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/lit/ - Literature

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9596824 No.9596824 [Reply] [Original]

So who or what was the Judge? It feels to easy to just pass him off as "the devil"

>> No.9596831

>>9596824
how many times is this thread going to be created? i just bought this book today, actually.

>> No.9596835

>>9596831
Enjoy, my friend. I just finished it yesterday and honestly it's one of the best books i've ever read

>> No.9596847

>>9596835
what are some of the others, for reference?

>> No.9597257

>>9596824
The judge is a metaphor for the law. Read up on some Benjamin, specifically his Theses and Critique of Violence.

In the latter he discusses how in the intermediate stage between uncivilized land and civilized land (in the form of a state), the real law is violence, it's the only thing that can be used to establish the future law. Violence created law. This is why there are three main time periods in the book: the kid's journey with the Glanton gang and the judge; the man revisiting the judge, where there are not established cities in the most people have settled down; and then the epilogue, which I interpret as the construction of a border fence—the final establishment of the State after the violence.

Benjamin's theses have the section that most people just dumb down to 'the winners of battle/war etc write the history.' This is why the judge is seen sketching things in his journal, and then burning the actual artifacts. He even had a statement along the lines of saying he wishes the only knowledge in existence to be that which is within his book.

>> No.9597262

>>9597257
Oh anon my sweet summer child bless your heart.

>> No.9597270

>>9597262
Anytime. I wrote a paper on it in undergrad that I'm polishing now to send a journal, so I've read it pretty extensively (4-5 times in the past year 1/2), as well as reading a good amount of secondary lit on this book as a whole and McCarthy in general.

>> No.9597272

>>9597257
Ok, now I have to read Benjamin. Fuck.

>> No.9597279

>>9597272
You won't regret it. Once you do that I'd recommend a paper by this guy named James Dorson. It was very influential on my own reading of the judge, and it's written well so even if you have some struggles with Benjamin you'll still get the gist of the argument

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jmodelite.36.2.105?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

>> No.9597299

>>9596824
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

>> No.9597584

>>9596824
Go re-read the passage where we first encounter the judge.

>> No.9597591

>>9596824
he's the 8th incarnation of the spirit of the corncob

>> No.9597592

>>9597257
I regret that I have but one (You) to give

>> No.9597668

an autodidact who looks like a giant baby

>> No.9597684

>>9596824
A

FUCKING

WHITE

MALE

>> No.9597687
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9597687

>>9597270
Anon i'd like to hear more if you have some

>> No.9597698

>>9597257
why does the Judge kill the kid and the others? they've outlived their purpose now that the violence is done? and why's he always fucking and killing kids?

>> No.9597702

>>9596824
the judge is god

god in old times used to be called The Judge

>> No.9597903

>>9597702
That's such a dull and cop-out interpretation

>"Hurr durr the judge is the devil/god. he said he'd never die lol that's how i know"

>> No.9597942

>>9597903
McCarthy literally said in an interview the Judge is God.

>> No.9597946

>>9597698
>and why's he always fucking and killing kids?
Do you really gotta ask that question anon?

They aren't kids, they're orphans. Wards. Chattel. Meat to be ground for the state's pleasure. In cormacanon's analysis, I wager they are the victims of unhappy circumstance and examples of the brutal needs of the state. The Kid is the last bit of history to be erased and recorded in a book. Now you've read it.

>> No.9597950

>>9596824
>just pass him off as "the devil"
the problem is people don't probe deeper into the concept of the devil

>> No.9597956

>>9596824
judge holden is literally judge holden. Mccarthy aped a historical figure and put him in the novel.
>>9597702
you are an idiot

>> No.9597963

>>9597956
I'd just like to add everyone in the thread(except me) is a fucking pseud.

>> No.9597973

>>9597942
I have a very hard time believing that McCarthy would spell out what the Judge is meant to be or represent in an interview

>> No.9597994

>>9597973
that's not my problem