Blood Meridian or Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy

[DrGonzo]

Set in the period after the Mexican - American war, Blood Meridian follows a group of men who are hungry for American Indian scalps and cash. The novel does not take a romanticized 'Once Upon a Time in the West' approach to the wild west. Blood Meridian takes the gruesome nature of the time and does not shy away from any unsettling detail.

I could go on about how great of a book Blood Meridian is and how intricate of a book it is and how evil the infamous Judge is but any description I am capable of giving would fall short of the book.

From an academic standpoint I can say that I learned more about writing from Cormac McCarthy and Blood Meridian than I have from any other book to this day.

As far as my review goes... just read the book. Prove me right or prove me wrong.

“It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.”

Good day.

[Paulclem]

I really enjoyed Blood Meridian, and found it even grimmer than The Road. I thought it was an interesting take on the Mexican/ indian wars, and there's a lot I didn't know or appreciate about the scalping bounties that were available and the abuses of this system. No wonder it's not referred to in "cowboy" films. I liked the fact that it had historical figures in there - Joel Glanton was a notorious scalp hunter who eventually fell foul of the authorities. I really like fiction that opens up new historical perspectives, and this one did. it was well written.

He doesn't go into characterisation much does he? The environment of the desert is beautifully described, but the men become identified by their actions rather than the descriptions of them. None of them has any redeeming features - they are involved in rape, mutilation, fraud, murder and there is a serial killer in the group. It's interesting that McCarthy lets us associate with this group - you develop a familiarity with them despite the terrible things thay do as you are unable to identify with the minor characters/ victims to the same extent. It's almost as if by reading you become part of the group. Would you agree?

[DrGonzo]

I really enjoyed Blood Meridian, and found it even grimmer than The Road. I thought it was an interesting take on the Mexican/ indian wars, and there's a lot I didn't know or appreciate about the scalping bounties that were available and the abuses of this system. No wonder it's not referred to in "cowboy" films. I liked the fact that it had historical figures in there - Joel Glanton was a notorious scalp hunter who eventually fell foul of the authorities. I really like fiction that opens up new historical perspectives, and this one did. it was well written.

He doesn't go into characterisation much does he? The environment of the desert is beautifully described, but the men become identified by their actions rather than the descriptions of them. None of them has any redeeming features - they are involved in rape, mutilation, fraud, murder and there is a serial killer in the group. It's interesting that McCarthy lets us associate with this group - you develop a familiarity with them despite the terrible things thay do as you are unable to identify with the minor characters/ victims to the same extent. It's almost as if by reading you become part of the group. Would you agree?



I agree.

[cafolini]

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

“Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn't believe in that. Tomorrow wasn't getting ready for them. It didn't even know they were there.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.
You forget some things, dont you?
Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

There is no God and we are his prophets.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

He's long overdue for suicide. ~ C A Cafolini

[WyattGwyon]

I could go on about how great of a book Blood Meridian is and how intricate of a book it is and how evil the infamous Judge is but any description I am capable of giving would fall short of the book.

I took The Judge to be an allegorical character in whom are fused qualities commonly held to be mutually annihilating: the insatiable quest for knowledge and enlightenment on one hand and the most brutal, atavistic savagery on the other. In the Judge they happily coexist—and therein lies the horror. So I'm pretty sure it misses the point to interpret his evil in personal terms, since this is actually the immortal (like The Judge himself), eternal human condition.


From an academic standpoint I can say that I learned more about writing from Cormac McCarthy and Blood Meridian than I have from any other book to this day.

His prose is magnificent. For me, on rereading, however, the rhetoric begins to sound a bit overwrought. (Everything is preternatural, quasi-mythical, and of biblical significance.)

As for Cafolini's suggestion that McCarthy is long overdue for suicide: Having read all of his novels, I must point out that about half of them have characters capable of great nobility and possessed of firm moral compass (all of The Border Trilogy, The Orchard Keeper, Suttree.)

[cafolini]

Yes, and Charly is, like his characters, capable of great nobility in Cormac. ROFLMAO.

[Paulclem]

The Judge is an ambiguous figure - I agree that he may well represent the search for knowledge in man, but there's no denying his Satanic aspect. Another name for the Devil is The Sower of Discord, and there nothing more discordant than war.

He's also Satanic on a more prosaic level. He plays with the captured Indian boy and seems to win him over, but the boy is later discovered dead. No-one questions the actions of either him, or any of the other bounty hunters. I thought it was a great book.

[cafolini]

The Judge is an ambiguous figure - I agree that he may well represent the search for knowledge in man, but there's no denying his Satanic aspect. Another name for the Devil is The Sower of Discord, and there nothing more discordant than war.

He's also Satanic on a more prosaic level. He plays with the captured Indian boy and seems to win him over, but the boy is later discovered dead. No-one questions the actions of either him, or any of the other bounty hunters. I thought it was a great book.

Firstly, I can give you and Charly Cormac a lot of people who are more discordant than war: Machiavelli, Richelieu, etc. And many actions that are far more discordant than war, one example of which is the Holocaust.
And I can give you a lot of people that were less discordant than war: Churchill, Lincolm, James and Dolley Madison, F D Roosvelt, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Bill Clinton, Obama, Bidden, Luther King, etc., etc., etc.
A great book? I agree. A greatly insane book that appeals to a very small percentage of greatly insane people.

[Paulclem]

People who are more discordant than war? Got to disagree with you there.

one example of which is the Holocaust

which arose because of the Nazi success in the war up to 1942.

You don't like the book then? I thought it was good, particularly at revealing the less well known aspects of history.

[Mariner]

The structure, prose, and message I thought were flawless. No book affected me more than Blood Meridian. Inspired me to be a writer.

[ashulman]

I took The Judge to be an allegorical character in whom are fused qualities commonly held to be mutually annihilating: the insatiable quest for knowledge and enlightenment on one hand and the most brutal, atavistic savagery on the other. In the Judge they happily coexist—and therein lies the horror. So I'm pretty sure it misses the point to interpret his evil in personal terms, since this is actually the immortal (like The Judge himself), eternal human condition.



His prose is magnificent. For me, on rereading, however, the rhetoric begins to sound a bit overwrought. (Everything is preternatural, quasi-mythical, and of biblical significance.)

As for Cafolini's suggestion that McCarthy is long overdue for suicide: Having read all of his novels, I must point out that about half of them have characters capable of great nobility and possessed of firm moral compass (all of The Border Trilogy, The Orchard Keeper, Suttree.)


I agree with this interpretation of the Judge. Universally its a human trait that contains that paradox of progress. I think more specifically he's representing America, which mirrors the Judge's brutality in its quest for expansion, without remorse. The scariest thing is the Judge is aware of this.

[Cioran]

The Judge was modeled on a real character from that period in history, and the events of the book from real events. But McCarthy raises the Judge to the realm of allegory, myth and symbol, of something timeless in man and which cannot be extinguished. We learn in the book's climax, before he rapes and kills the Kid in the jakes, that he is immortal. This is certainly one of the greatest novels ever written.

[Cioran]

I don't currently have a copy of Blood Meridian. I don't believe in synchronicity, which is just a misunderstanding of coincidence and probabilities, though I do believe in serendipity. Anyway, I submitted my last post a few moments ago from a pub in New York City's Soho district, then wandered outdoors because the weather has mysteriously turned beautiful ("It done has cleared," one of the characters in BM remarks; the weather and landscape playing a key role in the book, almost like characters themselves.) While outside I happened to look down at the pub's window. It shows a little nook behind a bench against the window which is reserved as a lost-and-found corner. It had four items: An umbrella, a hat, a scarf, and Blood Meridian.

:goof:

[Paulclem]

I don't currently have a copy of Blood Meridian. I don't believe in synchronicity, which is just a misunderstanding of coincidence and probabilities, though I do believe in serendipity. Anyway, I submitted my last post a few moments ago from a pub in New York City's Soho district, then wandered outdoors because the weather has mysteriously turned beautiful ("It done has cleared," one of the characters in BM remarks; the weather and landscape playing a key role in the book, almost like characters themselves.) While outside I happened to look down at the pub's window. It shows a little nook behind a bench against the window which is reserved as a lost-and-found corner. It had four items: An umbrella, a hat, a scarf, and Blood Meridian.

:goof:

Watch out for that Judge!

[stlukesguild]

You don't like the book then? I thought it was good, particularly at revealing the less well known aspects of history.

Well of course cafolini doesn't like it. It doesn't reinforce his naive notions of American infallibility.

[ashulman]

And since I didn't mention, I agree this is one of the best novels written by an American, period.

[Cioran]

I really can't imagine how anyone could wish a writer as brilliant as McCarthy to commit suicide. Was it a joke?

Anyhow, too bad if you think otherwise, but the novel that McCarthy wrote was based on a real person (the Judge) and real events. There has never been a bigger mass-killing machine than the U.S. of A. Henry Miller: "I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see that mushroom poisoning the world and withering at the roots."

There's a great scene in Blood Meridian in which the racism problem is dealt with in a forthright way. One of the men riding with the Glanton gang is black (and he killed a racist white man in the gang with a machete, as I recall, thus earning the respect of his peers). The boys stop at an eatery and the owner, seeing the black man among them, says, "I cain't serve ye." The Judge, Glanton and the others "bowed their heads like men at prayer." Then Glanton himself, as I recall, whipped out his gun and shot the proprietor in the forehead. His brains flew out of the back of his head and smeared the wall behind him. The men ate, and then stole the rest of the food as the terrified help high-footed it away.

That is how you enforce civil rights, my friends!

[Sancho]

I admired the research McCarthy put into the language. As I recall, he use a lot of expressions that weren't familiar to me, but were common for the time.

As for the historical accuracy of the type of actions the Glanton Gang (or whoever it was they were based upon) engaged in -- uh, I don't know, man.

[WyattGwyon]

I really can't imagine how anyone could wish a writer as brilliant as McCarthy to commit suicide. Was it a joke?

I didn't take it to mean he wished McCarthy would commit suicide. I thought he meant that, given the dark vision of humanity that suffuses such books as Blood Meridian, Outer Dark, and The Road, it is a wonder he would wish to go on living. For the record, this view makes no sense to me.

[ladderandbucket]

As for the historical accuracy of the type of actions the Glanton Gang (or whoever it was they were based upon) engaged in -- uh, I don't know, man.

Mccarthy has said in an interview that he deliberately exaggerated the violence to make a point about modern culture. Nevertheless the Glanton gang were real and it seems that they really were a bad lot. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Joel_Glanton:
After the war in summer 1849, Glanton and his gang were hired in a nominally mercenary operation by Mexican authorities, to track down and kill dangerous bands of Apache Indians in the Southwest. To earn more money, the Glanton gang began murdering and scalping peaceful agricultural Indians and Mexican citizens alike to claim under the bounty for scalps. The state of Chihuahua put a bounty on the heads of the gang, declaring them outlaws by December 1849.[7] Chihuahua authorities drove the gang out to Sonora where they wore out their welcome and moved into what is now Arizona.
I have read Samuel Chamberlain's autobiography 'Recollections of a Rogue' which includes a few chapters on his time with the Glanton gang. It's a good, entertaining read.. if a little bit hard to swallow.


He's long overdue for suicide. ~ C A Cafolini

I recall another interview with Mccarthy where he said something along the lines of: 'I am a pessimist but don't find any reason to feel depressed about it' and 'the good thing about being a pessimist is that things never turn out as bad as you expect'. Interview is here, if you're interested:http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/04/08/2011/connecting-science-and-art.html It includes Werner Herzog reading from All the Pretty Horses!

[stlukesguild]

There has never been a bigger mass-killing machine than the U.S. of A.

I wouldn't go that far. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Maoist China might have a better claim to that position.

[mortalterror]

There has never been a bigger mass-killing machine than the U.S. of A.

I wouldn't go that far. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Maoist China might have a better claim to that position.

Someone needs a history lesson: The Assyrians, the Persians under Cyrus, the Greeks under Alexander, the Romans of the Imperial period, the Chinese of the Three Kingdoms and Tang periods, the Arabs under the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphate, the Mongels under the Khans, the Turks under Tamerlane, the Chinese of the late Yuan period, the Chinese of the late Ming period, the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Year War, the French under Napoleon and Robespierre, the Zulus under Shaka, the Chinese of the mid nineteenth century.

[Cioran]

Someone needs a history lesson.

Not really. When I say there has never been a bigger mass-killing machine than the U.S., I do not say that the U.S., in pursuit of its imperial designs, has killed more people than the societies mentioned above. Although note that a couple of examples, like the Nazis (especially the Nazis) and the Soviets had a short run compared to the U.S., and most of the deliberate Soviet mass killing occurred under Stalin.

What I say is that the U.S. has standardized mass killing, in the manor of a Henry Ford assembly line.

Cormac McCarthy, in all his works, lays bare the essential violence as the core idea of the American state: Violence against blacks, violence against Native Americans, violence against gays, violence against the environment, violence against organized labor, violence in our sporting events and TV shows, violence, violence, violence. We are an imperial power that spends vastly more sums of money on the military than the rest of the world's nation's combined. We are the only nation to have used nuclear weapons, twice. We have 5 percent of the world's population but use most of its carbon-causing resources which, if we are unlucky, could contribute to the greatest mass extinction of humans and other animals that the world has ever seen. If the methane hydrates go, all bets are off about our survival as a species.

Obama visits a school where kids were killed and gives a heartfelt address. Has he visited Pakistan, where by independent estimates his unconstitutional drone campaign has killed at least 74 Pakistani children, among a larger number of civilians? Obama inflicts a recurring 9/11 among the people of Pakistan, and apparently Americans are OK with that. Because in the triumph of Orwellian doublespeak, if somebody is killed in these attacks, even a child, such a person is just defined to be an enemy combatant.

[Paulclem]

I was surprised to discover the scalping bounty and the history of the Glanton gang through Blood Meridian. My initial thoughts were that this was a history ignored by Hollywood, which had usurped the stories and places with very selective accounts. The "cowboy" films were very popular here in the UK, particularly with my parents' generation, and us until other things started to overtake their popularity.

(In testament to this I remember going to a Country night at the local pub in Wakefield, West Yorkshire to listen to Don William's songs with my dad. This pub is not a million miles away from the location of the type of pub encountered in An American Werewolf in London - you remember The Slaughtered Lamb? And the blokes in that pub could have been found listening to Country music with us that night. I don't know why cowboy culture was so popular in Yorkshire and Lancashire, but I suspect that it was the rebellious outlaw individual that appealed. My wife once went to a cowboy night where there was a quick draw contest, and people dressed up as cowboys).

Anyway, I think the cowboy image - the noble outlaw image perhaps - is what is attacked here in Blood Meridian. You think of the moraliy of the film cowboys and it contrasts very starkly with the amorality of the figures in Blood Meridian, and their historical counterparts. Could you stretch it to an assault on capitalistic individuality against notions of community? It is certainly the communities that suffer in the book, and no-one is safe from them. This was also the case historically with the exploitation of though scalping Indians, mexicans, and stretching scalps to claim more than one. That icon of individual effort, the gold rush was also attacked in the book and reality when the gang takes over the ferry.

it's a great book.

[stlukesguild]

What I say is that the U.S. has standardized mass killing, in the manor of a Henry Ford assembly line.

Cormac McCarthy, in all his works, lays bare the essential violence as the core idea of the American state: Violence against blacks, violence against Native Americans, violence against gays, violence against the environment, violence against organized labor, violence in our sporting events and TV shows, violence, violence, violence. We are an imperial power that spends vastly more sums of money on the military than the rest of the world's nation's combined. We are the only nation to have used nuclear weapons, twice. We have 5 percent of the world's population but use most of its carbon-causing resources which, if we are unlucky, could contribute to the greatest mass extinction of humans and other animals that the world has ever seen. If the methane hydrates go, all bets are off about our survival as a species.

This is simply an expression of American "exceptionality" that is simply the reverse of cafolini's notions of American infallibility... and just as naive. The US has certainly had its flaws. It is no where near being exceptional in terms of standardizing killing or warfare or in its impact upon upon the environment.

I agree with Paulclem as to the interpretation of Blood Meridian. It is far from being an indictment of America and a claim of the exceptionality of American violence. Rather it presents a contrast between the American ideals of the cowboys, Manifest Destiny, and the absolute splendor of the American West and the violence that accompanied this. Judge Holden, especially, presents the horrible contrast between religion... and violence... especially at the end of a gun.

[ashulman]

And I think he's making a larger point about destruction and creation, probably the same thing Schumpeter's theory of creative destruction. This is the concept that still drives our economic lives, if the means are certainly more civilized, ie, we no longer consider it ok to clear land of a native population of millions by force. We still accept some amount of killing to secure our economic futures (see Iraq), but it's nowhere on the scale of the origination of the country. That's called progress, and realize that it's a very recent civilizing. The Vietnam War, which was justified as a vague threat to economic security (Communism will spread, markets will be nationalized, etc), killed 1-3 million Vietnamese. It's hard to imagine that happening today on that scale but who knows? I think McCarthy is reflecting this, and wrestling with the dilemma. It's fitting that the Judge finally gets the best of the Kid in California, the end of the line so to speak in terms of American expansion.

[Sancho]

^Posts like that are the reason I joined the Litnet.

[neilgee]

^Posts like that are the reason I joined the Litnet.

I do agree, what a brilliant thread, although that's not why I joined litnet, but I do think McCarthy is the best writer alive today (that i know of). At first I found that clipped style of writing (McCarthy doesn't waste words) difficult, but as i went on I thought Mccarthy's economy had an extraordinary precision. I do think he is one of the few writers active today that will still be being read in a hundred years and beyond, I think the guy's streaked with genius.

I haven't read this novel, just the trilogy and a couple of other obvious ones, but I just ordered it on Amazon so maybe I'll have more to say later if this thread is still going.

[Sancho]

Honestly, I was a little put off by the extreme violence in the book. It didn't ring true. I read that the source McCarthy used was the memoir of one of the gang member's and he had exaggerated his experiences greatly. Then according to an earlier post on this thread, McCarthy further embellished the violence, making it a sort of exponential escalation of what really happened.

I certainly don't think the western expansion in North America was all singing cowboys and their faithful sidekick, the noble savage, but I don't think it was all marauding bands of homicidal psychopaths either.

Which is why I found ashulman's post above so valuable. It was an ah-hah moment for me, and I finally realized why so many people consider Blood Meridian a great book, and not just a slasher novel. (Yep, I can be a little dense at times.)

[tim270]

So I read this book like two months ago, at the badgering of a friend of mine. I'll be honest: I don't like McCarthy as a stylist; I think he's derivative and inorganic in his use of language. That said, the book was alright. I'll share the notes I made after it:

"It's a book worthy of being read again."

I don't think it's a "great" novel, but that's no backhanded compliment. I mean that: It's a book worthy of serious consideration.

"The premise seems to be that life is war- but, even more, war is life. There's some profundity to this, even if it isn't terribly original. Holden: "War is God."

"As a stylist McCarthy has some gifts and flaws. One can decide which is dominant on personal taste. He writes excellent dialogue and is often capable of the striking image. However, he can be terribly redundant; his diction is sometimes puzzling and flat-out flawed; and there's nothing organic about the way he uses language- except in his dialogue."

"As a work of narrative it is likewise strong and weak. It's definitely action packed and moves along quite quickly (w interspersed drudgery) and it has many memorable scenes and characters. However, he could learn a lot about economy, and there are gaping holes of logic, particularly towards the end. (Intentional Opaqueness?) Why/How does Holden show up naked w the idiot? Why does he start suddenly trying to kill the Kid? When he had ample opportunity beforehand? What is the basis of his accusations that the Kid wasn't fully invested in the group?


"Which leads me to another narrative issue: The Kid disappears for a huge chunk of the novel. I think a lot of my discontent w the ending could have been alleviated w a clearer picture of the Kid's and Holden's relationship throughout the group's activities. But that's largely denied the reader.


So, anyway, those are just some of my random thoughts after reading the book. Again, I don't think it's a great book. And McCarty for all his powers can be a grating author to read. However, I would certainly recommend it as a book worth reading, and thinking about.

[Paulclem]

"Which leads me to another narrative issue: The Kid disappears for a huge chunk of the novel. I think a lot of my discontent w the ending could have been alleviated w a clearer picture of the Kid's and Holden's relationship throughout the group's activities. But that's largely denied the reader.[/I]


.

I wondered about the studied lack of characterisation. I initially wrote this:

He doesn't go into characterisation much does he? The environment of the desert is beautifully described, but the men become identified by their actions rather than the descriptions of them. None of them has any redeeming features - they are involved in rape, mutilation, fraud, murder and there is a serial killer in the group. It's interesting that McCarthy lets us associate with this group - you develop a familiarity with them despite the terrible things thay do as you are unable to identify with the minor characters/ victims to the same extent. It's almost as if by reading you become part of the group. Would you agree?

I would add that we are forced to regard them dispassionately. It's as if McCarthy can't allow us to develop the usual emotional attatchment to them. The Kid obviously comes from a poor background, but we have little opportunity to sympathise, and at the end of the novel, he is still a cold blooded killer. It keeps their crimes in perspective. We are not dealing with characters we can be allowed to sympathise with, and the writing forces us to regard them, as they regard everyone else.

[ashulman]

Honestly, I was a little put off by the extreme violence in the book. It didn't ring true. I read that the source McCarthy used was the memoir of one of the gang member's and he had exaggerated his experiences greatly. Then according to an earlier post on this thread, McCarthy further embellished the violence, making it a sort of exponential escalation of what really happened.

I certainly don't think the western expansion in North America was all singing cowboys and their faithful sidekick, the noble savage, but I don't think it was all marauding bands of homicidal psychopaths either.

Which is why I found ashulman's post above so valuable. It was an ah-hah moment for me, and I finally realized why so many people consider Blood Meridian a great book, and not just a slasher novel. (Yep, I can be a little dense at times.)

Thanks for the hat tip. It actually took me a couple of attempts before I got through the book. I wouldn't it read it as literally as some do. I wouldn't get bogged down in the "reality" of it. It's a novel, a story, and clearly and allegory. So we read it for the resonances it has and what it's making you think about.

BTW, I just finished Outer Dark which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone who enjoyed Blood Meridian. Also an excellent book and similar in tone and style.

[neilgee]

I read that the source McCarthy used was the memoir of one of the gang member's and he had exaggerated his experiences greatly. Then according to an earlier post on this thread, McCarthy further embellished the violence, making it a sort of exponential escalation of what really happened.


I had a similar complaint when reading the trilogy, he has a youngster in there who, with a pistol, could put a hole in a dime thrown into the air...which is just not realistic in terms of the accuracy of the guns they had available at that time. McCarthy must know that. He exaggerates in the trilogy I believe to contrast the pathetic death of the young sharpshooter later in the novel, and yet if I'm wrong and this is just a kink in McCarthy's genius I will forgive him for the way he is able to keep me glued to the page.

[neilgee]

I wondered about the studied lack of characterisation. I initially wrote this:

He doesn't go into characterisation much does he?

I would add that we are forced to regard them dispassionately. It's as if McCarthy can't allow us to develop the usual emotional attatchment to them. The Kid obviously comes from a poor background, but we have little opportunity to sympathise, and at the end of the novel, he is still a cold blooded killer. It keeps their crimes in perspective. We are not dealing with characters we can be allowed to sympathise with, and the writing forces us to regard them, as they regard everyone else.

One suggestion I think is feasible is that McCarthy expresses emotion through the landscape.

He writes more about the landscape the characters, but I've looked at the trilogy closely and it can be read that way that how the landscape is described reflects the characters emotions.

[russellb]

Firstly, I can give you and Charly Cormac a lot of people who are more discordant than war: Machiavelli, Richelieu, etc. And many actions that are far more discordant than war, one example of which is the Holocaust.
And I can give you a lot of people that were less discordant than war: Churchill, Lincolm, James and Dolley Madison, F D Roosvelt, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Bill Clinton, Obama, Bidden, Luther King, etc., etc., etc.
A great book? I agree. A greatly insane book that appeals to a very small percentage of greatly insane people.
i dont agree that the book would appeal to greatly insane people. They tend to prefer the sentimentality of ,say, Forrest Gump, something which is not well supplied by blood meridian. As for churchill, he wanted to blow up our chippie. We don't like him very much up here...

[WyattGwyon]

At first I found that clipped style of writing (McCarthy doesn't waste words) difficult, but as i went on I thought Mccarthy's economy had an extraordinary precision.

What you say is broadly true of his style. A notable exception, however, is Suttree, which some, including me, consider his best work. It has many dense descriptive passages in which economy is thrown to the wind, representing his furthest departure from the style of books like Blood Meridian.

[neilgee]

What you say is broadly true of his style. A notable exception, however, is Suttree, which some, including me, consider his best work. It has many dense descriptive passages in which economy is thrown to the wind, representing his furthest departure from the style of books like Blood Meridian.

Thanx Wyatt I'll look out for that one. I'm fascinated because I can't imagine McCarthy writing in any other style than the ecomomical style I described, he's so good at it! I must read this!

[Cioran]

And I think he's making a larger point about destruction and creation, probably the same thing Schumpeter's theory of creative destruction. This is the concept that still drives our economic lives, if the means are certainly more civilized, ie, we no longer consider it ok to clear land of a native population of millions by force. We still accept some amount of killing to secure our economic futures (see Iraq), but it's nowhere on the scale of the origination of the country. That's called progress, and realize that it's a very recent civilizing. The Vietnam War, which was justified as a vague threat to economic security (Communism will spread, markets will be nationalized, etc), killed 1-3 million Vietnamese. It's hard to imagine that happening today on that scale but who knows? I think McCarthy is reflecting this, and wrestling with the dilemma. It's fitting that the Judge finally gets the best of the Kid in California, the end of the line so to speak in terms of American expansion.

Right, I think this is a good way of putting it.

It is sobering to reflect (and one can easily track this down via Google) that the U.S. has been virtually continuously at war since its inception, at some level or other. And people forget entire major wars of massive death -- like our intervention in the Philippines around the turn of the 20th century.

But I think McCarthy was making a larger point beyond the United States, which was merely the setting. He says at one point that war was made for man, and man made for war, and man is its greatest practitioner. War and violence of every kind is our heritage, perhaps our biological heritage. And by war, we don't have to specifically mean shooting war. Economics is war. Politics is war. Even sex is war. We are the war species. And the Judge says something else: "The mystery is that there is no mystery." I take this, in the context, as a rejection of any kind of purgative appeal to the supernatural. You are born, you war, you die and you return to the nothingness whence you came. The condition of man. It was recognized by Schopenhauer who suggested we all greet one another as most unfortunate souls, and the realization gave rise to several responses like existentialism.

It does no good to appeal to the seeming peacefulness of so many people, and their love for one another. In America, our standard of living is predicated upon immense violence, suffering and exploitation imposed on others all over the world. All have blood on their hands. As all do in Blood Meridian.

[Cioran]

Thanx Wyatt I'll look out for that one. I'm fascinated because I can't imagine McCarthy writing in any other style than the ecomomical style I described, he's so good at it! I must read this!

I certainly would recommend it. I also believe Suttree is his greatest work, and at least partly autobiographical.

There are some darkly lyrical passages in Blood Meridian, but by the time of No Country for Old Men his style becomes so spare that it is almost painful. However these later works were set in the American Southwest. Suttree (and earlier works), were set in the South, the empire of Faulkner. And the Faulknerian influence shows, but McCarthy makes it his own.

There is nothing spare here. Just read the first few pages and you will be dizzy. A dense, pulsating, complex efflorescence of language like a thick entanglement of rhetorical kudzu. In this work he is at his most experimental and free with language, and it really is just an incredible book.

[Cioran]

From Suttree:


He woke with the undersides of his eyelids inflamed by the high sun’s hammering, looked up to a bland and chinablue sky traversed by lightwires. A big lemoncolored cat watched him from the top of a woodstove. He turned his head to see it better and it elongated itself like hot taffy down the side of the stove and vanished headfirst in the earth without a sound. Suttree lay with his hands palm up at his sides in an attitude of frailty beheld and the stink that fouled the air was he himself. He closed his eyes and moaned. A hot breeze was coming across the barren waste of burnt weeds and rubble like a whiff of battlesmoke. Some starlings had alighted on a wire overhead in perfect progression like a piece of knotted string fallen slantwise. Crooning, hooked wings. Foul yellow mutes came squeezing from under their faned tails. He sat up slowly, putting a hand over his eyes. The birds flew. His clothes cracked with a thin dry sound and shreds of baked vomit fell from him.

Suttree drinks a lot. :yesnod:

[ashulman]

By the way, we recently discussed Cormac McCarthy and Blood Meridian on our podcast - www.highandlowpodcast.blogspot.com
Thought maybe a few here might be interested. Its in the latter half of episode 43

[Paulclem]

Right, I think this is a good way of putting it.

It is sobering to reflect (and one can easily track this down via Google) that the U.S. has been virtually continuously at war since its inception, at some level or other. And people forget entire major wars of massive death -- like our intervention in the Philippines around the turn of the 20th century.

But I think McCarthy was making a larger point beyond the United States, which was merely the setting. He says at one point that war was made for man, and man made for war, and man is its greatest practitioner. War and violence of every kind is our heritage, perhaps our biological heritage. And by war, we don't have to specifically mean shooting war. Economics is war. Politics is war. Even sex is war. We are the war species. And the Judge says something else: "The mystery is that there is no mystery." I take this, in the context, as a rejection of any kind of purgative appeal to the supernatural. You are born, you war, you die and you return to the nothingness whence you came. The condition of man. It was recognized by Schopenhauer who suggested we all greet one another as most unfortunate souls, and the realization gave rise to several responses like existentialism.

It does no good to appeal to the seeming peacefulness of so many people, and their love for one another. In America, our standard of living is predicated upon immense violence, suffering and exploitation imposed on others all over the world. All have blood on their hands. As all do in Blood Meridian.

I think you're extrapolating the idea too far. I might go with the idea of capitalism being a kind of war - the band is motivated by money and this leads on to all the discord that happens around them - the rapes, killing of children and other innocents, and the innovations they make on their mission by using innocent scalps, (which was done by Joel Glanton and his gang. But these are not governmental people, nor even politically motivated. It's not about political power and war in my view, and would need some reference in the text to support it.

As for the peacefulness - this is implied rather than stated. The focus is rather grimly upon the gang, but the law wins with the hanging of the band members for example. Of course the Judge goes on to kill The Kid, but his prescence definately has a mystical aspect to it - it was also present in The Road - and I think again in McCarthy's view the law and God is implied. The Judge survives, but he doesn't win. He is a chancer who capitalises upon situations such as war.

[ashulman]

I think you're extrapolating the idea too far. I might go with the idea of capitalism being a kind of war - the band is motivated by money and this leads on to all the discord that happens around them - the rapes, killing of children and other innocents, and the innovations they make on their mission by using innocent scalps, (which was done by Joel Glanton and his gang. But these are not governmental people, nor even politically motivated. It's not about political power and war in my view, and would need some reference in the text to support it.

As for the peacefulness - this is implied rather than stated. The focus is rather grimly upon the gang, but the law wins with the hanging of the band members for example. Of course the Judge goes on to kill The Kid, but his prescence definately has a mystical aspect to it - it was also present in The Road - and I think again in McCarthy's view the law and God is implied. The Judge survives, but he doesn't win. He is a chancer who capitalises upon situations such as war.

I see many of McCarthy's landscapes, including this one, as essentially Godless. Justice isn't really a factor and is rarely doled out. But I think Cioran has a point about perpetual war. We have to remember the insignia on the Judge's gun- Et in Arcadia Ego; Even in Arcadia, I am There. This could mean that the gun is always there, or the Judge is always there, or both (which I favor). Arcadia refers to a kind of unspoiled wilderness, which the West represented.

[neilgee]

I certainly would recommend it. I also believe Suttree is his greatest work, and at least partly autobiographical.

There are some darkly lyrical passages in Blood Meridian, but by the time of No Country for Old Men his style becomes so spare that it is almost painful. However these later works were set in the American Southwest. Suttree (and earlier works), were set in the South, the empire of Faulkner. And the Faulknerian influence shows, but McCarthy makes it his own.

There is nothing spare here. Just read the first few pages and you will be dizzy. A dense, pulsating, complex efflorescence of language like a thick entanglement of rhetorical kudzu. In this work he is at his most experimental and free with language, and it really is just an incredible book.

I just read the first few pages of this (which I am now putting before Blood Meridian, so fascinated am I by the idea of a wordy McCarthy) and it is exactly as you describe...This, for example:

Beyond in the dark the river flows in a sluggard ooze toward southern seas, running down out of the rainflattened corn and petty crops and riverloam gardens of upcountry landkeepers, grating along like bonedust, afreight with the past, dreams dispersed in the water someway, nothing ever lost.

That's on page 2. :)

[Cioran]

I just read the first few pages of this (which I am now putting before Blood Meridian, so fascinated am I by the idea of a wordy McCarthy) and it is exactly as you describe...This, for example:

Beyond in the dark the river flows in a sluggard ooze toward southern seas, running down out of the rainflattened corn and petty crops and riverloam gardens of upcountry landkeepers, grating along like bonedust, afreight with the past, dreams dispersed in the water someway, nothing ever lost.

That's on page 2. :)

Isn't that lovely? :D

The whole book is like that, Faulkner as channeled by McCarthy. Luscious language, endlessly inventive and kudzu-like, efflorescent, hallucinatory, completely different from his later economical stuff.

Great stories, too, from the dregs. Just wait till you meet the watermelon mounter, who becomes Suttree's best friend in prison and beyond, and their madcap schemes. :D Which usually involve nothing more elaborate, in the end, then cadging a meal.

[Paulclem]

I see many of McCarthy's landscapes, including this one, as essentially Godless. Justice isn't really a factor and is rarely doled out. But I think Cioran has a point about perpetual war. We have to remember the insignia on the Judge's gun- Et in Arcadia Ego; Even in Arcadia, I am There. This could mean that the gun is always there, or the Judge is always there, or both (which I favor). Arcadia refers to a kind of unspoiled wilderness, which the West represented.

But justice is doled out - the Kid sees two of the gang hung. The only way he himself escaped justice was by bribery. The Indians at the ford also meted out justce on the gang too. When The Kid is killed by the Judge - is that justice? It suggests that the Judge - devilish as he is - can also be a tool of justice.

I would go with the Godless idea, and the Arcadia idea too, but Arcaia is as earth bound as the Mexican desert. I don't think that means that McCarthy intended us to view the world as godless. The widerness has rather hellish overtones in this novel.

[Cioran]

The Judge is quite clear: the world was made for war, and man is its greatest practitioner. As to the mystery of the world, the judge says: The mystery is that there is no mystery. Things are just as they seem. War, violence, mayhem, horror, death.

[Paulclem]

The Judge is quite clear: the world was made for war, and man is its greatest practitioner. As to the mystery of the world, the judge says: The mystery is that there is no mystery. Things are just as they seem. War, violence, mayhem, horror, death.

I thought he was quite clear too - the Devil. War is a part of the discord that is sown. Within the novel, there is no war as such - conflict yes with the authorities and the Indian tribe, and war is clearly the best kind of discord there is. But other kinds include all the criminal activities, the lies that the gang is part of the legitimate authorities, the breakdown of the gang itself as it is broken up. There is this mystical element to him too.

[Cioran]

Cormac McCarthy, from an incredibly rare interview, this with the New York Times more than 20 years ago:


"There's no such thing as life without bloodshed," McCarthy says philosophically. "I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous."

Cormac McCarthy's Venemous Fiction (http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/19/books/mccarthy-venomous.html?pagewanted=1)

In Blood Meridian, some of the bad guys die, for sure, but is this justice? After all, everyone dies, except for The Judge, who is the epitome of evil and who will live forever, as he tells the Kid before raping and killing him in the jakes at the novel's climax. Glanton dies violently. Is he repentant? Does he feel punished or regretful? Judge by his words. As a native American stands over him with an ax, he sneers, "Hack away, you mean red nigger." Those were Glanton's last words.

[Cioran]

Some of you may be interested in Yale Univerisity's free online course on Blood Meridian. (http://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-291/lecture-17)

[Paulclem]

Cormac McCarthy, from an incredibly rare interview, this with the New York Times more than 20 years ago:



Cormac McCarthy's Venemous Fiction (http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/19/books/mccarthy-venomous.html?pagewanted=1)

In Blood Meridian, some of the bad guys die, for sure, but is this justice? After all, everyone dies, except for The Judge, who is the epitome of evil and who will live forever, as he tells the Kid before raping and killing him in the jakes at the novel's climax. Glanton dies violently. Is he repentant? Does he feel punished or regretful? Judge by his words. As a native American stands over him with an ax, he sneers, "Hack away, you mean red nigger." Those were Glanton's last words.

Is it justice that they hang? Yes. Some of the group were hanged, and though many die, not all. There is a problem with justice in that it doesn't solve all the problems, but is does mete out retribution. Glanton is unrepentant, but then he is the Devil/ Judge's man. That's why the Devil is who he is after all. There's a further link to the Devil through the Judge's quest for knowledge which he writes in his notebook - the tree of knowledge.

Another thing I was thinking about was the death of the bear. I found it pitiful, and the audience pitiless. I think it was McCarthy manipulating feeling again. What was poignant was that you could feel - rightly - pity for the bear, but the whole bloodbath that has just gone by is not written/ presented/ received in that way. I don't know about you, but the way it is written seems to divorce you from the terrible acts, whilst you are alowed to become involved with the death of the bear. I think it was masterfully done.

I think it's a measure of the book that it can provoke stimulating discussion. I really liked it, though it is very bleak. Thanks for the link by he way.

[ashulman]

I don't see any justice or God in this book, and not much hope either. To say that members of the gang receive justice is missing McCarthy's own point, I think, that life is random and merciless. It makes no difference in the scheme of things who dies or gets hanged. The Judge fiddles and dances on. Men are what they are.

[Cioran]

I don't see any justice or God in this book, and not much hope either. To say that members of the gang receive justice is missing McCarthy's own point, I think, that life is random and merciless. It makes no difference in the scheme of things who dies or gets hanged. The Judge fiddles and dances on. Men are what they are.

Right, I agree with this.

I'm not sure what you mean by the Devil, Paulclem, unless you are speaking metaphorically.

[Paulclem]

I think the Judge is a Satanic figure in the novel. I don't think this is a radical thought - I've read references to it elsewhere. This supernatural element is also present in The Road, and shows an unwillingness on McCarthy's part to completely explore or expose this as part of the novel. He doesn't explain it, but implies it, until it becomes obvious in the case of the Judge at the end of the novel. The presence of a satanic figure implies the prescence of God somewhere, though not in the landscape or in the lives of the people. The closest we get is the preacher.

[ashulman]

I think the Judge is a Satanic figure in the novel. I don't think this is a radical thought - I've read references to it elsewhere. This supernatural element is also present in The Road, and shows an unwillingness on McCarthy's part to completely explore or expose this as part of the novel. He doesn't explain it, but implies it, until it becomes obvious in the case of the Judge at the end of the novel. The presence of a satanic figure implies the prescence of God somewhere, though not in the landscape or in the lives of the people. The closest we get is the preacher.

I think you can read the Judge that way, but if he is satanic, it is not in the typical sense we think of "the devil". If anything, the Judge is the serpent in the garden, tempting Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge. This "civilizes" while destroying paradise. Again it goes back to this idea of progress and its price. But remember this is America, and its also filtered through Melville's own twisted biblical vision of the white whale. The Judge, giant, hairless, pale, dressed in white, is a similar Leviathan. I don't think we can say in this book, the Judge is Satan, the evil are judged, and God is present in this landscape. I think this is different from his progenitor, Flannery O'Connor, whose Catholicism can be read in many of her works.

[Paulclem]

The serpent idea of the Devil fits well - I did refer to the Tree of Knowledge earlier. I've also heard The devil referred to as the sower of discord - the most extreme discord being war.

I don't think we can say in this book, the Judge is Satan, the evil are judged, and God is present in this landscape.

I agree. I don't think McCarthy overplays it, but it is an element. As for it being America - I think it is significant that it is not the USA but Mexico - a place where the opportunity to riot is present without too much threat from an emergent state who feels it has to employ mercenaries to help protect its people from the tribes. Although they wreak havoc in the US - I'm thinking of the Judge turning the crowd on the preacher - they are not able to do it to the same extent that they do in Mexico.

I must say I'm certainly enjoying this discussion.

[WyattGwyon]

I think the Judge is a Satanic figure in the novel. I don't think this is a radical thought - I've read references to it elsewhere. This supernatural element is also present in The Road, and shows an unwillingness on McCarthy's part to completely explore or expose this as part of the novel. He doesn't explain it, but implies it, until it becomes obvious in the case of the Judge at the end of the novel. The presence of a satanic figure implies the prescence of God somewhere, though not in the landscape or in the lives of the people. The closest we get is the preacher.

I don't know Paul. It seems to me that palming the Judge off on Satan evades the true horror. Closer to the truth would be: The Judge is God—that is the horror of it.

[Paulclem]

I think there's room for it - just my reading tthough. I saw a reference to The Judge as a satanic figure when I was looking into the Scalping Bounty, of which I had no knowledge. That's why I think the book is attacking the image of the noble cowboy/ man with no name.

As for Judge being God - I could go with it if I'd seen that in the text, but I didn't get that - rather the satanic allusion.

[Cioran]

I don't see any supernaturalism in this novel. In fact, in this McCarthy novel, as in others, natualism is so extreme that the landscape itself is a character, frequently more rounded than other human characters.

As I mentioned earlier, at one point the Judge announces, "The mystery is that there is no mystery." In context, I see this as saying, "what you see is what you get and all that you will get -- and it ain't pretty."

I do think, though, the Judge is intended to be read symbolically, as is Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. The fact that he cannot die (he says) does not point to him being either the God or the devil, but rather something timeless that lives on in all man: the will to power, the capacity for evil, the drive for control, the ability to surmount the worst circumstances and prevail.

[WyattGwyon]

As for Judge being God - I could go with it if I'd seen that in the text, but I didn't get that - rather the satanic allusion.

I hadn't framed my thought very well and was stretching a bit. I guess what made me question the Judge-as-Satan interpretation is that where one has Satan, one almost always has God as well—they are a binary opposition, coin with two sides. I don't see any reason to suspect another side here. When I suggested the Judge as God, I meant it metaphorically—that he is the be all and end all. In fact, I am with Cioran in eschewing supernatural religiously symbolic readings. I do, however, think the Judge is as much an allegorical character as is Anton Chigurh.

[neilgee]

Isn't that lovely? :D

The whole book is like that, Faulkner as channeled by McCarthy. Luscious language, endlessly inventive and kudzu-like, efflorescent, hallucinatory, completely different from his later economical stuff.

Great stories, too, from the dregs. Just wait till you meet the watermelon mounter, who becomes Suttree's best friend in prison and beyond, and their madcap schemes. :D Which usually involve nothing more elaborate, in the end, then cadging a meal.

Thanx Cioran I'm getting through this one pretty quickly considering the size of it, McCarthy is nothing if not readable, he makes these hopeless characters fascinating, the way he focuses on them and the way he uses this focus (of which there has been some interesting thoughts on here). Excellent stuff!