Cormac McCarthy's Similes

[Anonymous No.16042964]

Really?
>They rode on and the sun in the east flushed pale streaks of light and then a deeper run of color like blood seeping up in sudden reaches flaring likewise and where the earth drained up into the sky at the edge or creation the top of the sun rose out of nothing like the head of a great red phallus until it cleared the unseen rim and sat squat and pulsing and malevolent behind them

[Anonymous No.16042968]

>>16042964
Planewise *

Not likewise

[Anonymous No.16042970]

There's something you dislike?

[Anonymous No.16042976]

>>16042964
lol what trash

[Anonymous No.16042989]

>>16042970
Not really, it just seems it's a forceful simile to make.

[Anonymous No.16042997]

>>16042964
I downloaded Blood Meridian a while ago, because you guys constantly shill it here, and I don't get what all the fuss is about. Is it the prose? The senseless violence? The sense of being in a fever dream? The opacity? What is it?

[Anonymous No.16043005]

>>16042997
It's not that violent, or opaque

[Anonymous No.16043026]

>>16042997
How's it even feverish or dreamlike? I get the sense that it is written in colloquialisms of the day, but maybe you interpret that as "opacity"

[Anonymous No.16043037]

>>16043005
>It's not that violent
>Critic Harold Bloom[8] praised Blood Meridian as one of the best 20th century American novels, describing it as "worthy of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick,"[9] but admitted that he found the book's pervasive violence so shocking that he had several false starts before reading the book entirely.[citation needed] Caryn James argued that the novel's violence was a "slap in the face" to modern readers cut off from the brutality of life, while Terrence Morgan thought that, though initially shocking, the effect of the violence gradually waned until the reader was bored.
>or opaque
It's not opaque in the sense of being incomprehensible, but it is opaque in the sense that it lacks order. Sentences like the one in the OP are neither beautiful nor orderly. They feel more long and rambling, and are not always clearly or logically connected to the sentences before and after them. It gives the book a kind of hazy feeling, like one is looking at events through a distorted lens or through broken glasses. I didn't find it enjoyable.

[Anonymous No.16043061]

>>16042964
>Op could not suck stop sucking cock. He sucked fat, veined uncut cock in the morning slick and sweating down his throat, he went to brunch and drank and dined and sucked small, long, short and wide. Pulsing and twitching and dripping down OP's mouth, cock was what he needed.

[Anonymous No.16043071]

>>16043037
Harold Bloom and Caryn James and Terrence Morgan are all wrong. This book is not particularly violent. It's arty and its violence is quickly expressed and then abandoned. You haven't dipped your big toe into literature if you think this is some avant garde transgression. Or anything approaching violent. Are you joking? Read Hogg. Reat Sotos. Get some perspective.

>but it is opaque in the sense that it lacks order.
You're joking? It's a linear story. My God. Go one sentence at a time lol, we don't even switch narrators or perspectives!

[Anonymous No.16043074]

For me, it's All The Pretty Horses.

[Anonymous No.16043078]

>>16043071
Ahh, yes, the distinguished scholars of literature are all wrong, and the proof is the existence of a few novels that are unparalleled in their depravity. It all makes sense now.
>You're joking? It's a linear story. My God. Go one sentence at a time lol, we don't even switch narrators or perspectives!
You're deliberately refusing to understand my point. Try rereading my post and you might get it.

[Anonymous No.16043089]

>>16043078
If you can't undertstand the sentence in the OP (if it's "opaque," "blocking light," "preventing your blind ass from seeing anything") you're a literal brainlet. It's a series of words in the English language. Take it slow lol

[Anonymous No.16043090]

>>16042964
Every time this book gets brought up I get more committed to reading it. I don't care if you think it is based or cringe, it's virtue lies in the continually emerging fact that it is discussable.

[Anonymous No.16043093]

>>16043071
>Early Peter Jackson films exist = The Wild Bunch is not violent
kys

[Anonymous No.16043097]

>>16043093
Except that blood meridian is the movie without squibs at all.

[Anonymous No.16043099]

>>16043090
Here's another book you might enjoy.

[Anonymous No.16043116]

>>16043089
My friend, I suspect that one of us has serious difficulty with reading comprehension, and it isn't me. My point is that the general atmosphere of the novel is one of haze, one of a lack of clarity, perhaps even of irrationality. Perhaps I am unusual in that I prefer order, clarity, precision, and beauty in writing, but I simply cannot see anything aesthetically pleasing about the novel.

[Anonymous No.16043140]

>>16043116
Hey blood meridianfags. I'm downloading the audiobook, and I'm gonna half listen to it while doing something productive. Then I'm probably gonna review it negatively for not making any sense. How does that make you feel?

[Anonymous No.16043145]

>>16043116
Didn't mean to reference you >>16043140

[Anonymous No.16043156]

>>16043140
>>16043145
You still don't understand. I'm talking about the atmosphere created by the prose. I like neither the prose nor the atmosphere. I don't see what there is to like.

[Anonymous No.16043161]

>>16043156
I wasn't talking to you, faggot.

[Anonymous No.16043169]

This is a pretty decent read on McCarthy's prose.
It used to be memed a little in old /lit/ iirc
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/
I haven't read the guy's book though

[Anonymous No.16043192]

>>16043169
>I haven't read his books but I decided to chime in anyway
Does anyone here actually read?

[Anonymous No.16043230]

>>16043192
I've read 3 of McCarthy's books (BM, The Road and All the pretty horses).
I was referring to the book by that article's writer (also titled A Reader's Manifesto).

[Anonymous No.16043257]

>>16043169
Just got to the part where the author discusses McCarthy. This is a superior articulation of what I tried to say earlier in this thread.

[Anonymous No.16043272]

>>16043090
sorry to let you down but /lit/ is in no way equipped to discuss this book beyond
>holy shit it's so violent fuck yeah based
and
>omg is the judge supposed to be god? Or is he Satan... did he raped the kid

and that's all

[Anonymous No.16043324]

>>16043169
Here, for example, Jack Gladney tells a woman why he gave his child the name Heinrich.

"I thought it was forceful and impressive ... There's something about German names, the German language, German things. I don't know what it is exactly. It's just there. In the middle of it all is Hitler, of course."

Okay, now this is funny.

[Anonymous No.16043418]

Some of you are alright, don't gather in groups of ten or more in the saloon tomorrow.

[Anonymous No.16043796]

>>16042964
Reading this now and his overuse of similes is starting to piss me off.
There's something weird about the style. Maybe it's one of those things that has to 'click' but I can't seem to get a good picture in my head while reading this. It goes in and out of simile to story too much.

[Anonymous No.16043807]

>>16043037
>Sentences like the one in the OP are neither beautiful nor orderly.
Source ? Wtf do you know about sentences.

[Anonymous No.16043812]

>>16043169
In one word : filtered.

These midwits have actual literary degrees lol.

[Anonymous No.16043841]

>>16043796
I started underlining the similes from chapter 3 onwards but I wont count them all now. So here's a ctrl + f "like'
Admittedly not all of these would be in similes but the vast majority of them would be.

[Anonymous No.16043862]

Brainlets cannot comprehend that the landscape is the ultimate antagonist in the book

[Anonymous No.16043871]

>>16043862
>McCarthy isn't lampooning Manifest Destiny the most, even within chapter 3
>It's just hurrdurr nature scary in the wild wild west

[Anonymous No.16043876]

>>16043037
>Bloom
Don’t care, didn’t read

[Anonymous No.16043882]

>>16043871
nice reductionism brainlet

[Anonymous No.16043894]

>>16042997
This supposition to answer your question is wholly representative of my mine own thought regarding as to why 'a fuss' is made over the novel. Given I'm not on this board often enough to see a thread about Blood Meridian

Its the dichotomy/duality on both parts of the Judge and the Kid, as they're thrown against the setting of the degenerate violence, utter misery and bleak landscape created around them by their and others actions. This and of the symbolism associated with the very minute interactions of minor characters all throughout the narrative, i.e. the gang having their fortunes read in Spanish by the traveling carnival, the warning given by the Mennonite to the filibusters before they travel deeper into Mexico. The fact that hypothesis' given by scholars and literature professors deeper analyses into whether the Judge is Satan, that if he and Glanton have made a pact over the souls of their followers, and that the Kid is a soul lost on the way to limbo and taken deeper into hell.

[Anonymous No.16043901]

>>16043894
So basically >>16043272

[Anonymous No.16043914]

>>16043841
Jesus christ what a load of bloat.

[Anonymous No.16043929]

>>16043901
Shit, that's rightly a box I've been put in. But that was the best explanation i could come up with.

[Anonymous No.16044040]

>>16043005
>>16043071
There's literally a tree full of dead babies in one scene lmao. In another part an indian smashes two babies on a rock. The comanche also slaughter and sodomize the guys in that iconic bit at the start. What are you on about?

>>16043272
>>16043871
Violence is central to the story. Even his bleaker stories like The Road aren't as colourful in the bloodshed. Red is a common motif in BM, unlike grey in The Road, or black in Outer Dark. I think he has three main contentions here:

1) Violence is intrinsic to humans, all races are capable of it. Obviously Indians, mexicans and whites are the subject here but it also applies to the black guy the judge recruits, I forget his name.

2) This violent nature, in addition to being spatially universal, has not changed throughout history. This is implied in the scalping prologue quote.

3) Violence often overpowers other aspects of human life. The judge mentions this in his big edgy speech where he elaborates on his darwinistic attitude to war, and it resounds with McCarthy's materialistic worldview in his entire corpus, even if he appropriates biblical and norse imagery to conjure it. You cannot just educate or reason violence away, it hearkens back to the animal origins of humanity, and is seen in the progressively wolfish state Glanton and his gang fall into while riding through the untamed landscape.
The desert reflects the harshness of nature, man is a product of nature, so man is violent.

He hasn't stated it, but McCarthy really feels like an atheist to the very core. It colours absolutely everything he writes about death, which is the recurring topic of every novel he's ever written, except maybe All The Pretty Horses. If humanity survives this century I think he'll be remembered for a long time, because he feels like the closest thing to a theologian that modern anglophone nihilism has.

[Anonymous No.16044095]

>>16043272
> sorry to let you down but /lit/ is in no way equipped to discuss this book beyond

What would you like to discuss then? It’s character and plot parallels with Moby Dick? The debate on the merits of civilization in the ruins? The parable of the traveller and its realization at the Buffalo fields? Cormac’s use of prose in the Comanche attack and in travelling to covet time passage and POV? The epilogue?
There’s plenty of themes in this book to discuss and anons to discuss it with, but that discussion has been exhausted for years by those who have actually read the book. That’s why every BM thread is made by someone who just finished it or >what should I expect-er

[Anonymous No.16044115]

>>16042964
Is there anything similar to prose found in Melville, McCarthy, Conrad and Faulkner? I need another fix. Is Ambrose Bierce like that?

[Anonymous No.16044238]

>>16044115
Literally none of those writers you mention are similar. Or do you mean thematically? Because I think all of them delve into man vs nature.

[Anonymous No.16044380]

>>16044238
I find them very similar, in fact, there is a book that discuses their prose style, that bunches them together, with the exception of McCarthy. They, apparently, draw a lot from KJV.

That, Nature and centrality of Landscape is what I'm looking after. Fraction of that is found in Ballard also.

[Anonymous No.16044381]

I have zero knowledge on poetry, i have only read 4 chapters of BM as of yet. But the rhythm behind some of the prose is godly, the way i read it sometimes reveal tremendous beauty in its language. Like here:

They rode on and the sun in the east
Flushed pale streaks of light
And then deeper run of color like blood
Seeping up in sudden reaches
Flaring planewise
And where the earth
Drained up into the sky
At the edge of creation the top of sun rose out
Like the head of a great phallus
Until it cleared the unseen rim
And sat squat and pulsing
And malevolent behind them.

[Anonymous No.16044422]

>>16044380
The only two I see similar are McCarthy and Faulkner, and that's only superficially. No idea how you find Melville or Conrad similar to the other two.

[Anonymous No.16044453]

Didn't mean to misgender they none, said the Kid.
The nigress whore stood up and showed her hairy legs that she would dip in the river like fishing bait for the fishes that lurked in the black pool like blood in a vial.
The judge looked from atop his horse, smiling at the kid. He made the horse face the Kid as if it was looking at him too. Judge Holden pulled out a bowie knife from behind his neck and jumped off from his saddle. Dangling the knife in front of the whore, then shoving it at her pelvis with the heel of his hand at the handle's end, the Judge cut off the transvestite's phallus and held them up in the air like red embers filling the morning air with a sun made of pisscoloured hellfire.

[Anonymous No.16044803]

>>16044453

[Anonymous No.16044860]

>>16044381
Thanks, I see the prose now. Based post

[Anonymous No.16045252]

>>16044453
Didn't mean to misgender they none,
said the Kid.
The nigress whore stood up
And showed her hairy legs that she would
Dip in the river like fishing bait
For the fishes that lurked
in the black pool like blood
in a vial.
The judge looked from atop his horse,
smiling at the kid.
He made the horse face the Kid
as if it was looking at him too.
Judge Holden pulled out
a bowie knife
from behind his neck and
jumped off from his saddle.
Dangling the knife in front of the whore,
then shoving it at her pelvis
with the heel of his hand at the handle's
end, the Judge cut off the transvestite's phallus and
held them up in the air
like red embers filling the morning air
with a sun made of
pisscolored hellfire.

[Anonymous No.16046016]

bump