/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7914720]

So I just finished reading Blood Meridian, it was fine, but I have some question about the ending

1. What did the Judge do to the kid in the outhouse?

2. Was the Judge a supernatural being?

3. What did the epilouge mean?

[Anonymous No.7914723]

take your genre garbage back to r/books

[Anonymous No.7914738]

bump

[Anonymous No.7914771]

who knows. who cares. the book sucked. fuck you guys. I got meme'd hard.

[Anonymous No.7914778]

>>7914771
dont feel bad anon, the corncob brigade are super dedicated trying to meme people into their drivel

live and learn

[Anonymous No.7914843]

>>7914720
All of that is open to interpretation.
1. He killed him, in the same way he killed/brutalized other innocent children in the book (including the little girl, with the bear, who goes lost). Just like those children, we don't get to see the act itself.
2. He is supernatural. At the very least, he's symbolic and non-human, if the whole book is taken to to be a parable.
3. When the Kid is getting surgery on his leg, he dreams about a "coldforger", "an exile from men's fires", hoping for a "dawn", in futility because he cannot see beyond the Judge (whose image he imitates in the coins) and the world. The Epilogue represents the path to this dawn, where the divine "fire" trapped in living things might be released from the world.

[Anonymous No.7914847]

>>7914720
>What did the Judge do to the kid in the outhouse?
It depends on your interpretation of the novel as a whole.
>Was the Judge a supernatural being?
Again, it depends on your interpretation. The way I see it, the Judge the physical manifestation of war and death, which, when you look at certain parts of the book, is pretty obvious.
>What did the epilouge mean?
I'm a little unsure about the exact events that take place in the epilogue, because it's been a long time since I last read it, but, if I recall correctly, McCarthy was explaining that the danse macabre, which no man can escape, will never end, that death will never die.

[Anonymous No.7914850]

>>7914720
I had a good reply to this in another thread but can't find it in the archives.

Basically the judge is supernatural/the devil/war personified/evil.
His goal was to turn the whole band to evil. None of the members could die until they became evil (who survived Yuma? The kid, toadvine, the ex-priest - all people who showed some opposition to the judge and slaughter).
I don't think the judge rapes anyone. The kids that got raped by other members of the band (by the influence of the judge). Notice how after the mysterious rapes some member of the band died shortly after. This is because the judge succeeded in turning them evil, so they could die.
In the Jake's the kid rapes the girl that was playing the organ. Now this wouldn't be indescribable like it was in the book so I think that the judge killed the kid and the girl mid-rape or the kid was raping the girl after she was dead or something else gruesome.
The judge shows his supernatural powers by explaining to the kid how the whole even was predestined (someone had to shoot the bear for the girl to run away and subsequently get raped). He also told of events he would not be able to know (the kid leaving that guy in the mountains I read of killing him).

The epilogue shows that the judge can and does get defeated by civilization. The fence maker symbolizes the fencing in of the west which takes it.

[Anonymous No.7914855]

>>7914850
>The epilogue shows that the judge can and does get defeated by civilization. The fence maker symbolizes the fencing in of the west which takes it.
Should say tames it

[Anonymous No.7914929]

>>7914720

the interaction between the kid and the midget prostitute was really important

the ending can almost be kinda recursive because there is a lot of evidence that the judge should be a metaphorical being and not a physical creature, but then some elements of the plot really kinda require him to be a real flesh and blood presence.

[Anonymous No.7914969]

>>7914929
>the interaction between the kid and the midget prostitute was really important
What is your take on that? My interpretation was that it somehow parallels the dancing bear's relationship to the little girl in the bar, the Kid's sexual impotence mirroring the bear's emasculation as a predator, contrasted to the Judge's vitality.

[Anonymous No.7915050]

>>7914969

I dimly got to that comparison but did not think hard on it, though that is a good catch and I guess ties into what I noticed about the bit. What immediately jumped out at me is when the kid goes to bed with the prostitute then has impotence issues, the midget says something to re-assure him like "its okay it doesn't work for everybody" which immediately starts the train of though, why would someone then (or now I guess) go for a midget prostitute? Given the massive themes of pedophilia throughout the book its pretty obvious what people might seek out that prostitute as a stand in for, though for some of those the effect may not be strong enough, not close enough to the real thing.

that kinda leads towards a "the kid was the/one of the child botherers of the band and the judge taking attacking/embracing the kid was the kid giving himself over and raping the missing girl, which is what actually is found in the jakes, thus the judge don't real at least in part" interpretation which I am not sure I am satisfied with. Almost any interpretation I have seen does not fully cover all elements at play in the ending which is kinda why I love it, it is so hallucinatory and eternal-return-ish. A journey of killers which is different every time, yet always takes the same course and always ends with something absolutely terrible in an outhouse.