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/lit/ - Literature

File: 24 KB, 220x336, CormacMcCarthy_BloodMeridian.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Anonymous Wed Oct 24 22:43:16 2018 No.11984313 [Reply] [Original]

Hi /lit/. I'm about halfway through Blood Meridian, and overall I'm enjoying it, but what am I supposed to get out of it? Judge Holden is an interesting evil character, and the prose is beautiful and the violence is pretty hardcore, but it's kind of just slogging on with not a lot of direct point in terms of narrative. Is that the point? Am I just a massive retard? Is the ending going to tie it together?

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 22:48:03 2018 No.11984332 >>11984313 I feel the same way about the narrative and I'm also about 1/2-2/3 of the way through. Although I find the prose to be overrated.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 22:49:28 2018 No.11984341 >>11984313 What did you expect to get out of it? What is it that you think is missing that should be there?

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 22:50:17 2018 No.11984344 >>11984332 It has its moments for me. I definitely think it's hyped up to some extent. /lit/ has a hardon for this book for sure. The gratuitous violence is kind of getting old as well.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 22:51:16 2018 No.11984348 >>11984313 >But what am I supposed to get out of it? You are indeed a massive retard.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 22:51:18 2018 No.11984349 >>11984341 Narrative other than scalpers terrorizing mexicans with the devil

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 22:52:25 2018 No.11984358 >>11984348 Fair enough

Anonymous Wed Oct 24 22:57:03 2018 No.11984378

>>11984341
Personally, I expected beautiful prose with a gripping narrative and some of the best characters ever written. Instead I got borderline purple prose, a meandering narrative not unlike the endless desert that these faceless characters are wandering through.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 22:57:09 2018 No.11984379 >>11984358 What you get out of it is the the thoughts that it stimulates within you. What else would ever expect to get out of a novel? Is your head empty?

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 22:58:04 2018 No.11984384 Is it just me or does this book read like fantasy novels?

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 23:00:58 2018 No.11984396 >>11984349 If that’s all you draw from the book that’s your own fault

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 23:01:31 2018 No.11984399 >>11984384 It reads like Tom Clancy if he had a dictionary and thesaurus next to him at all times, specifically searching for everyday words that had an "archaic" tag in one of it's definitions and using it in that specified way.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 23:01:58 2018 No.11984402 Man and violence are often one and the same and there's no escaping its destructive forces when you enter. That's what I got out of it at least.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 23:02:09 2018 No.11984404 >>11984379 Clearly you're missing the point of what I meant by asking that but yeah I suppose my head is empty and you are superior in every way

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 23:03:26 2018 No.11984408 >>11984404 Okay what is your point?

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 23:03:38 2018 No.11984409 >>11984396 Then enlighten me

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 23:07:56 2018 No.11984419 Was the historical time period actually as violent as the book depicts it?

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 23:10:16 2018 No.11984428 >>11984419 >Was the historical time period actually as violent as the book depicts it? no

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 24 23:15:59 2018 No.11984452 >>11984419 >>11984428 >no There was a real Glanton gang that hunted scalps and even scalped innocent Indians for more money...

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 05:54:40 2018 No.11985628 >>11984313 >but what am I supposed to get out of it That violence has always been in our nature and even nature itself is capable of violence to us and itself and finally the universe is uncaring towards all of this.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 07:23:57 2018 No.11985771 >>11984313 >thinking that there is a singular universal le message that you should """get""" out of it As long as you view books as one-dimensional as this you will not make it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 12:45:22 2018 No.11986835 >>11984344 It’s not gratuitous though. Go back to Harry Potter

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 12:46:24 2018 No.11986838 >>11984378 >purple prose Using cliche terms like this, kek

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 12:47:25 2018 No.11986842 >>11984419 Yes act

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 12:48:36 2018 No.11986848 >>11984419 The book is not loosely based on historical events on the contrary it is highly based on them

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 15:02:08 2018 No.11987301 >>11984313 >Is the ending going to tie it together? Yes, but only if you read carefully and aren't a brainlet.

Anonymous Thu Oct 25 15:09:45 2018 No.11987322

>>11984313
I can't believe you're enjoying it. I'm just over halfway thru and can't stand it. And if you think the prose is beautiful I cannot help you son. It's the most repetitive pretentious drivel I've read in a long, long time. I hate /lit/ faggots for ever recommending this.

Anonymous Thu Oct 25 15:20:42 2018 No.11987352

>>11984313
The craziest thing about this book is reading the historical background and realizing how much of it is based in fact. There was a huge imposing man who spoke like six languages, was a genius, and murdered and raped injun children while leading a gang of scalpers, the only thing is he may not have been bald.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 15:38:33 2018 No.11987452 >>11984419 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FgyZ4ia25gg She talks about the history towards the end of the lecture

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 15:50:41 2018 No.11987536 >>11985628 yeah, I'm not really sure how you could miss this. it's said explicitly dozens of times in the book.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 15:58:05 2018 No.11987577 File: 143 KB, 962x541, mexican-soundscapes-962x541.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] How long do you think the book would be if you took out all the descriptions of landscapes?

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 17:15:17 2018 No.11987882 >>11987322 Name your fave writers? Jonathan Franzen?

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 17:16:34 2018 No.11987889 >>11987577 How long would Moby Dick be if the parts without the whale encounters were cut out?

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 17:19:17 2018 No.11987906 >>11987889 I guess I don't get why describing basically the same thing over and over again is important. I like the book though despite this.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 17:21:16 2018 No.11987916 >>11987906 It's not the same thing over and over. There are many different landscapes being described in Blood Meridian.

Anonymous Thu Oct 25 19:47:32 2018 No.11988536

>>11984419
No but the characters are hyper-violent antisocial brigands that live in the frontiers between Mexico and the USA for the reason they can be hyper-violent antisocial brigands. The entire story is almost mythical because the frontier is treated like mythical place.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 19:51:11 2018 No.11988551 >>11987352 I thought it was, in so many words, descibed he had Alopecia totalis. He doesn't even have eyebrows.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 19:54:08 2018 No.11988566 >>11984313 Just remember: war and violence is eternal and what you see the Glanton Gang doing is an allegory for all mankind

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 20:16:40 2018 No.11988641 >>11987906 Repetition is thematic, the repetition of Violence, the repetition of conquest, generations, even at the basic level the seasons. The repetitive description could be designed to wear on the reader just as the nature wore on the gang.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 20:17:42 2018 No.11988648 >>11987906 The land in early America is an important character itself.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 20:38:10 2018 No.11988724 >>11984313 >>11984332 It gets much much better in the last third imo.

Anonymous Thu Oct 25 21:02:31 2018 No.11988806
File: 945 KB, 1920x1200, 1378267476836.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>11987577
>How long do you think the book would be if you took out all the descriptions of landscapes?
30 pages tops and it would be awful.
One of the key themes imho is that this ugly side of humanity is played out in an almost mythical landscape.
Also that when people think of the wild west/frontier they think tumble weeds, dust/dry dirt and saloon towns not pic related.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 25 23:40:25 2018 No.11989390 Is there any extra significance to this line during the Judge's 'war speech'? "Before man was, war waited for him." I took it to mean that animals were fighting before humans evolved, but I'm not completely sure.

Anonymous Fri Oct 26 01:06:42 2018 No.11989683

>>11989390
It means that war is more fundamental than man.

>I took it to mean that animals were fighting before humans evolved
You are still thinking too specific. The book is about war in both the violent form mankind gives it, and war in the most abstract.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 26 01:53:31 2018 No.11989828 >>11989683 What would the more abstract form of war be? Is it as vague as a conflict between two forces?

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 26 02:32:57 2018 No.11989897 >>11989828 War is that highest authority by which disagreements are judged and forced into unity.

Anonymous Fri Oct 26 02:35:41 2018 No.11989902

Holden is just an edgy death angel that escaped his damnation and came back to earth (the way they found him in the desert). He doesn't have to be right about things, he's just an opinionated mofo that would do and say anything to justify and satisfy his many degenerate needs.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 26 02:35:52 2018 No.11989903 >>11984378 >borderline purple prose kek. Now you mention it his descriptions do get a little wordy. 0/10 be more Hemmmingway Also that would be a good subtitle.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 26 02:44:26 2018 No.11989909 i came up with a joke: blood meridian is my favorite gangsta rap novel hope you liked it

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 26 03:36:40 2018 No.11990035 >>11984313 >Is the ending going to tie it together? Yes. One of the greatest endings ever.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 26 03:41:30 2018 No.11990046 >>11984313 >Am I just a massive retard? No. McCarthy is one of the most overrated American novelists of the last 50 years. Read this: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 26 03:45:40 2018 No.11990053 >>11990046 Suttree is a much better book than this.

Anonymous Fri Oct 26 03:55:04 2018 No.11990073

>>11988724
This. I liked the whole book, but parts in the middle could sometimes get a little tiresome, but the last 50-60 pages really, really shocked me, in a good way. I just finished this book last week, but I'll be reading all parts with Judge Holden again very soon.

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