So, would this be the old school death metal of literature?

>Blood Meridian
>Highly technical

Like if they took out all the measure breaks and time signatures. Very technical.

these are the correct answers

Blood Meridian is to the western what NGE is to the Mecha genre

No, Blood Meridian has substance.

>5 chapters in
>Author doesn't use basic fucking grammar
>Author paints every scene with ridiculously over the top purple fucking prose which makes even the most banal of chapters seem pontificating
>Author has spoilers in the start of the chapter, I'm assuming for retards who don't understand it.

Why do people fucking worship this jerk off again?

The true GOAT?

What basic fucking grammar are you talking about here?

Definitely Onkyo.

>constant run-ons
>no "____" to signify dialogue
>lack of commas, semi-colons, dashes

The first two chapters were a mess. I had to reread several sentences because he refuses to put in the most basic of punctuation to clarify what the fuck he's saying.

I got used to it by now but Jesus it's an awful style.

>harsh
>raw
>that faggy bullshit

>no "____" to signify dialogue
I am dead.

What happened in the outhouse?

The general consensus seems to be that the Judge raped and murdered the Kid, but I didn't get that at all. The Judge wanted to completely corrupt the Kid, who throughout the book had somewhat of a heart despite the horrible things he'd seen and done. He wanted the Kid to "pour his heart into the common" and fully lose himself in the violence.

When they meet again in Fort Griffin, the Judge talks about an event that is soon to happen "set in motion by the slaying of a large bear". The girl that owns the bear goes missing. The Kid tries to have sex with a "dark little dwarf of a whore" but seemingly can't perform. I'm thinking this is when the Kid succumbs to the temptation of the Judge. He goes to the outhouse where the Judge sits naked and the bear girl is presumably being held captive. The Judge joyously embraces the Kid for becoming "like a son" to him, for fully accepting his ideology, that weakness is guilt and the weak deserve death. The Judge watches as the Kid rapes, brutalizes and murders the little girl.

When the two men come and investigate the outhouse, there is a third man there pissing outside who speaks in exactly the same manner as the Kid. He warns them "I wouldn't go in if I was you." very nonchalantly before walking back into town. When the Judge is dancing and singing that he never sleeps and that he will never die, I think the meaning here is that his ideology will live forever through the Kid and whoever else he commits acts of violence upon. So long as war has its ultimate practitioner, violence will never sleep, and it will never die.

but the Judge was trying to kill the kid for not being 'true' to the Glanton Gangs' cause, war. Judge says the kid always had some clemency for the heaten/indians and that's why they were routed by the Yumas. Why would he forgive the kid? Keep in mind that the Judge actually thought the kid tracked him down to the bar to kill him and kid was unable to convince him that it was a coincidence that they met that night.

Surely the Judge kills 'the last of the true' that night and dances saying he will never die, because the martial spirit of men are dying with the advancing civilization and with the kid dead, there are no true warriors left on Earth, except the Judge.

eh, was more referring to the genre as a whole. Here's a better example.

youtube.com/watch?v=F3QwAHPNsA8

So stupid I actually feel embarrassed for you

that is a pretty interesting interpretation, I never thought of the event in the outhouse not resulting in the death of the man/kid

I don't think any rape was involved, that just seems too trite and ridiculous for such an encounter given the sweeping brutality and sexual deviancy which preceded it. I don't know I kind of think the Judge literally consumed the kid either by eating or through some sort of horrible crushing in

>but the Judge was trying to kill the kid
I'm not so sure. Throughout the book the Judge seems to delight in causing others to commit acts of violence for him. Even when we meet him for the very first time, the Judge is inciting a crowd to lynch a preacher for his own amusement. He probably could have slaughtered the entire Glanton gang as well as the Kid any time he wanted, but he whole reason the travels with the Glanton gang is because it's how he can cause the most violence and suffering possible, indirectly. If he corrupts the Kid into becoming an avatar of violence, he causes more death and suffering indirectly than he would by just directly killing the Kid.

The judge is an archon or a representative of Satan.There's just no way that he's human. Up until the end he's only toying with the Kid, seeing how much further he can be corrupted even after the Glanton Gang have all been claimed and sent to hell. I'd say the end is a murder so brutal that McCarthy wanted to leave it to the reader's imagination, and so the Kid is finally sent to burn for eternity.

I've always disliked the interpretation that the kid was raped in the outhouse. If he had been, McCarthy would have just written so. Instead, he leaves it ambigous and up to the reader's imagination. I bet a lot of you can come up with worse things happening in there than a dude getting assfucked by another dude

Will he ever publish another nobel fucking book?

>doesnt end every instance of dialogue with "said ___"
>plebian 1 rep maximum

>The judge is an archon or a representative of Satan

I really don't know where anyone gets this idea. Knowing McCarthy, the Judge is probably an analogy for the worst aspects of human nature.

Well then, it's obvious you're too dumb for Blood Meridian. Why are you on this board?

I always saw it as some sort of assimilation. I can't remember the encounter exactly and I don't have my copy to hand, but the line which reads something like: 'he gathered him against his immense and terrible flesh' prefigures what the later men see. I always saw the Judge as the embodiment of war, and those who cannot ride with war are consumed by it.

/mu/ ain't literate

The bear is a symbol for the Man. The bear has been made docile and betrayed its predatory nature. Its dance is a "false dance". The Man and the dwarf prostitute mirror the pairing of the bear and the little girl. The Man's demonstration of impotency with the whore mirrors the bear's embarassing docility, his lack of vitality. The Man and the bear are destroyed for violating the Judge's order.

Currently reading Blood Meridian for the first time and it's occurred to me that pic related character from O Brother, Where Art Thou? is probably influenced by Judge Holden, considering that the Coen Brothers would go on to direct No Country they're probably familiar with McCarthy

>If he had been, McCarthy would have just written so.
Just like he described the actual act of the Judge killing children throughout the story, rather than just implying it? No. The Man's death isn't described because he is a child or innocent just like the other children killed by the Judge. These acts are done in secret because they show the true, vampiric nature of what the Judge represents, which he seeks to conceal.

I think I heard they were given the chance to direct Blood Meridian, but they chose No Country instead. I definitely remember them saying that they were familiar with it at least

Am I the only person who thinks a Blood Meridian film would be a complete fucking flop? I just can't see it working well in the medium, no matter who worked on it.

That's interesting, I didn't even consider that connection

You guys don't get it.

You do. And you quote exactly what you should. Obviously Blood Meridian is a response to Moby Dick. Think about the end of MD - Ahab (fanaticism/nihilism) is pulled into the ocean by the whale, assimilated, but Ishmael survives as a kind of post-modern pluralism. The kid is Ishmael. The Judge is Ahab and the Whale gathered together. The judge swallows, eats, assimilates, gathers up cuz war iz god, the pluralism of the kid.

You'd need to shoot it like an arthouse but with a blockbuster budget, so, yeah, it'd probably flop but that's not to say it doesn't work as a film, per se, just not a commercially viable one

Ya but i'd be into Paul Thomas Anderson, Von Trier, or Andrew Dominik doing it.

Lel or wes anderson with bill murray playing himself playing the judge would be (death) hilarious

I think you're wrong, but I don't speak post-modern so maybe I'm misinterpreting you. Genuine assimilation implies the Judge has a totality of control. That he can simply choose whenever he likes to force the Kid/Man to join his system. But he does not, and cannot. And that is precisely why he struggles to dominate the world and root out treachery and hidden things. He kills the Man not to assimilate him but as a tacit recognition that the Man's resistance, which was always a disappointment to the Judge, has become intolerable. Check this page from an early draft of the book. The Judge can't "whip" (ie, control/enslave) the Kid, only kill him.

It would have to be PTA, really, which would unfortunately mean DDL as Holden, Joaquin Phoenix as Toadvine and CGI Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Kid

wow thanks for posting that pic, super interesting.

First point: I do speak post-modernism, and drafts are interesting but the final text is what matters. We don't know if that was deleted cuz the writing is cheesy shit, or if McCarthy changed the story for narrative reasons.

Second point: Control/Enslavement are a form of death, death is a form of control. If you don't think so you're an idealist that sees freedom in death, which cannot be the case. Freedom is only in life.

This is actually a pretty decent comparison.

Also nice quads don'tbanmeplease

lel PSH back from the grave, needle still in arm rotten and silent would work actually

>Freedom is only in life.
Well, unless you're a Gnostic. And there's quite a lot to suggest the book is Gnostic or semi-Gnostic in character. In other words, death doesn't kill the spirit, and the spirit is the untouchable essence of resistance to the Judge.

Eh ya, or just seeing freedom as positive or negative. We are drawn to a negative freedom - freedom from (chains, bonds, life etc) but it's worth thinking about why we are drawn to this, what assumptions we're making, what might a positive freedom be

That's an interesting link user, I hadn't thought about BM like that

I think the Gnostic would say freedom from life or materiality is not simply a negative freedom, but the inner liberation required for true positive freedom to exist, whatever that freedom might be like. They would say Nietzschean "positive" freedom or willing is really anything but freedom, because it is in fact full enslavement to the alien logic of the Schopenhauerian Will.

Howard and Lovecraft are the Old School Death Metal of literature

Don't you see what you just did? Exactly what we're talking about
>positive freedom can't be freedom because there is enslavement
You're saying positive freedom needs to entail 'freedom from' (slavery, etc), you're stuck in a tradition where we are drawn to defining freedom negatively instead of a poetic letting of freedom to be positive and otherwise. Positive freedom is found in obligation.

this is embarrassing

not sure why this thread isnt kill

a faux-deconstruction that works on other levels?

LOL

Negative freedom is only a means to an end for Gnostics, a step in the acquisition of full positive freedom. The "obligation", purpose, or pursuit of meaning in their view is to be true to one's true self, which is the spirit. This requires discipline. To follow the false, materialistic self, means not freedom but only licentiousness, enslavement to desires imposed upon the spirit. This isn't so different from other Christian ideas of freedom.

But Glanton is Ahab

That would be the bible

not one rebuttal besides resorting to name calling.
nice one boys

If you're a goddamn Toonami pleb
Youd think the fact that everything else Gainax made was all about blatantly remixing/homaging older Japanese Nostalgia anime would clue you in
The psychology aspects are the only original thing Eva had, and even then Lain and Ghost Hound did it much better. Even on a superficial level Rahxephon did it better
Gunbuster is Annos true masterpiece.

Not OP but I wanted to mention that I tried listening to Earth while reading BM and it was very cool (I happen to be reading it for the first time and found this thread). I am a huge Earth fan in general, and I definitely agree with the comparison. I was actually lucky enough to seem them live a couple of months ago (opened for Boris).

To be honest that post did deserve some name-calling