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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:Quote:
Originally Posted by plainjane
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by 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.
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
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.
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.
**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.
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rores28
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.
True that.. I had forgotten about that part.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rores28