/lit/ - Literature

>>15055535
literally me desu

>NOOOOOO YOU MUST WRITE REALISTICALLY
>WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE MORE WAYS OF
ARTISTIC EXPRESSION THAN SIMPLE BLAND REALISM? STOOOOOOOP

>>15055535
Can't you think of something, anything, in history that is that mighty, terrifying, strange, and invulnerable? Something that hides in plain sight so that we all take it for granted?

>>15055546
you would unironically post this in a murakami thread.

>>15055535
How the fuck can you write all that and not realize that he's supposed to be the devil?

What book is this

>>15055844
Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West

What’s with all the blood meridian threads recently?

Publisher Marketing. Author may have something new in the works?

>>15056035
better than g**n*on threads

>>15056060
Author old as fuck, probably will die before he publishes anything new. The novel he’s been announcing for almost a decade now prob will come out posthumously with bunch of other works. If it happens at all; maybe he’ll just burn his shit

>>15055568
no what

Judge is the oc donut steel of murrican cultural decline.

>>15055535
One of my dad's friends is 7'6" tall and jacked. He is indeed a freak of nature but it's not unheard of

>>15056355
I refuse to believe that. 6'6 maybe, even that's crazy tall, but the tallest person ever isn't even far off 7'7.

There are only 2000 people on earth who are over 7. And most of them are just barely 7.

>>15056385
I don't know, the finns get pretty goddamn big

>>15056180
The Jews

Judge is an idea. He represents Manifest Destiny. And it is a work of fiction. There are no rules.

>>15055590
>How the fuck can you write all that and not realize that he's supposed to be the devil?

I'm pretty sure the devil can speak more than five languages, he's just some sort of demon

>>15055568
jews

>>15055535
Five languages seems really weak, is he even trying?
Linguets, when will they learn? (literally)

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.

Judge is land-form Moby Dick

>>15057097
>just-smart-enough-to-be-smart young people
A plague. Good post.

>>15056385
>but the tallest person ever isn't even far off 7'7.
The tallest person ever was 8'11
Also pic related is 7'1 and was absolutely jacked

>>15057097
Smugly not reading meme books is a tradition as old as /lit/ itself, possibly older. Many such cases.
Dont worry about it

>>15055535
Read "my confession," moby dick, the old testament.
Judge is a sort of manifestation of the violence of human progress, the american west, the advancement of civilization. Hes meant to loom over this book. He shows up from beyond the realism, your response at his description is intended I think.

>>15057257
Which confession?

>>15057097
>just-smart-enough-to-be-smart young people who dismiss the book
I remember in undergrad I'd only read No Country and the Road and some guy took me on a thirty minute rant about how McCarthy was overrated because he describes things too much.

>>15055535
>Has travelled everywhere on earth.
Sounds like Satan

>>15055590
This

>>15056035
This board talks about three books. Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest, and Blood Meridian. They don't read anything else.

Silly, but not impossible. People like the judge have undoubtedly existed. If you're like 160 IQ everything in life is just child's play.

>>15057331
My Confession by Samuel Chamberlain

>>15057331
after fighting in the civil war he went across the american SW looking for more fights, basically. A whole generation of american men addicted to violence, the only way they knew to get money.
This guy was a talented artist and writer though and wrote down and illustrated his experiences in the end of his life, matter-of-factly recounting some moments of extreme cruelty and violence. Really good fucking read.

>>15058178
>Silly, but not impossible. People like the judge have undoubtedly existed.
It is fiction.
Who the fuck cares.

>>15055568
Kikes

>>15055535
He's a demon. Glanton is the epitome of human cruelty, but the Judge is a more cosmic, metaphysical embodiment of evil in its most impure essence. There are parts that get a bit silly, for sure, but this isn't difficult, desu.

>there are people on this board right now who think the Judge is a real life flesh and blood human being written to exaggerated effect
>there are people who haven't seen a naked war god dancing next to a dead bear

>>15055590
He's not the Devil he's the gnostic God.

>>15056035
i think /lit/ finally sat down and read it and now they want to talk about it. It's a good book tbqh

>>15058221
>ugly laughter
sounds good tho

>>15057767
he never read ken kesey did he

>>15057231
That pic lives in your spank bank ?

>>15055535
The Joker is a comic book character.

Judge is not the Devil. lmao what a low IQ take.

Imagine being American and thinking speaking multiple languages is a super power

>>15055535
How on the spectrum can one be?

>>15055568
White Males?

>>15058233
And it's fiction that could have happened what's your point retard

>>15055535
He is an apex predator, so it makes sense for him to be a sum of all things man is capable of. The judge contains the utmost capacity of the terrible things man is capable of: reason, memory, physical strength, psychological domination, thoughts, speech, language, warfare, rape, etc. If you read pic related, the judge represents the apex of this gory pyramid JdM describes. To call the judge "the devil" is a shameful excuse. The judge is humanity.
>>15058640
agreed

Does anyone have a theory why they think the judge rapes and kills the kid at the end? Why didn't he do it 30 years ago? I understand the judge is some form of demon in material reality but his cruelty throughout the rest of the book is much more immediate. It's almost like he's playing with the kid at the end like a lion playing with its food or something. Brillant book though

>>15059685
>like a lion playing with its food
probably that reason

>>15055535
the point is, you can't know. it's never confirmed for a reason. nothing that happens in the book is impossible, short of maybe Black Jackson cutting a mans head off with one swing of a bowie knife

>>15055535
Are there really people on this board who don't understand the purposes of allegory, symbolism, allusion etc?

Have we really descended into such utter brainlet territory that we have people, unironically mind you, asking "BUT IS THAT REALISTIC!?!!"

>>15055535
He's real and is still around

>>15056385
I've had class with two guys who are over 7 feet. It aint that rare

>>15058378
there's a pdf from when huge chunks were reprinted in harpers or time or something

>>15059767
thank you, but I already got it off the archive

>>15059734
for reference

>>15059685
It's been a while since I read it and I'm just shooting the shit here but. The Judge is highly implied to be a pedophile and it's no coincidence that the protagonist is "the kid" and then at the end becomes "the man." When the kid was the kid, corrupted with a desire for violence, the Judge tolerated him because he was in some way a protege. The Glanton Gang was the Judge's vehicle of warfare, his killing potential was amplified by this militia and its profit-driven killing spree. While the kid was in the gang, he filled a role and the Judge respected him for conforming to his violent philosophy. When the gang dissolves however the kid decides to leave that life behind. Once the kid started to develop more of a moral compass, giving "clemency for the heathen" in the Judge's verdict, he becomes "the man".

There is a subtext in the book about the association of violence with immaturity. There's the line about (I forget verbatim) early on about the kid lusting for violence. The Judge himself appears to be a monstrous baby, with a freakish childlike face and small, disproportionate hands. He also views violence and death as one big fanciful "game of chance." Kids love games. Once the man leaves that life behind, he has in some sense broken his diabolical covenant with the Judge, who had given him what he wanted, becoming in some small measure redeemed and therefore open prey. The Judge punishes weakness and to an extent respects strength, but for him murderousness is strength and pacifism is weakness.

>>15057097
I think part of the problem is that people cling to a rather simplified "the judge is Satan" reading that makes the book feel like an overwritten way of saying "gee, humans sure are tempted by violence, aren't they?" The Satan thing is obviously one aspect to the novel, but I think there's more to it than that and that the judge is something of a representation of the destructive course of history and natural selection, and the novel is an exploration of the absolute indifference of nature. There's also some interesting stuff going on with gnosticism (someone already mentioned that ITT) and the idea of storytelling and mythmaking (ie Manifest Destiny, the judge's various elusive stories, the tarot scene, etc.).

I feel like it hasn't been properly appreciated even though it gets memed as everybody's favorite book.

>>15059913
>The Judge is highly implied to be a pedophile and it's no coincidence that the protagonist is "the kid" and then at the end becomes "the man."

Just to round off my point. It's also implied that the Judge rapes "the kid" when he becomes "the man." He also rapes him in another way, mentally and psychologically, by corrupting him with violence. Only the kid of all the gang (besides the halfhearted protestations of the fallen priest) opposes the Judge in any way, he has a shred of moral rectitude. In opposing the Judge, ("you aint nothing" is the man's last words to the Judge) he essentially engages in heresy against the creed of violence in which he was baptized as a child.

Who can beat the Judge in a contest of physical strength, mental wits, and purity of purpose?
And don't say Jesus

>>15060461
Foucault

>>15055568
moby dick (historically: moca dick)

>>15055901
wait, so which book is it?

Blood Meridian is amusing. For example most if not all the talk about the Judge being the devil comes from the expriest. And the expriest keeps advising the kid to stop helping people and tells him to murder the judge and later the idiot.

It's also interesting with how the closer you read some scenes the more sense it makes as just a plain narrative. Last scene ends up more like
>well kid guess it's just us two left now huh. the last of the true. you stayin for the dance?
>i aint interested in no dancin
>i said you're here for the dance, kid. besides who doesn't like dancing
>i didn't come here to see you judge
>then why'd you come here
>everybody dont have to have a reason to be someplace
>that's so kid. well let's call it destiny then
etc.
I even realised the kid calls the judge a dumb animal at the end. Before the judge says something like this show ain't big enough for the both of us. Of course judge gets the last laugh since he's headlining and the kid is found passed out drunk in the toilet.

>>15055535
fuck I wanna read this again now

>>15059938
If you're still in this thread, I'm curious what you mean by the gnosticism comment. It's been a few years since I read the book and I don't know much about gnosticism but that sounds like a cool angle on The Judge

Or if anyone else wants to jump on that q. that'd be great too

>>15057767
I mean...I went on a 30 minute rant to my lit teacher back in hs that cormac is a retard for never using quotation marks and how it triggered my autism. What she said still sticks with me, “when you’re famous you get to make up the grammar rules.”

>>15060925
kek

>>15061297
Well your teacher, like most hs teachers, is a fucking retard. The point is that corncob's prose is so well constructed that quotation marks would be superfluous. It's always clear in his books when dialogue is being spoken and who is speaking it, so there's absolutely no reason to follow the rule.

>>15060905
Guénon (pbuh)

Literally who

>>15055535
According to some professor, being "bald" in the Old West just meant beardless.

That's nothing.

>>15055535
Don't forget child rapist.

>>15061871
It literally says he doesn't have a single hair on his body, not even brows or lashes

>>15062021
Sorry, I should have mentioned it was referring to the actual Judge Holden, according to the historic account, not the fictionalized version.