/lit/ - Literature

>>15462584
The first time I had ever felt a genuine fear whilst reading a book was not of the imagery shown, but the character depicted; that man being Judge Holden from 'Blood Meridian' - There's a very good reason why he's considered among the greatest characters in fiction.

>>15114710
>Style:
The prose is vivid and finely chiseled, without a single superfluous word. The imagery is unique and majestic, of a biblical flavor. McCarthy shows off his wide lexicon and always uses precise terms instead of vague, generic ones. Sometimes he even invents his own. The vegetation is described with the precision of a botanist, and the desert and the mountains with that of a geologist. The descriptions of the landscape are evocative and suggestive without ever being purple. Sometimes they get very close to being poetry. The battles are told in a very crude, matter-of-fact way that fits very well with the atmosphere.

Now, this isn't an easy book to read. It doesn't have that je ne sais quoi that makes you forget you're reading a story. It doesn't flow effortlessly. In fact, in some passages you feel like you're mudding through a swamp. Crucial details are thrown into long sentences devoid of punctuation and full of metaphors and complex analogies. It takes legit effort to picture in your mind what the hell is going on, effort that not always pays. (inb4 brainlet. Nothing against demanding text, but it needs to be worth it. Infinite Jest wasn't the easiest read at times, but it was always worth the trouble. Same with Saramago's books.)
In the beginning, I really didn't like McCarthy's style. But now, when I ask myself if the book would've worked as well as it did with a more traditional style, if it would've had the same primal, raw atmosphere, I must admit that it probably wouldn't have.

McCarthy also refuses to use internal dialogues and even dialogue tags. He purposefully restricts his own writing arsenal in order to hone to perfection the few tools he does choose to use. He only shows us his characters through their actions and bare words, without any sort of commentary. There's no filter, as if we're witnessing what happens through a camera instead of through a person. The result is a style occasionally difficult to absorb, but certainly a perfect fit for the story he was telling.
(But goddamn, how many times can you write "naked to the waist" in a single novel? Jesus.)

>Plot:
Lol who reads for the plot? It was functional to the themes and the meaning, you can't ask more of a plot.
The ending was amazing though. Both inevitable and totally unexpected. Lots of details that previously made no sense clicked into place and the meaning of the whole book became clear. It was so good that it earned the book 2 full points.


Overall, 9/10.
A great read that will leave you exhausted and shocked but satisfied.

and he was a good choice

It's a shame Blood Meridian has become such a meme, because now there's going to be this reactionary force of just-smart-enough-to-be-smart young people who dismiss the book because of that. There kind of already is. It really is a brilliant piece of work.

>>13712806
He's either literally the devil or figuratively the devil. It doesn't really matter which one, and that's part of the point.

>>13123392
>The boy micturated upon the blazing bonfire.
>That mexican that bled on the map, I don't understand.
>Don't understand what, said Glanton. He spat.
>The way it spatter, the blood meridian.

fucking bravo cormac

>>13107338
Actually, it's rapping. That's just your eurocentric bias showing.

I have a theory about why Judge Holden is an albino in the novel Meridian of Blood written by Cormac McCarthy in 1985. He is a person with greater knowledge than all those around him, the color of his skin is a representation that he is not from the West, not in his culture, not in his principles, as in Django (1966) the protagonist mentions that not only is the skin brown by birth, but the sun darkens it, the judge is not part of any experience that humanizes the cowboy. What makes the heroes of the Old West even more morally neutral, they remain heroes, as in The Dolar Trilogy or Once Upon a Time in the West.

I can't help but make comparisons with Julio Popper, a Romanian engineer who was one of those responsible for the Selknam massacre in Patagonia in 1885. He is an educated person, but traveling to another system and recognizing death and genocide as something conceivable dehumanizes him, independent of his intelligence and erudition.

>>12548426
https://csld.org/hyperlexia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlexia

THE LITTLE NIGGA GOT THE TISM
HE GOT ASSBURGERS

>Only that man who has offered up himself entire to the blood of war, who has been to the floor of the pit and seen the horror in the round and learned at last that it speaks to his inmost heart, only that man can dance.

Well? Is he right?

Where to begin with gnosticism?

What the hell was up with this guy? Why did he rape kids? Why did he like all the violence? How comes he hasn't aged in 30 years?