Blood Meridian

So I just started reading Blood Meridian, and i'm really enjoying it so far (about halfway through). I love the dialogue, the gruesome imagery, and it's nice to be challenged by a writing style i'm not used to. Plus it's just fun to read a western, makes me feel like a badass

But, is it necessary to know spanish to truly get this book? The further and further I read the more spanish and I encounter and I barely know any of the language. I forced myself to use a google translator to get through one of the chapters and while it took me forever I honestly felt like I got more out of it knowing what they were saying (It was the scene with the tarot card reading if anybody was wondering)

I was also wondering what you guys think about a film adaptation of this book. I think it could be incredible if a director had the balls to do it

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

The kid spat dryly and drew the revolver from his holster, pointing against the nigger's head

the man gazed at him with a glassy eyed stare

the kid pulled the trigger, splattering his brain and skull across the dusty ground

naw i guarangoddamntee none a ye niggers'll make the same mistake twice

the kid spat

"The woman looked up. Neither courage nor heartsink in those old eye. He pointed with his left hand and she turned to follow his hand with her gaze and he put the pistol her head and fired"

"The explosion filled all that sad little park. Some of the horses shied and stepped. A fistsized hole erupted out of the far side of the woman's head in a great vomit of gore and she pitched over and lay slain in her blood without remedy"

"He took the skinning knife from his belt and stopped to where the old woman lay and took up her hair and twisted it about his wrist and passed the blade of the knife about her skull and ripped away the scalp"

I love this book

Another nigger, just over the crimson line of the horizon stood sternly against the azure stretch of the afternoon sky

The kid spat in the grainy wind and walked to his steed.

He ripped a soft leather sash and a weathered bundle curved against the belly of stallion and he pulled loose a rifle

Say nigger, he hollered

Ye, the nigger shot back

Whats your business there

Lookin fer a drink I reckon

Come I've a pint

The nigger walked a thin stretch of worn, crackling pebbles, and he thought unto himself of the knowledge deep within him, just as far a depth as any man would have in a quiet evening that knowledge that something knows of his existence. A stinking trace in his footsteps that shuffles under the cuff of trousers and consumes him like the deep vermilion devilsmoke that lifts and lowers slowly against the doings of the universe

The kid, squinting at the thick stockend of his rifle spat a thin spit out the corner of his mouth, and shotdead the nigger along the warm blood meridian of the plain

The kid spat

He lifted his sombrero and pulled loose from the wet crownliner a soggy flour tortilla

And he ate

congratulations, user, I'm laughing my ass off for real right now

Hey, OP. If you're new here, just a heads up: since last year there's been an increase in shitposting for Cormac McCarthy threads. I'm not sure why: Cormac McCarthy is genuinely a fantastic author and most people who have read his works here do enjoy him. However, you always get the corncob posters repeating the same pasta over and over.

I read Blood Meridian last year and loved it, although it wasn't easy to enjoy. The pacing can be a challenge to overcome at times, despite how beautiful the scenery is described. The prose is gorgeous (I especially loved that intense description of the comanches racing towards for a brutal fight) I loved the dialogue too, the gruesome imagery is disturbing but the book does well to highlight the ugliness of the Comanches as well as the Glanton gang. Nobody is the "good guy" in this book.

I don't believe Spanish is essential to following the book, but it can't hurt to have an online translator or an app to help with the Spanish dialogue. I personally read it without that, but I suppose the next time I read the book I should have a translator available (same goes for The Border Trilogy, a lot of Spanish in that too).

I think a film adaptation would be difficult, but it seems Cormac McCarthy is open to the idea. He's said himself it'd be challenging but not impossible. I believe Ridley Scott tried but gave up, hence us getting The Counsellor instead. I think the depiction of violence as well as the novel's ambiguity would be difficult to depict. The violence because censors wouldn't be happy about baby's getting crushed and ambiguity in prose is difficult to translate onto the screen visually in an accessible manner.

What other McCarthy books have you read so far, OP?

Yes it's a fantastic book OP, one of my favorites. I can't speak a lick of spanish and I still feel like I got most of what there was to get in the book. Just plowed through Child of God today too and it's my second favorite of McCarthy's works.

Child of God is phenomenal.

HBO,Netflix, etc have no standards and practices they need to adhere to.
They literally can make anything they want,its just a matter of who will provide the $$$