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Tag: Cormac McCarthy

  • Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

    Completed Blood Meridian. I must say, I enjoyed the book, despite the fact it had no structure or rhyme or rhythm. There are rarely justifications for characters actions, or some type of closure.

    It does help knowing that Glanton’s Gang was real, and one of its alleged members wrote a memoir describing its misdeeds.

    Not only Glanton, but Judge Holden character come from this memoir, and apparently there’s an episode where Holden managed to talk himself out of raping a Mexican girl by speaking Spanish to the villagers. And on another occasion he decides to lecture scalphunters on geology.

  • Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

    Despite all the unexplained violence, I was enjoying the narrative until the style shifted.
    First it was the tale how Judge first appeared in front of a company of headhunters in order to lead them around volcanoe for a few days like Moses in order to produce crude gunpowder like a bunch of bloodthirsty Robinsons, so they could defeat the Indians. Then there’s a rambling by the Judge about one man killing another with a rock, which I assume is about Western and Indian civilizations.
    I’m 3/4 of the book, and still not sure what am I reading. It’s a chain of atteocities, sometimes commited by the headhunters, and sometimes on them. First they massacre Indians, then peaceful Indians, then Mexicans, and even managed to sell Mexican scalps back to the Mexican governor. Then they are finally chased by the Mexican army.
    It’s mostly grounded, except the story about Judge able to levitate a coin, unless it’s some known snake oil trick I’m not aware of.
    Then there’s the subversion of expectations. I thought that the entire point of the Judge is that he’s a paedo, killing kids as he passes, and the entire point of the Idiot is to demonstrate that female compassion kills. But he ended up saving the Idiot?

  • Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

    It’s a comically violet Western, about a violet teenager that vagabonds somewhere in Texas. He stumbles upon a preacher giving a ceremon. The preacher is interrupted by a judge, saying that he’s a fake priest and a child molester. the congregation wants to lynch the priest for that, so he runs away. The judge tells everyone that he made up the story, and everyone laughs.
    He then gets into a fight with a drunk, gets knocked out by a passerby, and when he wakes up, he goes with the same passerby to beat some guy staying in the hotel, and they burn the hotel in the process.
    He then goes to a Mexican town, with no money, asks for a drink for mopping their floors, mops the floor, gets no drink and proceeds to kill the barman with a bottle.
    By this point Irregulars, which I guess are like bandits cosplaying as army, decide that this is exactly the qualities they need, and enlist him into their ranks. He also lies that he was robbed by a bunch of people, despite the fact it were the herders that gave him food for free.
    Irregulars plan invasion into Mexico. Only they first get ambushed by Indians, then the rest are killed by bandits that cosplay as Mexican Army.
    Kid is saved by meeting Toadvine, the guy he burned the hotel with, and Judge Holden, the guy who falsely accused the priest, who serves as a headhunter for Mexicans.