October '10 Reading: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

[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.