being able to "see" the kid when others couldn't and I dont think this is simply referring to him having some sort of moral reservations about the gang's activity relative to the other gang members

[Virgil]

The judge is naked at several times in novel. I think it's pretty clear the kid dies at the end. I have no idea where you got the sodomy part. That's a leap if you ask me. Where is there any suggestion that the kid is gay? Like I said before, he's with a female prostitute just before the ending scene. And what does the culture of violence have to do with homosexuality?

[Dark Muse]

The judge is naked at several times in novel. I think it's pretty clear the kid dies at the end. I have no idea where you got the sodomy part. That's a leap if you ask me. Where is there any suggestion that the kid is gay? Like I said before, he's with a female prostitute just before the ending scene. And what does the culture of violence have to do with homosexuality?

As Rores stated in his post just before this one, it is my impression as well that he did not in fact actually have sexual relations with the prostitute, but I was left the idea that he was left unable to actually perform with her. I reared over the scene a few times and I found nothing to suggest to me that The Kid and the prostitute actually had sexual relations with each other but he ended up walking away from her and that is when he sought out the judge.

[Virgil]

As Rores stated in his post just before this one, it is my impression as well that he did not in fact actually have sexual relations with the prostitute, but I was left the idea that he was left unable to actually perform with her. I reared over the scene a few times and I found nothing to suggest to me that The Kid and the prostitute actually had sexual relations with each other but he ended up walking away from her and that is when he sought out the judge.

Well, his pants are down with the prostitute. I took it as something having happened, sort of off stage. McCarthy doesn't suggest impotence there. It's just that the sex is not shown. But where is there any suggestion of sexual encounter with the judge? That seems to be a complete leap. Do you think the kid is gay?

I guess i'll have to go back and read that last chapter. :lol:

[Dark Muse]

Well, his pants are down with the prostitute. I took it as something having happened, sort of off stage. McCarthy doesn't suggest impotence there. It's just that the sex is not shown. But where is there any suggestion of sexual encounter with the judge? That seems to be a complete leap. Do you think the kid is gay?

I guess i'll have to go back and read that last chapter. :lol:

I do not currently have access to my copy of the book so I cannot go back to the part that I think indicates that the Kid in fact did not have relations with the prostitute.

When Rores first made the suggestion about the homosexuality at first I was taken by surprise by it and did not immediately see it, but I have to say upon reading back over a few scenes the idea did start to make sense to me and there were a couple of moments which did seem to indicate that possibility, but as I said I do not currently have access to my book to go to direct quotes.

[Virgil]

I do not currently have access to my copy of the book so I cannot go back to the part that I think indicates that the Kid in fact did not have relations with the prostitute.

When Rores first made the suggestion about the homosexuality at first I was taken by surprise by it and did not immediately see it, but I have to say upon reading back over a few scenes the idea did start to make sense to me and there were a couple of moments which did seem to indicate that possibility, but as I said I do not currently have access to my book to go to direct quotes.

The book definitely deserves another reading. I will be sensitive to that possibility when I reread it. Thanks. :)

[Rores28]

Yea check it out again... there is something awkward about the scene with the prostitute.

Also the fact that it is a culture of violence makes it unlikely that the men that look into the shed would be shocked simply seeing a corpse

[Dark Muse]

Yea check it out again... there is something awkward about the scene with the prostitute.

Also the fact that it is a culture of violence makes it unlikely that the men that look into the shed would be shocked simply seeing a corpse

You make a good point there which I had not thought of before. It seems very unlikely that the presence of a dead body, or even if they witnessed the actual killing, would truly be considered "shocking' to them.

Particularly sense they just finished gunning down the dancing bear it seemed purely for the sport of doing so and human life hardly seemed to have any more meaning to them than the life of an animal. They were desensitized to scenes of death, brutality and murder.

For the to have had such a reaction something more extraordinary would have had to taken place considering the violence and the apathy or even blatant enjoyment of the violence which carries throughout the book.

[Rores28]

Anyone care to throw out some opinions about the kids vision of the judge with the cold-forger... the false moneyer.... and what exactly that passage meant?

This was I thought the most beautiful passage in the book.... and maybe just the most beautiful piece of prose I've ever read.

[ladderandbucket]

I think that the coldforger passage is the key to understanding the book, or at least the dynamic between the kid and the judge, although, as with most things in this mysterious book, I wouldn't presume a full understanding of it.
My interpretation of it is that the coldforger is the kid. He is trying to counterfeit an image of himself which will meet with the judge's approval. It reminds me of the line at the start of the book:

His origins are become remote as is his destiny and not again in all the world's turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man's will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay.

It also prefigures parts of the final conversation between the kid and the judge:

I tell you this, as war becomes dishonored and its nobility called into question those honorable men who recognize the sanctity of blood will become excluded from the dance, which is the warrior's right, and thereby will the dance become a false dance and the dancers false dancers. And yet there be one there always who is a true dancer and can you guess who that might be?

So I read it as the kid's soul being judged...but by what criteria? And what is the nature of the judge?
The preceding passage seems to identify the judge with some kind of immanent principle:

Whoever would seek out his history through what unraveling of loins and ledgerbooks must stand at last darkened and dumb at the shore of a void without terminus or origin and whatever science he might bring to bear upon the dusty primal matter blowing down out of the millennia will discover no trace of ultimate atavistic egg by which to reckon his commencing.

and implies his omniscience:

[the kid, looking in the judges eyes] could read whole bodies of decisions not accountable to the courts of men and he saw his own name which nowhere else could he have ciphered out at all logged into the records as a thing already accomplished, a traveler known in jurisdictions existing only in the claims of certain pensioners or on old dated maps.

Is the judge God? I think not.
I see the kid as being a person who has lost touch with God. This passage:

I aint heard no voice, he said.
When it stops, said Tobin, you'll know you've heard it all your life.
Is that right?
Aye.
The kid turned the leather in his lap. The expriest watched him.
At night, said Tobin, when the horses are grazing and the company is asleep, who hears
them grazing?
Dont nobody hear them if they're asleep.
Aye. And if they cease their grazing who is it that wakes?
Every man.
Aye, said the expriest. Every man.

seems to resonate with the image of the kid in the final chapter, wandering about with a bible searching for the expriest:

He enquired at every door for news of the expriest but no one knew him.

He never saw the expriest again. Of the judge he heard rumour everywhere.

So I see the kid as a lost soul. He has lost contact with God but retains enough vestiges of the honourable man who can recognize the sanctity of blood to disqualify himself from the judge's dance. In the dream of the coldforger the kid is trying to create some identity through an act of will but ultimately will find that his heart is of another kind of clay.
As the judge says to the kid in chapter 21:

There's a flawed place in the fabric of your heart. Do you think I could not know? You alone were mutinous. You alone reserved in your soul some corner of clemency for the heathen.

I think this is a fairly superficial reading of the book. There is certainly a lot more to it. I have really enjoyed reading this thread and seeing people who are obviously as enchanted with Blood Meridian as I was. I can recommend a book called Notes on Blood Meridian by John Sepich (the only piece of lit crit I have ever been tempted to buy) and also searching the messageboard archives of cormacmccarthy.com where scholars have been discussing this book for the last 10 years.