Blood Meridian or Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy

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

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Originally Posted by Cioran

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Cioran

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.

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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. :)

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Originally Posted by neilgee

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. :)

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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.

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Originally Posted by ashulman

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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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

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"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."

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Cormac McCarthy's Venemous Fiction

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.

Some of you may be interested in Yale Univerisity's free online course on Blood Meridian.

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Originally Posted by Cioran

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



Cormac McCarthy's Venemous Fiction

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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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Right, I agree with this.

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

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Cioran

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.

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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!