Am I a brainlet for failing to ‘get’ this book? Not only is it a complex read, it’s a puzzle thematically and stylistically. The prose is so complicated.

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Anonymous Tue Apr 10 12:03:16 2018 No.10982145 [Reply] [Original]

Am I a brainlet for failing to ‘get’ this book? Not only is it a complex read, it’s a puzzle thematically and stylistically. The prose is so complicated.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 12:04:12 2018 No.10982148 STOP TREATING LITERATURE LIKE PUZZLES TO BE SOLVED

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 12:08:02 2018 No.10982161 >>10982145 The prose is not really that complicated. Ans this is coming from a non-native speaker. But yeah, it took me a while to get used to his style (and had to re-read the bits I didn't get). But man oh man, can this man write.

Anonymous Tue Apr 10 12:10:39 2018 No.10982172

>>10982148
This. fpbp

Try not to approach what you read as some riddle that you need to parse or an experiment whose every variable you must understand and analyze to come up some definitive theory.

Blood Meridian is dripping with tone and sublimity. Try reading it through once simply to experience the narrative. There's no need to understand the Judge's every principle and argument and where and how ol' Cormac draws and develops his themes.

You're not a brainlet. You're just not used to McCarthy's approach. Take your time. Enjoy it. Seek out secondary criticism if you need to after reading. Re-read even. Enjoy it, most of all.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 12:15:23 2018 No.10982201 >>10982172 Thank you, good post

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 12:24:42 2018 No.10982255 >>10982201 You're welcome, anon. I hope BM will have a stronger impact once you start approaching it differently. I know it impacted me quite strongly.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 12:36:46 2018 No.10982310 >>10982145 No, it's easy to read but hard to understand.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 12:53:02 2018 No.10982381 >>10982172 >>10982148 *unless the book youre reading has puzzles to be solved

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 12:55:56 2018 No.10982389 >>10982381 Fair enough, but that's not applicable for most lit. House of Leaves is a unique example with actual cyphers and shit.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 13:01:39 2018 No.10982406 >>10982389 I also assumed 'puzzles' meant 'deeper themes, meanings, messages, symbols', as what OP was failing to get

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 13:05:53 2018 No.10982421 >>10982406 Yeah, me too, I didn't think of actual puzzles lol

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 13:38:01 2018 No.10982571 >>10982255 This BM i’m about to take will have a decent impact.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 13:53:24 2018 No.10982643 >>10982145 Re read it anon. It gets more enjoyable when you read it again and you start to "get it" even more.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 14:50:05 2018 No.10982821 >>10982145 Nah your not a brainlet, its not an easy read. I read it a few years ago and was blown away by it. The discussion of war around the campfire is GOAT.

Anonymous Tue Apr 10 15:16:09 2018 No.10982897

Pa. Why are eggs breakfast?

What.

You can put bacon on lunch.

Ye.

But if you put eggs on stuff it becomes breakfast?

The man spat and said the eggs are not for this world or from this world they come from the chicken but the chicken knows it not.

He wiped his chin and spat

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 15:37:55 2018 No.10982973 >>10982897 delete

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 15:41:01 2018 No.10982982 >>10982897 ye

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 15:48:28 2018 No.10983018 American "literature"

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 17:24:04 2018 No.10983403 >>10983018 Tell me a European novel from the 1980s that is better than Blood Meridian.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 17:28:15 2018 No.10983418 >>10983018 Ok retard.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 19:10:32 2018 No.10983924 >>10983018 McElroy can outwrite any eurofag today.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 19:29:47 2018 No.10984010 >>10982145 It's literally written for reactionaries who believe edginess is deep. The prose is not bad, although it's comically over dramatic, but the actual content of it is garbage.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 19:32:58 2018 No.10984023 File: 681 KB, 893x968, image.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>10982571 Heh

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 19:34:59 2018 No.10984034 >>10984010 this is not a valid criticism

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 23:41:15 2018 No.10985013 File: 62 KB, 540x720, 1517166259137.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>10982897

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 23:47:55 2018 No.10985033 >>10984010 What exactly is "reactionary" about this book?

Anonymous Tue Apr 10 23:53:02 2018 No.10985045

idk why people are saying the prose isn't complicated, he ignores conventions of grammar and punctuation and frequently uses archaic terminology. Probably 3% of the book is in untranslated Spanish. It's not an "easy" read, but it's incredibly engaging so I think people forget just how intricate the work actually is.
>Spectre horsemen, pale with dust, anonymous in the crenellated heat. Above all else they appeared wholly at venture, primal, provisional, devoid of order. Like beings provoked out of the absolute rock and set nameless and at no remove from their own loomings to wander ravenous and doomed and mute as gorgons shambling the brutal wastes of Gondwanaland in a time before nomenclature was and each was all.

>>	Anonymous Tue Apr 10 23:58:38 2018 No.10985060 >>10985045 >provoked out of the absolute rock >and at no remove from their own loomings what does two sentences mean? what's the "absolute rock"? what does "at no remove" mean?

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:00:34 2018 No.10985064 >>10985045 I could almost masturbate to that prose mmhm.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:01:47 2018 No.10985066 >>10985060 >>10985045 >and each was all. who's he referring to here?

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:10:48 2018 No.10985097 >>10985060 >provoked out of the absolute rock As if they just sprang out of the land itself. As in, they're primal.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:13:00 2018 No.10985102 Currently have to write 1700 more words for the shit essay I'm doing on this book that's due tonight and for which I've not planned for at all.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:26:01 2018 No.10985145 >>10985060 >>10985045 The only part that’s confusing is “set nameless and at no remove from their own loomings to wander”

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:31:44 2018 No.10985164 Was there a message in this book? It's great but it just seems like a really gritty western (to the point where some scenes are ridiculous like whirlwinding babies )

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:37:51 2018 No.10985184 >>10982897 been away from this board for a couple years and this still fuckin gets me. where’s that Lolita/Doritos bullshit

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:40:12 2018 No.10985191 >>10985164 Revisionist Western Gnosticism Necessity for violence in order to create civilized society Renewal/redemption in the kid

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:42:18 2018 No.10985200 >>10985191 >revisionist western it’s anti-western

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:42:56 2018 No.10985203 >>10983018 "muh oscar wilde"

Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:47:18 2018 No.10985218

>>10985145
It's not confusing, it's dense and nuanced. Most people will never hear nor use the words "crenellated" or "Gondwanaland", not to mention the metaphysical imagery in statements like "a time before nomenclature was and each was all". All that on top of the actual meaning of the passage, which, although not complicated in any way, is presented in an entirely abstract fashion. I wouldn't be surprised if someone struggled with this book, particularly if they don't often read more esoteric literature or poetry.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:48:20 2018 No.10985224 >>10985191 >Renewal/redemption in the kid citation needed

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:50:17 2018 No.10985226 >>10985200 Literally the same thing

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:52:55 2018 No.10985235 >>10985226 well one is a legitimate and recognizable genre and the other is ideologically charged, typically followed up with some hot opinions

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 00:57:45 2018 No.10985252 >>10985226 revisionist westerns are the best westerns

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 01:01:49 2018 No.10985270 >>10983403 Not sure if "better", but Das Parfum?

Anonymous Wed Apr 11 01:11:28 2018 No.10985302

>>10985218
That’s not the part I’m confused about. I can easily look up the meanings of those words and think about the metaphysical stuff. I get confused when he uses common words in a strange way. Literally the only thing I have trouble understanding in that passage is
>at no remove from their loomings

Anonymous Wed Apr 11 01:13:56 2018 No.10985307

>>10982148
>>10982172
ripped this from Poetry Foundation

>Negative capability
A theory first articulated by John Keats about the artist’s access to truth without the pressure and framework of logic or science. Contemplating his own craft and the art of others, especially William Shakespeare, in one of his famous letters to relatives Keats supposed that a great thinker is “capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” A poet, then, has the power to bury self-consciousness, dwell in a state of openness to all experience, and identify with the object contemplated. See Keats’s “To Autumn.” The inspirational power of beauty, according to Keats, is more important than the quest for objective fact; as he writes in his “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” Keats’s notion of Negative Capability has been influential for those working outside of aesthetics; including scholars such Roberto Unger who adopted and modified the term for his own work on social theory.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/negative-capability

Anonymous Wed Apr 11 01:22:32 2018 No.10985330

>>10985302
Yeah, he does that. Think poetically, it's all about the feel. It even sounds good to read out loud. I'm not a McCarthy scholar or anything, but I would assume "loomings" are those things which loom (a term which implies both mysterious danger and oppressive time). Listen to how he describes the world they live in, it's almost ghost like, Gondwana was a supercontinent, something of the ancient geology, far older than mankind. "[A]t no remove from their loomings" makes me feel they have a connection to nature that's almost inhuman, more stone than man.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 01:34:34 2018 No.10985397 >>10985218 It's not the words themselves, it's how he uses them "at no remove", "each was all", wtf. Non-native here, so.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 01:37:43 2018 No.10985411 >>10985330 What does "and each was all" mean? Im a non-native brainlet.

Anonymous Wed Apr 11 01:39:42 2018 No.10985418

>>10985045
"Ignores conventions of grammar and punctuation."

>and as the boy scanned the curve of the earth, the azure web of cold sky, the ruins of slategrey plateaus bolstering the lugubrious cosmic wounds, he still never stopped on his scribbling never not once. The deacon asked him what is was he was scribbling about
>what's that there
>what
>that there in your lap what's that there you're writin
>nothin
>he spat
>sure looks like somethin
>what's it to ye. I've always been'a writin since id come out the womb even before id been thought up of ive been writin with never no stopping to it just'a kept on goin no dots or dashes or nothin never gonna stop neither
>why
>no need to
>a man never needs a reason to write or not write ye can jus a well live out not writin a thing but fer me writins a thing and i never stop
>its something that go on indefinitely
>forever
>and so the boy wrote, and he says that he will never stop writing. He's writing, writing. He writes in darkness or by moonlight. On the flats or in the valleys. He says that he will never punctuate.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 01:42:24 2018 No.10985422 >>10985411 Nomenclature means names, or naming, so I would assume "before nomenclature" means before language, maybe even before reason, before things were divided and classified. A time when "each was all" i.e. undifferentiated from one another.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 01:51:08 2018 No.10985457 >>10985422 Ohhhh, cool, thanks a lot man. I wish you could be my fairy godmother.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 02:03:20 2018 No.10985490 >>10985418 >lugubrious Love that word, not enough people use it

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 02:15:37 2018 No.10985524 >>10985490 Bitch I'm morose and lugubrious Imma let the uzi spit

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 02:56:00 2018 No.10985633 >>10985457 >I wish you could be my fairy godmother. lol i know the feeling

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 02:58:57 2018 No.10985643 >>10985524 Turn his face into gooey shit

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 08:00:12 2018 No.10986258 File: 1.19 MB, 1920x2560, IMG_20180406_002455.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] can you recommend similar books like blood meridian ?

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 10:06:20 2018 No.10986665 >>10985033 Nothing. He's a retard that completely misunderstood it.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 10:09:17 2018 No.10986680 >>10985191 >Renewal/redemption in the kid hahaha what

Anonymous Wed Apr 11 10:13:11 2018 No.10986698

>>10986680
he somewhat has a redemption in the fact that he doesn't kill the judge or the whole gang of boys rather than the one that attacked him. But as the Judge says, him and the Kid are the last of a breed. And ultimately he doesn't change and is enveloped by the Judge metaphorically and kills the little girl.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 10:13:46 2018 No.10986701 >>10986258 Blood Meridian 2: Red Sky at Morning, Sailors Take Warning

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 10:20:38 2018 No.10986721 >>10986698 The fact that he doesn't kill the judge isn't a redemption, in fact it's directly portending his anti-redemption in the ending.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 10:20:48 2018 No.10986722 File: 1.74 MB, 991x1287, 1437242771140.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>10982172 >ol' Cormac

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 10:38:43 2018 No.10986773 >>10985191 >Renewal/redemption in the kid what the hell, that's exactly what you're supposed to think, but that would kinda be against the point of the book.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 10:45:22 2018 No.10986793 i noticed now, reading through this thread, that he often hints at illiteracy, actually many times. like the kid with his bible, that he canmot read.

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 10:47:55 2018 No.10986805 >>10986793 >he often hints at illiteracy Like on page 1 where it says "He can neither read nor write"?

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 11:35:09 2018 No.10986959 >>10986805 lol

>>	Anonymous Wed Apr 11 12:08:50 2018 No.10987066 >>10985490 These beets are lugubrious.

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/lit/ - Literature