Just finished this Someone discuss the ending with me. I'm thinking [spoiler]the judge sodomize our boy, knocked him out and all that. he is left anally bleeding and motionless in a stall.[/spoiler] what do you think?

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Anonymous Sat Mar 23 20:54:25 2013 No.3589644 [Reply] [Original]

Just finished this

Someone discuss the ending with me. I'm thinking the judge sodomize our boy, knocked him out and all that. he is left anally bleeding and motionless in a stall. what do you think?

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 23 21:05:25 2013 No.3589670 I'm with you on this. I think he just fucked him. The judge is too cruel to kill him.

Anonymous Sat Mar 23 21:06:25 2013 No.3589678
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I actually thought he brutally murdered him. He has a strange attraction to children, but "the kid" became "the man" so I don't think he would still want his asshole. Maybe he did, but I think he would have killed him too.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 23 21:10:25 2013 No.3589690 File: 8 KB, 354x142, 1361237275097.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] wasn't kiddy about to fuck a whore? or just got finished fucking a whore? looks like he got fucked alright.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 23 21:13:25 2013 No.3589698 If someone was unconscious and bleeding anally, do you think people would really stop and gawk at him? Don't you think the final scene actually exhibits a more shocking image than this?

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 23 21:15:26 2013 No.3589707 >>3589698 >do you think people would really stop and gawk at him I don't know. People seemed indifferent throughout the entire novel. The first dude said "don't look in there" in a tone that didn't read as too "shocking" at all.

Anonymous Sat Mar 23 21:24:25 2013 No.3589730

>>3589707
>"Good God almighty" he said
>"What is it?"
>He didn't answer
Page 334
That's a pretty large reaction from characters who don't really react at all.

To the OP, I prefer the idea that it's unknown how he dies, just that it was so horrendous it couldn't be described.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 23 21:29:25 2013 No.3589740 I think the end was the judge more merging with the man, not a rape/kill. I think what was found in the stall was the missing girl from the town before, or even the midget whore, decimated by the man.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 23 21:37:25 2013 No.3589754 I just got this, haven't started it yet. I read his Border Trilogy and Suttree, how does this compare?

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 23 21:41:25 2013 No.3589761 >>3589754 Border Trilogy gets progressively worse, Suttree is really good. Blood Meridian is his magnum opus. Quick, get out of this thread before you read something you shouldn't!

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 23 21:41:25 2013 No.3589764 >>3589754 Blood Meridian is arguably in the top 5 American novels written post-1945.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 23 21:45:25 2013 No.3589772 Judge screams he will never sleep or die because his influence will continue forever. The end signifies that he turned the man, imo.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 06:52:26 2013 No.3590753 >>3589772 he doesn't age to begin with

Anonymous Sun Mar 24 06:58:27 2013 No.3590760

>>3589644
ah, blood meridian, monsieur? that novel is the sark an chaparral of literature, the filament whereon rode the remuda of highbrow, corraled out of some destitute hacienda upon the arroya, quirting with main and with pyrolatrous coagulate of lobated grandiloquence. our eyes rode over the pages, monsieur, of that slatribbed azotea like Argonauts of suttee, juzgados of swole, bights and systoles of walleyed and tyrolean and carbolic and tectite and scurvid and querent and creosote and scapular malpais and shellalagh. we scalped, monsieur, the gantlet of its esker and led our naked bodies into the rebozos of its mennonite and siliceous fauna, wallowing in the jasper and the carnelian like archimandrites, teamsters, combers of cassinette scoria, centroids of holothurian chancre, with pizzles of enfiladed indigo panicgrass in the saltbush of our vigas, true commodores of the written page, rebuses, monsieur, we were the mygale spiders too and the devonian and debouched pulque that settled on the frizzen studebakers, listening the lobos howling in the desert while we saw the Judge rise out of a thicket of corbelled arches, whinstone, cairn, cholla, lemurs, femurs, leantos, moonblanched nacre, uncottered fistulas of groaning osnaburg and kelp, isomers of fluepipe and halms awap of griddle, guisado, pelancillo.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 07:00:26 2013 No.3590761 File: 340 KB, 800x1200, yawn.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>3590760 >monsieur tl;dr

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 07:03:26 2013 No.3590768 >>3590761 what a horrible cunt you are, monsieur. yawning your face off without a thought for my internet self-confidence!

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 07:24:27 2013 No.3590805 >>3590768 >what a horrible cunt you are When you rest, you are a king surveying your estate. Look at the woodland, the peacocks on the lawn. Be the king of your own calm kingdom.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 07:27:27 2013 No.3590809 >>3590805 ah, imbeciles dream in postcard pictures. cunts, all of them, worthless cunts. they are not worth pissing on them. but what do i care? i take my little cock out, i give it a tug, and piss anyway!!!

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 07:32:26 2013 No.3590817 >>3590809 >cunts, all of them, worthless cunts. Leave it to others to be perfect, to be wonderful. Be content with what you are - you'll be much calmer as a result.

Anonymous Sun Mar 24 07:42:26 2013 No.3590835

>>3590817
calmness is a disease, monsieur, which falls upon the old and the spiritually deformed. i will guard and horse my intensity and rage until i fall down dead, immobile, inert. in fact, monsieur, dead i will look appear so like the calm lived their lives that perhaps i shall be considered calm and not dead? there.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 08:06:26 2013 No.3590876 >>3589764 What else is in that top 5 in your opinion? I can't speak for THE BEST of that time period, but my favourites would include: American Pastoral Underworld Gravity's Rainbow Um... what else?

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 10:02:27 2013 No.3591102 >>3590876 Throw in something by McElroy

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 10:03:26 2013 No.3591106 >>3590809 Soak in some lavender, etc

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 10:22:27 2013 No.3591125 >>3591102 Is McElroy not printed anymore? I can never find his work in bookstores and I really want to see what all the fuss is about.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 10:24:26 2013 No.3591132 >>3591125 I don't believe most are, but his first novel is still printed, I actually bought it from amazon a few months ago and i'm just now starting it. If you want to read his other works you'll have to get an ereader.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 10:42:26 2013 No.3591145 >>3591106 i will soak in the blood of men monsieur after and before i will be mad during, before, and after because, i was mad, i am mad, i shall always be mad

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 10:46:26 2013 No.3591153 I wish nothing more from culture than a good film adaptation of Blood Meridian

Anonymous Sun Mar 24 11:00:26 2013 No.3591177
File: 144 KB, 848x375, human condition 2.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>3591153
I would love a long war epic type film, broken up into two parts, maybe 6 hours long, but that will never happen. I can see this being filmed kind of like The Human Condition... maybe one day.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 11:04:26 2013 No.3591186 >>3591153 Daniel Day Lewis as the judge.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 11:19:26 2013 No.3591210 >>3591153 Well, sorry to inform you that James Franco has been fighting to make it for some time now and he's probably not going to stop fighting.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 11:29:27 2013 No.3591224 >>3591210 Fuck. The film can't be made in America, we are too sensitive about our Injins and babies :(

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 11:41:27 2013 No.3591241 >>3591210 He stopped fighting. He's settled on Child of God.

Anonymous Sun Mar 24 18:30:26 2013 No.3592295

>>3589730
>To the OP, I prefer the idea that it's unknown how he dies, just that it was so horrendous it couldn't be described.

This. In a novel containing some of the most horrific imagery every committed to the page, from babies strung up by their eyes on tree branches, to men raping dying children on a battlefield -- what happened to The Kid is so far beyond all of it, that it cannot be described.

The entire novel is a buildup to that one moment.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 21:14:26 2013 No.3592702 Is it so certain that the kid died?

Anonymous Sun Mar 24 21:24:26 2013 No.3592741

>>3592702
No, he might have just been raped or something. But I personally think he was killed horrifically.

Can anyone explain to me what the scene before the ending where the kid/man kills the orphan boy was all about? On first reading I got the impression it was just to show that the wilderness is a harsh place for harsh men, but I feel there must be more to it than that.

Fantastic read by the way.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 24 21:30:26 2013 No.3592756 >>3589740 This sort of makes sense if the Judge is more a personification of war or death or man's penchant for cruelty or something, rather than an actual person.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 08:08:26 2013 No.3593934 >>3592756 >rather than an actual person. >it's based on an actual person lolz

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:01:27 2013 No.3593998 [DELETED]

>>3592741
>>3592741
Earlier in the novel there's a kind of parable that the Judge tells. The parable of the traveler and the harness maker. The basic story is that there's a traveler passing through the wild mountains and he meets a harness maker who lives there. The harness maker tries to get money off him. Then the traveler gives him a lecture on morality. The harness maker then attacks and kills him, buries his bones, but the harness maker's wife discovers them, and cares for the bones of the traveler. The son of the harness maker witness all this and becomes himself a killer of men.

The Judge's main point I think is that evil and violence are inherited. But the harness maker's son isn't the only one who inherits this. The judge also stresses that the unborn son of the murdered traveler will grow up with warped, inventing some unattainable standard of perfection in the place of his dead patriarch. He will inevitably ALSO descend into a life of violence.

At the very end of the novel, the scene you refer to reveals to us that the descendents of the murdered traveler have, in fact, turned to violence, just as the Judge predicted. The boy who is dumb/brave enough to try and shoot our protagonist (now a man) is killed before he can attempt it. It's notable because it's the last murder that our protagonist commits, as if he is bequeathing the act of murder to the next generation.
When the dead boy's companions come to collect his corpse in the morning they say "His granddaddy was killed by a lunatic and left in the woods like a dog." Revelation! We've heard that story before haven't we? Things come full circle. Worse still, the dead boy's 12 year old brother inherits his brother's gun. The cycle of violence goes on.

McCarthy is an apocalyptic pessimist. It had to be this way.

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:02:26 2013 No.3594002

>>3592741
Earlier in the novel there's a kind of parable that the Judge tells. The parable of the traveler and the harness maker. The basic story is that there's a traveler passing through the wild mountains and he meets a harness maker who lives there. The harness maker tries to get money off him. Then the traveler gives him a lecture on morality. The harness maker then attacks and kills him, buries his bones, but the harness maker's wife discovers them, and cares for the bones of the traveler. The son of the harness maker witnesses all this and becomes himself a killer of men.

The Judge's main point I think is that evil and violence are inherited. But the harness maker's son isn't the only one who inherits this. The judge also stresses that the unborn son of the murdered traveler will grow up warped, inventing some unattainable standard of perfection in the place of his dead patriarch. He will inevitably ALSO descend into a life of violence.

At the very end of the novel, the scene you refer to reveals to us that the descendents of the murdered traveler have, in fact, turned to violence, just as the Judge predicted. The boy who is dumb/brave enough to try and shoot our protagonist (now a man) is killed before he can attempt it. It's notable because it's the last murder that our protagonist commits, as if he is bequeathing the act of murder to the next generation.
When the dead boy's companions come to collect his corpse in the morning they say "His granddaddy was killed by a lunatic and left in the woods like a dog." Revelation! We've heard that story before haven't we? Things come full circle. Worse still, the dead boy's 12 year old brother inherits his brother's gun. The cycle of violence goes on.

McCarthy is an apocalyptic pessimist. It had to be this way.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:02:26 2013 No.3594003 >>3589644 I've been meaning to read this. Thinking about starting it once I finish Inherent Vice. Is it good? I've liked everything else I've read by McCarthy

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:03:27 2013 No.3594006 >>3590760 This is the most wonderful thing I've ever read on 4chan

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:04:26 2013 No.3594008 >>3591153 >tfw Paul Thomas Anderson directs Blood Meridian after he finishes up with Inherent Vice A man can dream

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:15:26 2013 No.3594021 >>3594003 >Is it good see >>3589764

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:18:27 2013 No.3594023 >>3594021 Well that answers that, then

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:38:26 2013 No.3594041 >>3594023 >>3594021 'Blood Meridian' is juvenile tryhard shite.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:39:26 2013 No.3594042 >>3594041 Speaking of juvenile tryhards...

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:42:26 2013 No.3594045 >>3594041 How is is juvenile, out of genuine interest? Do you mean its readers are juvenile or its content or both?

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:42:26 2013 No.3594046 >>3594041 Cool

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:42:26 2013 No.3594048 >>3594045 *is it

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:45:26 2013 No.3594051

>>3594045
>Do you mean its readers are juvenile or its content or both?
The content. The novel is babby's first nihilist crisis dressed in second-hand pulp fiction regalia. The readers are juvenile by extension, for placing such an average book on a pedestal.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:49:26 2013 No.3594054 >>3594051 >nihilist crisis good job missing the entire point and not having any context.

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:56:26 2013 No.3594067

>>3594051
Nihilism is only a small piece of the puzzle, and it's reductive anyway.
I think you're neglecting to consider the other major aspects of the novel. Most obvious, the notorious stylistic and formal conceits. The appropriation of Epic/Biblical language and Miltonic imagery into such an unusual setting.
Ok, maybe it doesn't constitute the kind of philosophical depth you're looking for, but it's part of why the novel is celebrated.

And of course there's there's the meditations on (or revision of ) The Great American Novel. Perhaps more importantly the Great American Novelist. Literary legacy is huge part of the book, it's obviously more subtextual than the nihilism you speak of (which is basically propounded through dialogue and events), but it's there.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 09:58:26 2013 No.3594070 >>3594067 That Yale professor on youtube seems to think the Judge outright represents the artist's desire to live forever through his work. That notion doesn't really mesh with the Miltonic Satan, but it certainly meshes with the Byronic one.

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:00:26 2013 No.3594074

>>3594070
Bullshit. That's just ONE of the many things the Judge could represent. That's the beauty of the character. I hate it when academics pontificate like that. "This part of the novel means this and only this, no other interpretation will be tolerated!"

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:01:26 2013 No.3594075 >>3594070 >Byronic That signifies some struggle. The Judge has no struggles or self-destructive tendencies. That is only one small part of the Judge, he can't be boxed down.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:02:26 2013 No.3594077 >>3594051 Can some kind anon please explain to me what a nihilist crisis is? I'm rather ignorant when it comes to philosophy. How precisely does it play into Blood Meridian?

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:03:27 2013 No.3594082

I don't really think it was mccarthy intended the style of the novel to discard previous works and enshrine himself at the top as the pinnacle, but it seemed to me a subversion of the genres and tradition, a gross perversion of the classical and cherished beliefs to present a destructive message, sort of like how the judge collects specimens and researches the world, then destroys his findings allowing nothing to exist without his consent and that of violence and war's.

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:06:27 2013 No.3594090

>>3594075
>can't be boxed down
Fucking this. In fact, the most satisfying interpretation I've heard is the Judge probably doesn't represent any one thing, but rather he represents the entire Western literary tradition of violence and evil, beginning with the Biblical Satan all the way up to more modern interpretations of timeless evil like Joseph Conrad's characters (a major model for McCarthy by the way).

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:09:26 2013 No.3594096

>>3594082
That sounds like a pretty ambitious revision of a long standing tradition, though. It's nothing to scoff at. You're taking Homer, Milton and The Bible and saying - "now this is how I would do it instead." What right does McCarthy have? Don't get me wrong, it's a fascinating project he undertakes, but surely you can see that on some level, perhaps a level of consciousness McCarthy doesn't want to recognize, he DOES believe himself to be the pinnacle. The final passage of the novel seems to suggest he does anyway.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:10:26 2013 No.3594099 >>3594090 >Joseph Conrad Can recommend a novel of his to start with? I'm thinking of picking up Nostromo but if I should start with something else first please let me know.

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:11:27 2013 No.3594105

>>3594096
I don't buy into that meta-fictional interpretation of the final page, I don't think it's McCarthy's style to intrude into his own narrative. Maybe the final passage is more literal than you're giving it credit for? To me that possibility is all the more frightening.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:11:27 2013 No.3594106 I get chills whenever I recall that quote about the 300,000 year old skull that shows evidence of having been scalped.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:15:27 2013 No.3594108 Judge Holden is an simbolic Satan, right? An corporification on evil?

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:15:27 2013 No.3594109 File: 322 KB, 960x620, Grease_960x620.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>3594106 >I get chills Are they multiplying?

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:15:27 2013 No.3594110

>>3594096
>What right does McCarthy have?
Um, dude... The fucking reality is that EVERYONE of any importance in the Western canon of literature has been offering revisions to those great writers you mentioned. That's all it is, really. Homer and The Bible in particular are the foundation upon which everything else has been built. So McCarthy isn't being all that impudent with his Blood Meridian project actually.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:16:27 2013 No.3594111 >>3594108 Read the thread before you post, we're unpacking this idea right now.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:18:26 2013 No.3594114 >>3594110 >implying Shakespeare and Dante aren't the most important foundations It takes a series of great writers (e.g. Homer, Virgil) before a true genius can appear, as Harold Bloom has noted.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:19:26 2013 No.3594116 File: 162 KB, 948x719, 1357950743802.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>3594114 Go to bed, Harold.

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:23:26 2013 No.3594122

>>3594099
I haven't read that one, ashamed to say. It's supposed to be great, though.

What I will say is that Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent are the two novels with the most obvious examples of McCarthy-like characters in them (Kurtz and The Professor, respectively).

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:24:26 2013 No.3594124

>>3594096
I just think that its just blasphemous and not revisionist in tone with respect to past literary tradition, and Mccarthy can fuck with the "Western Canon" because he can, there is nothing to stop him and there should be no impediment to doing so,anyone can write something that is critical or dismissive of previous works, it just usually comes off as edginess usually but not in this case

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:26:26 2013 No.3594129

>>3594111

I do not think this book is so important and complex to get so many threads as he gets here on /lit/.

In truth, the connection between Holden and Satan is extremely obvious, which takes some of the beauty of it.

And for the end, it is ambiguous, but that is obviously because of the author's intention: he wanted the end to be ambiguous. And why? For a lot of people stay arguing, as you are doing; proud as any person, he wanted people to lose their time with him, thinking about what he wrote. Ambiguous endings are a trendy style of the XX and XXI centurys.

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:29:26 2013 No.3594134

>>3594122
In case people were wondering what I was on about... Aside from the whole timeless and nihilistic evil thing, there are some pretty telling superficial similarities.
>The Professor
>The Judge
Defined by their title, more often than their actual name.

The Professor also has an explosive contraption that is curiously similar to the air gun used by Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. Both weapons prompt similar meditations on life, death and fatalism.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:31:26 2013 No.3594136 >>3594124 I guess I agree with you, actually. I was just playing devil's advocate (quite fittingly, given the subject).

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:35:26 2013 No.3594143

>>3594129
>the connection between Holden and Satan is extremely obvious
Could you expand on that? How is it extremely obvious? Is a REALLY bad guy who claims to be immortal automatically a Satanic figure? He could just as easily be God, you know.

The only obvious parallel with the Miltonic Satan I can think of is the scene where they make gunpowder out of volcanic rock and urine.
I haven't read it in a long time though.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:36:26 2013 No.3594146 >>3594002 Holy shit. I never fucking noticed that. You've just enhanced my appreciation for the novel, which I didn't think was possible since it's my favourite novel already.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:40:26 2013 No.3594153 >>3594143 But God is a good guy, you idiot. God doesn't murder people and rape children.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:46:26 2013 No.3594168 File: 20 KB, 250x296, 188498977834.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>3589730 >it was so horrendous it couldn't be described.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:48:27 2013 No.3594171 >>3594153 Hopefully sarcasm, but the bible is full of moral quandaries like this and god's chosen are just as vengeful and murderous as the judge is in many cases divine support inspiration/=good

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:48:27 2013 No.3594172

>>3594143
>He could just as easily be God, you know.

That would be to interpret the book somewhat distant from the general cultural view of good and evil (of course: these values are human creations, and nor a God or devil will care with human values). God in the Bible commits many evil deeds, but never raped children, for example. But be assured that the author, when writing, I was thinking that people would link Holden to something bad, likely to satan.

>>3594143
>How is it extremely obvious?

I mean it's obvious for several reasons: the scene you mentioned, when he looks at the clouds and seems to divert them only with his will; his physical strength; his intelligence without limits; his abilities on everything; his knowledge of all things; his superhuman hearing; that fact that he promotes the destruction of a preacher in the church; his claims that he will never die, and of course, all his evil acts.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:50:26 2013 No.3594180 >>3593934 That's not relevant, do you even postmodernism?

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:51:26 2013 No.3594182 >>3594172 Ok... it is pretty obvious, I guess. I need to read it again to refresh my memory.

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:53:27 2013 No.3594188

>>3593934

>based on an actual person

if by actual person you mean "this one strange man mentioned only a couple in this book in which large portions may or may not have been made up, and who isn't mentioned anywhere else and might as well not have existed outside of those couple mentions in that one book"

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:53:27 2013 No.3594189 >>3594074 >hurr why don't people keep saying that it's their own opinion >muh autism

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 10:56:26 2013 No.3594195 >>3594189 People on a forum like this, sure. I don't require everyone to preface their posts with "in my opinion." But I'm sick of educators acting like the interpretation in the textbook or in their PhD thesis is the one and only.

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:00:26 2013 No.3594204
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>>3594188
>My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue

Read this book and learn you some. A bunch of the guys in the book are based on real people, including the Judge.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:03:27 2013 No.3594213 >>3594204 Um, he can't read it because the only copies left in existence are priced anywhere between $200 and $700. Believe me, I've looked.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:04:27 2013 No.3594217 >>3594213 go to a university library, mine has a copy

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:05:27 2013 No.3594219 >>3594213 >what is a library?

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:06:27 2013 No.3594220 >>3594217 and you haven't stole it yet?

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:08:27 2013 No.3594225

>>3594067
>Most obvious, the notorious stylistic and formal conceits. The appropriation of Epic/Biblical language and Miltonic imagery into such an unusual setting.
Yeah, that's precisely the 'second-hand pulp fiction regalia' I was talking about. Only somebody extremely poorly read in 20th-century literature could be impressed by this shit in 1985. (The year 'Blood Meridian' was published.)

>And of course there's there's the meditations on (or revision of ) The Great American Novel.
There aren't any. You're imagining things that aren't there.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:10:26 2013 No.3594229 >>3594220 What's the point? It's obscurity destroys any value it holds to anyone but a blood meridian reader, also its as much fiction i'm sure as mccarthy's work

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:11:26 2013 No.3594232 >>3594204 You're an idiot. If the Judge is based on a real character, then so is Conan the Barbarian.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:11:26 2013 No.3594234 >>3594229 >What's the point? sounds like an easy $300

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:14:27 2013 No.3594242

>>3594225
>extremely poorly read
Well, you're making a pretty broad statement and lumping in most of academia which has embraced the novel. Even grumpy old Harold Bloom.

It may well have been done before, but evidently it was never done better.

>There aren't any. You're imagining things that aren't there.
Read literally ANY scholarship on this novel and you'll find something testimony to the contrary. Even the bloody undergraduate lectures available on youtube as an introduction to the novel cover this theme pretty extensively. It's not really up for debate. That subtext is there. Don't tell me you didn't recognise the fairly explicit relationship between Moby Dick and Blood Meridian, because I know you did.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:16:27 2013 No.3594245 File: 234 KB, 430x533, markmahaney_haroldbloom_2.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>3594225 >extremely poorly read

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:16:27 2013 No.3594246 >>3594242 >the fairly explicit relationship between Moby Dick and Blood Meridian There's undeniably a relationship, but it's hardly explicit. McCarthy is more subtle than that.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:18:26 2013 No.3594252 >>3594246 Giant white whale. Giant white man. Right... subtle.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:19:26 2013 No.3594257 >>3594225 What other books do something similar? I'm genuinely interested because I loved Blood Meridian and would like to read more of that style.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:30:26 2013 No.3594273 >>3594257 Why not read more McCarthy then?

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:39:26 2013 No.3594283 >>3594273 I think anon wants more violence, the sick fuck

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 11:51:26 2013 No.3594299

>>3594002
>apocalyptic pessimist

Well read, I would only add he is a romantic apocalyptic pessimist

"He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He thought that the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower."

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 15:21:27 2013 No.3594780 >>3594299 guess I'll have to read all the pretty horses now

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 15:44:26 2013 No.3594836

>>3594299
>this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower
I know you're enchanted by the electric purple prose, but let me translate this to plain English:
"Millions and millions of people have been brutally murdered, mutilated and destroyed, but that's OK, because look -- a pretty flower, lol".

Really, anon? Really?? Do you really lap up this asinine bullshit and beg for more?

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 15:56:26 2013 No.3594870
File: 84 KB, 478x344, 1184816691132.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>3594836

Except that the "He" becomes rather important since we're dealing with a novel. A wat? OH, A NOVEL. A COMPLETE WORK. Don't cherry pick half of a sentence to make an already shallow point.

You can reduce any literature to simple English. Would art be better if we all said what we meant in the most pedantic of ways? If we all just painted what we saw?

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 16:05:26 2013 No.3594910

>>3594870
> A wat? OH, A NOVEL. A COMPLETE WORK. Don't cherry pick half of a sentence to make an already shallow point.
So if my chocolate cake comes with a teaspoon of shit, I shouldn't complain -- because I haven't yet sampled the 'complete work' yet. Right?

> You can reduce any literature to simple English. Would art be better if we all said what we meant in the most pedantic of ways?
If your novel becomes laughably stupid when stripped of the purple garnish, then you're doing it wrong. The best literature shines even when stripped in the most pedantic of ways. That's what makes them classics that stand the test of time.

Anonymous Mon Mar 25 16:18:27 2013 No.3594953
File: 62 KB, 604x579, hotdog.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>3594910

Yeah fuckwit, you stripped the purple garnish off of half a sentence, and in so doing missed the point of the sentence, not to mention the rest of the novel.

Great job.

It's from the perspective of a young man who is considering killing and or dying for a girl (or flower). It's not McCarthy standing there in a beret freestyling his thoughts on the world, it's a part of a story.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 16:26:27 2013 No.3594978 >>3594910 >The best literature shines even when stripped in the most pedantic of ways. You're another genre fiction fag that tosses yourself off to simple plots and "worldbuilding" aren't you

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 23:30:27 2013 No.3596319 >>3594780 One of my favorites by him for sure, definitely read it.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 25 23:42:27 2013 No.3596349 >>3591186 only John Malkovitch

Anonymous Tue Mar 26 00:27:28 2013 No.3596437

>>3594077
It's the confrontation with death and the obliteration of the self and everything in its turn. This is a polarity to life, ie. theism in its various fashions. Blood Meridian is a forced monologue about devalue and the cyclical nature of violence in humanity that McCarthy alludes to in his other works. He's a conceited, spiteful, and a downright selfish pessimist and should be considered as such when considering the brutality of his characters and the relationships between people. I'm not >>3594041 but he states it as simply as Americans can and its its rather honest.

Think of it this way when considering his work. When presented as such, are they true dialectics? What is the point of view of his personal narrative? Why hasn't McCarthy, in all his nihilistic hysteria, manned up and put a bullet in his miserable head?

Ego

Now ask yourself if you take that so seriously

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 26 01:04:27 2013 No.3596474 >>3594953 >It's not McCarthy standing there in a beret freestyling his thoughts on the world No, that _exactly_ what he's doing. In fact, doing through the words of a ridiculous self-insertion puppet makes it even more stupid.

Anonymous Tue Mar 26 01:06:27 2013 No.3596477

>>3594978
>You're another genre fiction fag that tosses yourself off to simple plots and "worldbuilding" aren't you
Actually, I was talking about Homer and Shakespeare and the Chinese classic novels. Works where you will _never_ be able to enjoy the stylistic conceits and flourishes.

Nice try, though; for a guy who doesn't even read, you pull off the homosexual bookish hipster character pretty well.

Anonymous Tue Mar 26 01:10:27 2013 No.3596485

>>3596437
>Now ask yourself if you take that so seriously
Well, the vast majority of people who like 'Blood Meridian' do so because they get off on the death porn. They would have rather watched a 'summer blockbuster' with explosions and people's heads being blown off, except for the fact that they can't force themselves to visit a place as mainstream and plebeian as a movie theater. (Unless they're showing Woody Allen or something.)

It's all an unhealthy charade.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 26 01:20:27 2013 No.3596504 Hamlet: Should I kill myself or not? Well...life sucks, but I also don't know what happens after death. Isn't it lame how no one has come back from the dead to tell us what it's like? SO DEEP

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 26 02:38:27 2013 No.3596611 >>3590760 I-Is that you Finnegans Wake?

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 26 02:41:28 2013 No.3596613 >>3594002 It isn't confirmed that the orphan's grandfather is the murdered man mentioned in the parable. It could just be another man killed and buried.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 26 02:44:28 2013 No.3596616 >>3594067 >Ok, maybe it doesn't constitute the kind of philosophical depth you're looking for, but it's part of why the novel is celebrated. What philosophical depth? Not trolling, but I want to know what new thoughts Blood Meridian proposed?

Anonymous Tue Mar 26 03:10:27 2013 No.3596639

>>3594242
>Don't tell me you didn't recognise the fairly explicit relationship between Moby Dick and Blood Meridian

Taking inspiration from or referencing doesn't equal 'meditations on the american novel' as the poster you're replying to said. Why isn't it up for debate?

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 26 03:26:27 2013 No.3596650 >>3596613 It's heavily implied. The connection is hard to ignore.

Anonymous Tue Mar 26 03:30:27 2013 No.3596653

>>3596639
You should watch the Yale lecture on youtube. It spends about 20 minutes explaining how important Moby Dick (as the Great[est] American Novel) is to Blood Meridian. The similarities are undeniable, whether or not there's a specific commentary or revision going on below the surface allusions is up for debate. But it seems more than plausible to me.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 26 03:33:27 2013 No.3596656 >>3596616 That's what I was saying, there is no great philosophical depth. But the poster I was replying to was ignoring other great aspects of the novel. Surely philosophical depth is not the one and only criteria we use for measuring quality?

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 26 03:34:27 2013 No.3596657 >>3596653 I've seen it. I have a hard time imagining that the judges final lines indicate Macarthy's belief that the judge has eclipsed all other grand characters in the western tradition, and that he'll thus 'never die' in the minds of the audience.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 26 08:09:27 2013 No.3596954 >>3596657 >judge has eclipsed all other grand characters in the western tradition, and that he'll thus 'never die' in the minds of the audience. Not sure about the first part but that second part seems accurate.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 26 22:26:27 2013 No.3599039 judge is god

Anonymous Wed Mar 27 13:35:27 2013 No.3600711
File: 467 KB, 1024x1024, Lecture on Geology by Judge Holden.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>mon visage quand this thread

the judge is the resurrected moby dick and ahab as one. whereas in moby dick, ahab is trying to get an answer for whether or not there is absolute meaning to the universe (read: ontological dilemma):
ahab gets leg chomped by moby dick: seeks it out to see if moby dick is an intelligent divine entity (if there's an absolute meaning to the universe or not), or if moby dick's just an unintelligent brute beast (there is no absolute meaning to the universe - nihilism). this mirrors the ontological dilemma the West has had for the last few thousand years.

instead of the normal translation: instead of the polytheistic answer that Melville gives (that it isn't one way or the other), as seen with ahab not getting an answer and getting taken down into the indeterminate ocean ~ meanwhile ishmael survives floating on queequeg's polytheistic coffin.

blood meridian says that there is an answer to the ontological dilemma: "war is god", recalling heidegger's "conflict/war (polemos) and logos (god/the gathering) are the same," recalling heraclitus' war/strife (polemos) is the father of all things."

strife/conflict/war is what brings being into being. this is an ontological claim though, and the judge confuses its truth for the ontic. we see this in the way that yes, conflict out-competes cooperation, but there are times where cooperation out-competes conflict. this is the nonviolent thinking that heidegger wants us to get back to.

Anonymous Wed Mar 27 15:34:24 2013 No.3601030 [DELETED]

>>3596504
"And yet you've played the greatest parts! You've played Shakespeare! You've played Hamlet! Have you never been touched in your inmost soul when speaking that tremendous monologue: To be or not to be...."

"What do you mean by tremendous?"

"Full of profound thought."

"Do explain yourself! Is it so full of profound thought to say: Shall I take my life or not? I should do so if I knew what comes hereafter, and everybody else would do the same thing; but as we don't know, we don't take our lives. Is that so very profound?"

"Not if expressed in those words."

"There you are! You've surely contemplated suicide at one time or another? Haven't you?"

"Yes; I suppose most people have."

"And why didn't you do it? Because, like Hamlet, you hadn't the courage, not knowing what comes after. Were you very profound then?"

"Of course I wasn't!"

"Therefore it's nothing but a banality! Or, expressed in one word it is—what is it, Gustav?"

"Stale!" came a voice from the clock, a voice which seemed to have waited for its cue.

don't steal from strindberg, it's not cool

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 27 19:36:27 2013 No.3601639 >>3589644 the judge was the necessary violence it took to tame the west. our empire is possible because of his violence. the epilogue is about fence posts dividing up the now tame lands.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 27 19:38:27 2013 No.3601641 >>3596616 blood meridian : america :: old testament : middle east

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/lit/ - Literature