McCarthy was a whole other level, i love all his books, but blood meridian is in my honest opinion one of the greatest novels of all time, "War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting it's ultimate practitioner." I mean how do you even think of something that good
As a professional McCarthy scholar, please allow me to say that I thought this video was terrific. You understand McCarthy better than most academics I’ve known.
Wow that’s very high praise! Thank you 😊 I was just so moved by him, you know? I can’t wait to get to more. Question: I want to be more ready for when I reread Blood Meridian. Commenters have suggested that I read Moby Dick and Paradise Lost. Do you think there’s another book I should read to enhance my reread? Also also a subscriber of mine that follows you on Twitter/X says you Tweeted out my video (I don’t have an account there) so I wanted to say thank you it means a lot 🤍
@@valliyarnl that tweet has over 100 likes and many of my followers are very impressed with you! Moby-Dick is a huge influence on Blood Meridian-no other book comes close.
he legit broke my brain for a while. ive wavered between agnostic and atheist for as long as I can remember, but after reading mccarthy i felt like i had a spiritual awakening. not like born again christian, just more like something...undefinable. it was seriously comparable in its effect on me to the first time i ever did acid. like after the trip is over and you look at life in a whole new way that you couldn't even conceptualize before
There are times where I’ll absorb a sentence he wrote & I just sit there, mixed between despondent-that someone can write like that & furious-that someone can write like that. But, above all that is the feeling of awe & thanks- that someone can write like that..
Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is regarded by many a literature professor as the single greatest novel of the latter half of the 20th century. It's prose alone is staggering, biblical in weight, wondrous, bleak and poetic. The ending is absolutely dazzling. Melville, Dante & Milton are all primers.
“It makes no difference what men think of war. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him… that is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way”. Profound and beautiful book
Makes me sad cause I know we'll never get a Blood Meridian movie no matter how hard we hope. Regardless of your political affiliations... We can all agree that movies (specifically book adaptations) have lost a lot of the grittiness and grime we would have seen in the 70s to 90s... While I still pray to see a Blood Meridian movie, I feel it wouldn't hold up to any of our expectations. Today's movie direction just wouldn't allow for a "proper" retelling of that barbaric story. In a strange way, I can't really think of many stand out characters from TV and movies in the past 20 or so years that were both shockingly offensive and relatable sans the cast of The Sopranos TV show (and arthouse/international pieces)
Anyone else here tried to watch No Country for Old Men with a girlfriend, wife etc? It's one of the hardest movies for a gf to sit through and watch in one go, fully paying attention to the movie 😂 Same with There Will Be Blood
I like to hear a female perspective on McCarthy. Normally you hear men talk about his writing. I first read the Road as a young man, I swallowed it whole in one afternoon after bringing it home from the book store. I have since reread it after becoming a father and the dialogue has intense verisimilitude. When I have serious conversations with my daughter, they are very like that. Children cannot express things with uncertainty or nuance at that age, though they are every bit as capable of grasping difficult concepts, they don't have the vocabulary or experience to express it. So they seek reassurance and guidance in straight forward ways and you have to phrase things in simple terms for them. Ultimately, they are looking for a moral center, a guidance and a path forward that they can tread on their own using your guidance. The conversation you talked about here is very apropos. not only is it that childlike seeking for meaning and definition but it's about doing the very same for others "carrying the fire".
@@MarcosElMalo2which is ironic, given that Judge Holden in the book is….the devil. Like, not “a bad person” the devil, like almost literally a stand in for Satan.
I read The Road after it won the Pulitzer Prize You did. Yes. And. I loved it. Was it difficult to understand. Not at all. What about the lack of punctuation. You get used it. You do. Yes. And it makes the reading experience more visceral. Dad. Yes Tell me a story. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit ...
Yeah, the dude-bro category is bizarre and I think scares off a lot of would be readers. A great writer is a great writer. I’ve seen that category spread beyond the usual DFW or Hemingway to some really head-scratching authors like Ivan Turgenev. I don’t know if there’s a similar derogatory category used to denigrate what are often first rate writers. I get that some of their readers can be insufferable but I think one could say that about any highly regarded author. It’s not like Virginia Woolf readers(which I am) are strangers to pretension. Fun video
I think what happens is dudebros wanting to seem smart start reading highly acclaimed books and then they go and tell everyone how great the book is without understanding it, and those people just get the sense that the book must be a bunch of toxic masculinity and weird dudebro stuff. But the reason they got there in the first place was for being really good. Just with any media it's good to be able to sift out the good media and ignore the fans since bad fans can ruin a good piece of media all too often. Find people whose opinions you trust and make your own opinions!
It seems that if men are seen voicing enjoyment of something in any noticeable way - misandry rears its head and people diminish, insult, mischaracterize, and make fun of it and the people who like it.
I think I need to reread The Crossing, because after ATPH I found it meandering. But I've heard plenty of other people speak very highly of it, so it might (certainly) just be me.
I just got a copy of "Paradise Lost" to re-read because I feel like "Blood Meridian" is almost like an inversion of "Paradise Lost"/the book of Genesis.
The reason No Country For Old Men felt cinematic is because it was originally a screenplay. Cormac decided to turn it into a book, and the adaptation ended up being mostly faithful for that reason.
Glad you loved McCarthy. One note on your interpretation of Blood Meridian concerning apathy: I would even take this a step further and say we're not just apathetic to the violence, we're an accessory to it. As you correctly point out, "The Kid" is the reader's avatar in the Glanton Gang, and as the Kid willingly associates himself with said gang, we're willingly eating up all the delicious -- albeit violent -- prose. McCarthy paints such awe-inspiring imagery and we love every second of it; it's beautiful even when dark and sometimes the most beautiful at its darkest. I think this is outright shown with the ending of the book, which isn't nearly as hotly debated as I believe it should be. I've noticed a lot of readers' interpretation is that the Judge somehow assaults The Kid (now The Man) in the outhouse, but I think this is flawed, overly-literal, and exclusionary toward other details McCarthy provides. My reading is that -- by now, at least -- the Judge and the Man are one, and their debate at the bar was a battle in the Man's own soul. The Judge represents the perpetuation of violence now afire in the Man's heart, and in lieu of the expriest Tobin telling him to kill that influence, the Man is ultimately consumed by his own personification of evil. Some details that lend to this: throughout the book, children go missing and wind up dead; there's the implication of sexual violation and large hands having strangled them. The Kid is described as having large hands. At the end of the book, the Man is watching the little girl on stage with the bear. The Man tries to find his release with a dwarf prostitute but can't perform. Why a dwarf? I think the implication is clear. The bear is shot and the distraught girl goes missing. The Man argues with "the Judge" but does so looking at him through the mirror behind the bar. He's looking at himself. Finally, the Man goes to the jakes and finds "the Judge" there waiting for him, who embraces him. What did the Man truly find here, the crying girl? And what do the two subsequent men find when they open the door to the jakes? A lot of people seem to think it's the aftermath of the Man's demise. But there are a few things here that don't add up. Firstly, there is a third man mentioned "who was not the judge" standing outside pissing, warning the two men not to go in there. This is the Man himself, pissing outside the jakes, nonchalantly admitting he knows what these men are about to find. Secondly -- and back to my original point -- there is only one sort of violence by the end of this book that would still leave us in horror. We have seen all sorts of evil perpetrated throughout this story and have become desensitized to most of it. Not only that, but McCarthy has hardly shied away from painting a bloody picture until now. So why doesn't he show us? Because by leaving us yearning to witness the act in question, we are simultaneously imagining our own acts and therefore have become the perpetrators of them. We are the Man. We are the Judge. “Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.” And whatever exists in this vacuum McCarthy leaves us with, exists only by our creation and our consent.
I remember reading No Country when I was in my teens and really fell in love with his literature. It was such an impactful book. Many years later, one of my creative writing profs said some of my pieces reminded him of McCarthy. I can’t take any credit - his writing left echoes on my subconscious long after I closed the covers of his works. To me, that’s what marks a truly great author.
I knew within the second page of The Road, that I was in for the greatest gut punch of my life. As a father it speaks to my soul in a profound manner. Blood Meridian is the greatest novel I have ever read . My autistic traits could lead me down a very deep rabbit hole. Like all the references to eggs, bears, wolves, pilgrims, acolytes. Eggs I think have the most references. What is the connection between eggs and The Judge? And the meteor shower at the beginning and end. And. And. And! Every word is perfect. The Judge leaned across the bar and seized a bottle and snapped the cork off with his thumb. The cork whined off into the blackness above the lights like a bullet. He rifled a great drink down his throat and leaned back against the bar.
It's funny because "Blood Meridian" was my intro to McCarthy's work and it made me a fan. It had a great meteoric impact on my readership and what I knew I could read.
All the Pretty Horses is a great way to start McCarthy and it's a masterpiece in its own right. Some westerns I've been wanting to try: The Son - Philipp Meyer Warlock - Oakley Hall Little Big Man - Thomas Berger News of the World - Paulette Jiles True Grit - Charles Portis The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt In the Distance - Hernan Diaz Days Without End - Sebastian Barry
So much fun to hear someone who is able to vocalize ideas, thought and purpose from books. I felt like “wow” I would love to have a an actual face to face round table conversation on subjects like this. So much more enjoyable. I didn’t realize how clueless I am about what is happening in a story…the why of it all. Thank you.
Watching this video just made me purchase all four of these books to read. I've been meaning to read McCarthy for the longest time and watching this video made me want to pull the trigger on that. So thank you! This was a fun watch❤
Hell yeah brother welcome to the cowboy club 🤠👉🎉 Blood Meridian was the first McCarthy i read voluntarily out of school, it was definitely a wild ride and a joy, have read it a bunch of times since then. It's a real treat.
Okay so idk if I am ready for another identity crisis but I think you just talked me into trying McCarthy as well and I am here for it. Will probably start with The Road, that seems the most approachable for me right now. Loved this passionate gush, nothing feels better than finding a new fave author!! 🤩
17:33 Blood Meridian, by its end, left me aggrieved and weary and horrified. Judge Holden is so wicked that even the butchers in the Gang are disgusted by him. There is no romanticized nostalgia for the West, for its nominal chivalry and heroism. The West was shaped by brutality upon brutality; and the brutality has been present in the human heart since our earliest days, before the first sounds were given image and form in primitive glyphs.
Don't miss out on reading his screenplays for The Stonemason and the Sunset Limited. Also The Gardener's Son. I've read all of McCarthy minus Child of God (content too much for me) and Blood Meridian (will be reading soon. Love love love him. One of my fav authors.
Now you need to finish the Border Trilogy. The Crossing might be his most important novel next to Blood Meridian. And the philosophical and religious implications in The Crossing are so paramount and devastating that it would require an entire series to explain! Great video!
I had McCarthy recommended to me for the longest time by people who knew what I liked and I kept avoiding him because I thought I'd be let down. I sure was wrong, he's spectacular. And The Road truly does exemplify fatherhood, the sacrifice and devotion even in small things, incredibly valuable
I love your videos, and as a mexican, I would love to see you reviewing latin american literature, especially Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo. It's weird and a short book, but I think it's totally worth your time
Great review Wera! I just now discovered your channel. You sound a lot like me when I first read these books. McCarthy's books usually traumatize me, and I wouldn't trade that trauma for anything. Years after reading, I still get images in my head from them that just floor me.
Blood Meridian and Moby Dick are brother novels. Ahab is an antagonist on the level of Judge Holden, but Ishmael is, hands down, the most magical, humorous, and omniscient narrator of all time imo. I read whenever I feel like spending some time with my boy and Queequeg
Welcome to the Cormac McCarthy Club. Brilliant Cormac, one of the greatest writers over the last 100 years. Stellar analysis, and that Stetson hat with the ribbon accentuates your creative and adventurous nature. And I concur every new dad should be given a copy of "The Road" before accompanying his wife and newborn from the hospital to the casa. Especially now, with wars, extreme climate events, lethal maladies, and bad characters conjuring horrific possibilities with AI --- dads need to become guides, guardians and shepherds to their children with our world on the brink of crises, disasters and chaos. Blood Meridian is his most brutal book, and it evokes the darkest depths of human nature, with Old Testament prose and malevolent characters who embody villainy and cruelty. Cormac also did research at the Sante Fe Research and helped edit the work of world class theoretical physicists like Lisa Randle and Lawrence Krauss. I won one of Cormac's typewriters in an auction some years ago, and it still works and types well. But I'd never attempt to write a book or play or any artistic work by tapping the late maestro's keys --- this would be blasphemous :) Thank you, ma'am, and keep forging on ...
That was a pretty inspiring and thoughtful treatment of some serious prose . Clearly some hard work put in and it really shows. I'm eagerly waiting your Mason and Dixon review! Keep it up.
That's funny what you said about how "The Road" should be mandatory reading for fathers to be. I bought a copy for my friend a few weeks ago, who's wife is pregnant with twins.
@@valliyarnl If I remember correctly, in his Oprah interview, McCarthy talks about the book being about his fears of growing older and having a son later in life
I shared your same enthusiasm after reading Cormac McCarthy. Every time you finish one of his books, you’re left feeling some type of way and you wonder why and how it happened to you. He is my favorite author.
this is awesome! now i recommend digging deeper than his "greatest hits" like these, even just starting with the rest of the border trilogy. all the pretty horses changed my life when i read it too, but having finished the crossing this year it's perhaps my favorite book and i think his best writing.
Love it. He is my very favorite author. I would read Outer Dark and Suttree next. Both are absolutely redonkulous. Suttree is hands down my all time favorite novel.
I definitely recommend finishing the Border trilogy that starts with All the Pretty Horses. The Crossing is such a deeply moving, slow-burn tragedy, and Cities of the Plain ties it all together so well.
I love how much you've loved your first reads of McCarthy and how much it's been a big surprise for you. Your own initial worries got completely flipped. And now you're doing the defending of his styles. Your discussion of The Road encompassed the essence of what I meant before how I think people criticise it wrongfully as being simply bleak, where I see a beautiful hope that is defended and passed from father to son, the flame. Everything you said, you got it. Hey hey if you haven't watched it, there is an incredible film called Children of Men that was inspired by The Road. It twists a bit to highlight motherhood. Love the video! You can "ramble" all you like, release the Wera Cut I say!
thank you for the recommendation and yes! i am now DEFENDING his writing style!!!! who saw this coming!? I'll add Children of Men to my to-watch list. so glad you liked the video!
Great reviews and so happy to hear your love for McCarthy, one of my favorite authors. I finally broke down and read Blood Meridian this year and was just totally blown away.
You gotta watch No Country For Old Men. I think you’ll appreciate it more than the book because it truly brings to life that cinematic aspect you talked about. It’s my favorite western movie of all time.
I rarely leave a comment (maybe 5 times or less a year), but I enjoyed this video so much, I had to write a token of my appreciation. I have seen many entertaining and useful videos on TH-cam, but haven't seen something so "valuable" to my personal interest in a long time. As someone who's been wanting to get into Cormac McCarthy's works but is also overwhelmed, this was a helpful video. Thank you.
The Comanche ambush in Blood Meridian is some of the best writing I've ever read. It is crazy how amazing McCarthy's writing is even when writing utterly horrific material.
Yeah Suttree is super underrated. Great recommendation. Also the rest of the Border Trilogy after all the pretty horses is amazing for anyone who hasn’t read them. The Crossing is one of my favorites of his.
Loved this video! You will absolutely love finishing the Border Trilogy. The Crossing and Cities of the Plain are both incredible and powerful, and you’ll get to find out what becomes of John Grady Cole!
Blood Meridian actually was my first Cormac McCarthy book and it made me want to read everything he's ever written. It was nice that everything past that wasn't quite so dark and brutal, but I would have read it even if it was. He's just so damn good.
Blood Meridian was the first McCarthy I read, and really the first non-picture book for me in years. I absolutely loved it. His long metaphorical diatribes about how the low sunlight hits the desert are so compelling. It's almost psychadelic. The Judge has been living rent-free in my head since I read it.
I've read The Road and just ordered 5 more McCarthy books because of this review, thank you so much! Your points were eloquently made as well which I very much appreciated. If you haven't read it yet (new here so I have catching up to do) I highly recommend Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry. One of my favorites and an interesting example of self reflection from an author I think.
Great video! The descriptions of love in All the Pretty Horses reminded me of Frederik Backman and he is the person who I think writes love in all forms best, no matter what he makes me cry in every book
the passenger and stella maris are pressed to be new favorites based on your taste. don't let anyone tell you theyre not fucking perfect books until you read them yourself
They are my personal favorites of McCarthy. There's nothing like them, and I immediately reread them after finishing Stella Maris the first time. They are on my shortlist of favorite books that I reread. I think in time, as they are understood and discussed more, they will get the recognition they deserve. Oppenheimer came out some months after my first read, and it's a chilling pairing (pssst, @valliyarnl if you haven't seen Oppenheimer, I recommend it. Would make a good primer for the era and some of the themes). Good to meet ya, Josh. Happy to know another who knows these books' beauty.
First I want to thank you for the video and how you approach the subject of the books you discuss. You're thorough in your analysis, you help us understand how you arrived at more personal feelings and positions on the books you read and even if I don't agree I can trace the path you took to get there... One thing about the point you made near the 20:11 mark in the video was the effect of blood meridian on your sensitivity to violence. To speak well of that feature of our (human) nature, those of us who are called to use violence (hopefully for good ends like defending one's nation in war, or stopping evil as a police officer) can't be continuously sensitive to the point of horror and breakdown because some roles and some seasons of us (humans) require close quarters with it. Now the ethical dilemma of dealing with it continuously in our culture and pop culture is may be a different thing entirely, but I think the mechanism of desensitization to violence is there for a reason - to protect those who can't help but see it.
If you're interested in western books... I'm telling you that you HAVE to read Lonesome Dove (unless you have already, this us the first of yours videos I've seen). And you are very pretty!
@@themangaculture Oops! My bad, should have clarified. I meant the tv series from 1989. I haven’t read any of the other books, but I have watched the tv series adaptations. They’re mostly fine, but the original (book and tv series) is just so damn good.
Congrats on this video Wera! Great analysis. 🙌 McCarthy is a giant of literature. I fell in love with his work after reading The Road. I followed that up with the brilliantly melancholic All the Pretty Horses and nihilistic Sunset Unlimited. I’m looking forward to continuing my journey by reading Blood Meridian or No Country next.
Thanks for watching!! Sunset Limited is definitely on the TBR but for now I’m focused on getting through all his novels :) have you watched the tv adaptation? I think I might do it first and then go back the source material
I had no idea No Country for Old Men was a McCarthy book. So I've seen two movies based on his work, and I loved both. He's already on my TBR, so it's great to hear this perspective and I can't wait to get to him.
McCarthy’s got that Dawg in him… and it takes over your soul when you read his works. All of a sudden you’re a straight talking philosophical lone ranger gazing up at the stars and reflecting on the meaning of the universe, trying to find the light in a sea of crippling darkness. But seriously though they’re great
For anyone who isn't sure if they'd like westerns, I recommend some Weird West like "Wake of Vultures" by Lila Bowen, or "Make Me No Grave" by Hayley Stone.
I don’t know of any dude-bros that read McCarthy, and if they did, they’d probably totally misunderstand it and think the Road is really all about how all-protein diets are great for you and how the Judge is like, a stoic, bro. 🤔
@carlito: Nice one brah😅. You get to be a tiny minded little bigot hoping your ' pick me' credentials makes you more appealing to an attractive woman and ignoring your own conceit. " Pick me. Pick me. I'm not like those guys" 🤣. You don't have enough experience to stand by your assumptions of what a variety of men will read or be into.
This trend of essentially shadow boxing with vague ass demographics that only exist in people's heads or on dark corners of the internet needs to die off
McCarthy was a master before he moved West, with a career stretching back to the 1960s. He was considered the new Faulkner with his Southern novels. "Suttree" and "Child of God" are representative of that time, and brilliant. He was probably America's greatest writer. I put him over all the others, including the Holy Trinity (Hem, Faulk, Fitz). It's weird hearing that he is considered "dude-bro lit" - that's like calling Toni Morrison "chick lit". Anyway, glad you enjoyed them!
The final two books he published shortly before he died in June 2023, The Passenger and Stella Maris, are a duology and the prose is a bit different from his other works, but they really felt like a goodbye when I read them and they are definitely worth reading. Outer Dark and Child of God are two somewhat shorter earlier works of his that are really good. The last line of Outer Dark is fantastic.
Hey, great video! I am really looking forward to your second video. The Passenger is currently my third favorite book that I have ever read (however, I think Blood Meridian and Suttree are McCarthy’s best works, I just resonated the most with The Passenger). I highly recommend McCarthy’s southern Gothic works: Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, Child of God, and Suttree (read Suttree last). The prose in these works are absolutely gorgeous even though thematically McCarthy is at his most pessimistic…
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“No Country For Old Men” sounds like an amazing book. They should make a movie out of it!
Word.
Boy do I have some exciting news for you
McCarthy was a whole other level, i love all his books, but blood meridian is in my honest opinion one of the greatest novels of all time, "War was always here.
Before man was, war waited for him.
The ultimate trade awaiting it's ultimate practitioner."
I mean how do you even think of something that good
!!!!!!
This is one of those lines you read that just make you jealous that someone could even come up with it.
@@yttrxstein4192 I'm so relieved. I thought no one was keeping the gate.
@@yttrxstein4192 I did not read this. Unlike Hemingway it was a little long.
@@yttrxstein4192 That was better.
As a professional McCarthy scholar, please allow me to say that I thought this video was terrific. You understand McCarthy better than most academics I’ve known.
Wow that’s very high praise! Thank you 😊 I was just so moved by him, you know? I can’t wait to get to more. Question: I want to be more ready for when I reread Blood Meridian. Commenters have suggested that I read Moby Dick and Paradise Lost. Do you think there’s another book I should read to enhance my reread?
Also also a subscriber of mine that follows you on Twitter/X says you Tweeted out my video (I don’t have an account there) so I wanted to say thank you it means a lot 🤍
@@valliyarnl that tweet has over 100 likes and many of my followers are very impressed with you! Moby-Dick is a huge influence on Blood Meridian-no other book comes close.
i just have to echo this sentiment with more than a thumbs up. absolutely this.
Way to get more followers bro!!!
I thought this was satire. Are these books considered westerns? That said this is a beautiful review/commentary.
There should legit be a support group for ppl who have been completely devastated by McCarthy. Welcome to the club.
i agree about the support group. would love to join :)
he legit broke my brain for a while. ive wavered between agnostic and atheist for as long as I can remember, but after reading mccarthy i felt like i had a spiritual awakening. not like born again christian, just more like something...undefinable. it was seriously comparable in its effect on me to the first time i ever did acid. like after the trip is over and you look at life in a whole new way that you couldn't even conceptualize before
@@jays2551 tiny brain spotted
Including the kids
This is the best comment I’ve read in an age. Blood Meridian is the only novel I’ve ever read that, as soon as I finished, immediately started again.
The Road ruined my life. Amazing book
Same
High praise, indeed.
read it twice, ruined my life too lol.
She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift.
that was one of the most visceral beautiful passages I've ever read.
There are times where I’ll absorb a sentence he wrote & I just sit there, mixed between despondent-that someone can write like that & furious-that someone can write like that. But, above all that is the feeling of awe & thanks- that someone can write like that..
Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is regarded by many a literature professor as the single greatest novel of the latter half of the 20th century.
It's prose alone is staggering, biblical in weight, wondrous, bleak and poetic. The ending is absolutely dazzling.
Melville, Dante & Milton are all primers.
Concur with your assessment.
Gravity's Rainbow has entered the chat
If you mean it took decades for Blood Meridian to not get shit on by critics and get noticed by academia then I agree
“It makes no difference what men think of war. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him… that is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way”.
Profound and beautiful book
It's kinda gay
No Country for Old Men is one of those books where even the movie adaptation is just as good, if not better. The movie is a true work of art.
I'm halfway thru the movie and loving it so far
NCFOM had perhaps the perfect set up for adaptation to the big screen: McCarthy originally wrote it as a screenplay.
The movie is definitely better.
Makes me sad cause I know we'll never get a Blood Meridian movie no matter how hard we hope.
Regardless of your political affiliations... We can all agree that movies (specifically book adaptations) have lost a lot of the grittiness and grime we would have seen in the 70s to 90s... While I still pray to see a Blood Meridian movie, I feel it wouldn't hold up to any of our expectations. Today's movie direction just wouldn't allow for a "proper" retelling of that barbaric story.
In a strange way, I can't really think of many stand out characters from TV and movies in the past 20 or so years that were both shockingly offensive and relatable sans the cast of The Sopranos TV show (and arthouse/international pieces)
Anyone else here tried to watch No Country for Old Men with a girlfriend, wife etc?
It's one of the hardest movies for a gf to sit through and watch in one go, fully paying attention to the movie 😂
Same with There Will Be Blood
I like to hear a female perspective on McCarthy. Normally you hear men talk about his writing.
I first read the Road as a young man, I swallowed it whole in one afternoon after bringing it home from the book store. I have since reread it after becoming a father and the dialogue has intense verisimilitude. When I have serious conversations with my daughter, they are very like that. Children cannot express things with uncertainty or nuance at that age, though they are every bit as capable of grasping difficult concepts, they don't have the vocabulary or experience to express it. So they seek reassurance and guidance in straight forward ways and you have to phrase things in simple terms for them. Ultimately, they are looking for a moral center, a guidance and a path forward that they can tread on their own using your guidance. The conversation you talked about here is very apropos. not only is it that childlike seeking for meaning and definition but it's about doing the very same for others "carrying the fire".
yeah you sound like a pus dude
There’s a good Yale lecture on Blood Meridian by a woman. She links McCarthy to Melville, and the Judge to McCarthy.
@@MarcosElMalo2which is ironic, given that Judge Holden in the book is….the devil. Like, not “a bad person” the devil, like almost literally a stand in for Satan.
@@MarcosElMalo2 I'll check it out! Thanks! I assume it's one they offer for free?
I read The Road after it won the Pulitzer Prize
You did.
Yes.
And.
I loved it.
Was it difficult to understand.
Not at all.
What about the lack of punctuation.
You get used it.
You do.
Yes. And it makes the reading experience more visceral.
Dad.
Yes
Tell me a story.
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit ...
im gonna cry
this is beautiful
Underrated comment. Great imitation of McCarthy’s style.
Your enthusiasm for these books is so contagious. Blood Meridian is a gnarly book, yet feels cinematic on the page.
Cinematic, yet possibly unfilmable at the same time. I feel for the director who undertakes that task🤣
One thing I love about McCarthy's writing, especially in The Road, is that there is rhythm to it. I love to read parts of it out loud.
"Now come days of begging, days of theft. Days of riding where there rode no soul save he."
When I finished the last page of The Road, I immediately turned back to the first page and read the book again.
Yeah, the dude-bro category is bizarre and I think scares off a lot of would be readers. A great writer is a great writer. I’ve seen that category spread beyond the usual DFW or Hemingway to some really head-scratching authors like Ivan Turgenev. I don’t know if there’s a similar derogatory category used to denigrate what are often first rate writers. I get that some of their readers can be insufferable but I think one could say that about any highly regarded author. It’s not like Virginia Woolf readers(which I am) are strangers to pretension. Fun video
thank you! and i agree :)
For years i thought so as well, because i‘ve heard and read it several times. Boy was i wrong 😀
I think what happens is dudebros wanting to seem smart start reading highly acclaimed books and then they go and tell everyone how great the book is without understanding it, and those people just get the sense that the book must be a bunch of toxic masculinity and weird dudebro stuff. But the reason they got there in the first place was for being really good.
Just with any media it's good to be able to sift out the good media and ignore the fans since bad fans can ruin a good piece of media all too often. Find people whose opinions you trust and make your own opinions!
It seems that if men are seen voicing enjoyment of something in any noticeable way - misandry rears its head and people diminish, insult, mischaracterize, and make fun of it and the people who like it.
@@concerninghobbits5536 Why is this assumption its only men?
You should read the rest of the Border Trilogy, especially the Crossing. It's far more emotional and devastating than All the Pretty Horses
I think I need to reread The Crossing, because after ATPH I found it meandering. But I've heard plenty of other people speak very highly of it, so it might (certainly) just be me.
Milton's "Paradise Lost" is also a big influence on Blood Meridian.
It’s on the TBR
I just got a copy of "Paradise Lost" to re-read because I feel like "Blood Meridian" is almost like an inversion of "Paradise Lost"/the book of Genesis.
The reason No Country For Old Men felt cinematic is because it was originally a screenplay. Cormac decided to turn it into a book, and the adaptation ended up being mostly faithful for that reason.
Wait you said that, nvm, just wanted to clarify, did it too early 😅
The mark of a truly great writer is expressing everything needed in very few words.
THIS
Oi..: Wera... you starting to get into Westerns? Can I interest you in Lonesome Dove? 🤠
Seconded.
perhaps 👀
Lonesome Dove might be the greatest American epic.
If you love epic fantasy, you WILL love Lonesome Dove
Yes! Jon Steinbeck’s westerns are amazing too like Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden.
Glad you loved McCarthy. One note on your interpretation of Blood Meridian concerning apathy: I would even take this a step further and say we're not just apathetic to the violence, we're an accessory to it. As you correctly point out, "The Kid" is the reader's avatar in the Glanton Gang, and as the Kid willingly associates himself with said gang, we're willingly eating up all the delicious -- albeit violent -- prose. McCarthy paints such awe-inspiring imagery and we love every second of it; it's beautiful even when dark and sometimes the most beautiful at its darkest.
I think this is outright shown with the ending of the book, which isn't nearly as hotly debated as I believe it should be. I've noticed a lot of readers' interpretation is that the Judge somehow assaults The Kid (now The Man) in the outhouse, but I think this is flawed, overly-literal, and exclusionary toward other details McCarthy provides. My reading is that -- by now, at least -- the Judge and the Man are one, and their debate at the bar was a battle in the Man's own soul. The Judge represents the perpetuation of violence now afire in the Man's heart, and in lieu of the expriest Tobin telling him to kill that influence, the Man is ultimately consumed by his own personification of evil.
Some details that lend to this: throughout the book, children go missing and wind up dead; there's the implication of sexual violation and large hands having strangled them. The Kid is described as having large hands. At the end of the book, the Man is watching the little girl on stage with the bear. The Man tries to find his release with a dwarf prostitute but can't perform. Why a dwarf? I think the implication is clear. The bear is shot and the distraught girl goes missing. The Man argues with "the Judge" but does so looking at him through the mirror behind the bar. He's looking at himself. Finally, the Man goes to the jakes and finds "the Judge" there waiting for him, who embraces him. What did the Man truly find here, the crying girl? And what do the two subsequent men find when they open the door to the jakes? A lot of people seem to think it's the aftermath of the Man's demise. But there are a few things here that don't add up. Firstly, there is a third man mentioned "who was not the judge" standing outside pissing, warning the two men not to go in there. This is the Man himself, pissing outside the jakes, nonchalantly admitting he knows what these men are about to find.
Secondly -- and back to my original point -- there is only one sort of violence by the end of this book that would still leave us in horror. We have seen all sorts of evil perpetrated throughout this story and have become desensitized to most of it. Not only that, but McCarthy has hardly shied away from painting a bloody picture until now. So why doesn't he show us? Because by leaving us yearning to witness the act in question, we are simultaneously imagining our own acts and therefore have become the perpetrators of them. We are the Man. We are the Judge. “Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.” And whatever exists in this vacuum McCarthy leaves us with, exists only by our creation and our consent.
That's a hell of an interpretation and I absolutely love it
I wish I could post gifs on TH-cam so I could post the Orson Welles applauding one because goddamn this is an incredible take
@@TitoSilvey Thanks for reading it!
I remember reading No Country when I was in my teens and really fell in love with his literature. It was such an impactful book. Many years later, one of my creative writing profs said some of my pieces reminded him of McCarthy. I can’t take any credit - his writing left echoes on my subconscious long after I closed the covers of his works. To me, that’s what marks a truly great author.
I knew within the second page of The Road, that I was in for the greatest gut punch of my life. As a father it speaks to my soul in a profound manner. Blood Meridian is the greatest novel I have ever read . My autistic traits could lead me down a very deep rabbit hole. Like all the references to eggs, bears, wolves, pilgrims, acolytes. Eggs I think have the most references. What is the connection between eggs and The Judge? And the meteor shower at the beginning and end. And. And. And! Every word is perfect. The Judge leaned across the bar and seized a bottle and snapped the cork off with his thumb. The cork whined off into the blackness above the lights like a bullet. He rifled a great drink down his throat and leaned back against the bar.
It's funny because "Blood Meridian" was my intro to McCarthy's work and it made me a fan. It had a great meteoric impact on my readership and what I knew I could read.
Same, the format is wild and it forces you to focus.
Yesss Cormac McCarthy. Booktok could NEVER. I think you’ll love The Passenger and Stella Maris too ❤
Wind's howling
Hi Jerald :) pam paraaam pam pam paramm
@@valliyarnl funny
🐺
Looks like rain
Place of power... gotta be.
I love watching videos of people discovering authors that I’ve admired for years. Seeing your enthusiasm for his books made me giddy.
All the Pretty Horses is a great way to start McCarthy and it's a masterpiece in its own right.
Some westerns I've been wanting to try:
The Son - Philipp Meyer
Warlock - Oakley Hall
Little Big Man - Thomas Berger
News of the World - Paulette Jiles
True Grit - Charles Portis
The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt
In the Distance - Hernan Diaz
Days Without End - Sebastian Barry
great list. might take some inspiration :)
The Son, spectacular. Those Comanche were brutal. I’ve been trying to find Warlock in every used book store I go to.
True Grit is solid! Simply perfect escalation all the way through
So much fun to hear someone who is able to vocalize ideas, thought and purpose from books. I felt like “wow” I would love to have a an actual face to face round table conversation on subjects like this. So much more enjoyable. I didn’t realize how clueless I am about what is happening in a story…the why of it all. Thank you.
Watching this video just made me purchase all four of these books to read. I've been meaning to read McCarthy for the longest time and watching this video made me want to pull the trigger on that. So thank you! This was a fun watch❤
Hell yeah brother welcome to the cowboy club 🤠👉🎉
Blood Meridian was the first McCarthy i read voluntarily out of school, it was definitely a wild ride and a joy, have read it a bunch of times since then. It's a real treat.
Okay so idk if I am ready for another identity crisis but I think you just talked me into trying McCarthy as well and I am here for it. Will probably start with The Road, that seems the most approachable for me right now. Loved this passionate gush, nothing feels better than finding a new fave author!! 🤩
Yes!
17:33 Blood Meridian, by its end, left me aggrieved and weary and horrified. Judge Holden is so wicked that even the butchers in the Gang are disgusted by him. There is no romanticized nostalgia for the West, for its nominal chivalry and heroism. The West was shaped by brutality upon brutality; and the brutality has been present in the human heart since our earliest days, before the first sounds were given image and form in primitive glyphs.
Don't miss out on reading his screenplays for The Stonemason and the Sunset Limited. Also The Gardener's Son. I've read all of McCarthy minus Child of God (content too much for me) and Blood Meridian (will be reading soon. Love love love him. One of my fav authors.
Child of God is the only book I've read of his and wondered why anyone would write such a thing.
Blood Meridian's Judge...Oh. My. God.
Most horrific villain in literature.
I never wanna go in bathrooms again
Now you need to finish the Border Trilogy. The Crossing might be his most important novel next to Blood Meridian. And the philosophical and religious implications in The Crossing are so paramount and devastating that it would require an entire series to explain!
Great video!
will be finishing it in my next McCarthy video!
@valliyarnl The Crossing is heavy. Take your time.
God damn is The Crossing depressing.
been a cormac mccarthy fan for a little while now and its always great to see people become fans. very glad u enjoy his work. great video, keep it up
I definitely recommend that you read the rest of The Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses; The Crossing; Cities of the Plain)
I bought them last week! cannot wait
The Crossing was my favorite!
@@scox0005 will get to it December hopefully
Oooooohh I’ve got the trilogy as a single bound volume and gotdayum is it incredible to read as a single piece
I had McCarthy recommended to me for the longest time by people who knew what I liked and I kept avoiding him because I thought I'd be let down. I sure was wrong, he's spectacular.
And The Road truly does exemplify fatherhood, the sacrifice and devotion even in small things, incredibly valuable
"the sacrifice and devotion even in the small things" ... i like how you put that.
I love your videos, and as a mexican, I would love to see you reviewing latin american literature, especially Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo. It's weird and a short book, but I think it's totally worth your time
Yes! Pedro Paramo and the Burning Plain collection are both outstanding. Great to see Juan Rulfo mentioned.
Great review Wera! I just now discovered your channel. You sound a lot like me when I first read these books. McCarthy's books usually traumatize me, and I wouldn't trade that trauma for anything. Years after reading, I still get images in my head from them that just floor me.
Glad you're a western/McCarthy fan now
Me too 🥰
Cormac McCarthy is one of my favourite writers ! No one does western like him and blood meridian is a hellish masterpiece!!!
The Crossing is part of s Trilogy along with All the Pretty Horses.
It's worth reading for the first part alone.
When he holds the wolfs head in his hands--trying to "hold that which cannot be held" again... Fuck me it devastated me.
Blood Meridian and Moby Dick are brother novels. Ahab is an antagonist on the level of Judge Holden, but Ishmael is, hands down, the most magical, humorous, and omniscient narrator of all time imo. I read whenever I feel like spending some time with my boy and Queequeg
My goodness! I've read The Road and Blood Meridian and really liked them, but your enthusiasm and passion makes me want to read them again!
Welcome to the Cormac McCarthy Club.
Brilliant Cormac, one of the greatest writers over the last 100 years.
Stellar analysis, and that Stetson hat with the ribbon accentuates your creative and adventurous nature.
And I concur every new dad should be given a copy of "The Road" before accompanying his wife and newborn from the hospital to the casa. Especially now, with wars, extreme climate events, lethal maladies, and bad characters conjuring horrific possibilities with AI --- dads need to become guides, guardians and shepherds to their children with our world on the brink of crises, disasters and chaos.
Blood Meridian is his most brutal book, and it evokes the darkest depths of human nature, with Old Testament prose and malevolent characters who embody villainy and cruelty.
Cormac also did research at the Sante Fe Research and helped edit the work of world class theoretical physicists like Lisa Randle and Lawrence Krauss.
I won one of Cormac's typewriters in an auction some years ago, and it still works and types well. But I'd never attempt to write a book or play or any artistic work by tapping the late maestro's keys --- this would be blasphemous :)
Thank you, ma'am, and keep forging on ...
That was a pretty inspiring and thoughtful treatment of some serious prose . Clearly some hard work put in and it really shows. I'm eagerly waiting your Mason and Dixon review! Keep it up.
The Passenger and Stella Maris are also very good. His last works before he passed.
I’ve never read Cormac McCarthy but honestly just hearing you gush about these books was a fun watch in itself!!!
That's funny what you said about how "The Road" should be mandatory reading for fathers to be. I bought a copy for my friend a few weeks ago, who's wife is pregnant with twins.
I salute u 🫡
@@valliyarnl If I remember correctly, in his Oprah interview, McCarthy talks about the book being about his fears of growing older and having a son later in life
I shared your same enthusiasm after reading Cormac McCarthy. Every time you finish one of his books, you’re left feeling some type of way and you wonder why and how it happened to you. He is my favorite author.
Suttree might be his underrated masterpiece
this is awesome! now i recommend digging deeper than his "greatest hits" like these, even just starting with the rest of the border trilogy. all the pretty horses changed my life when i read it too, but having finished the crossing this year it's perhaps my favorite book and i think his best writing.
Love it. He is my very favorite author. I would read Outer Dark and Suttree next. Both are absolutely redonkulous. Suttree is hands down my all time favorite novel.
The movie adaptation of No Country is phenomenal. It's one of the best and most authentic movie adaptations of a book ever.
I definitely recommend finishing the Border trilogy that starts with All the Pretty Horses. The Crossing is such a deeply moving, slow-burn tragedy, and Cities of the Plain ties it all together so well.
I haven't read anything from McCarthy, but im definitely intrigued now. Your enthusiasm over them has increased that for sure!
I love how much you've loved your first reads of McCarthy and how much it's been a big surprise for you. Your own initial worries got completely flipped. And now you're doing the defending of his styles.
Your discussion of The Road encompassed the essence of what I meant before how I think people criticise it wrongfully as being simply bleak, where I see a beautiful hope that is defended and passed from father to son, the flame. Everything you said, you got it. Hey hey if you haven't watched it, there is an incredible film called Children of Men that was inspired by The Road. It twists a bit to highlight motherhood.
Love the video! You can "ramble" all you like, release the Wera Cut I say!
thank you for the recommendation and yes! i am now DEFENDING his writing style!!!! who saw this coming!? I'll add Children of Men to my to-watch list.
so glad you liked the video!
Great reviews and so happy to hear your love for McCarthy, one of my favorite authors. I finally broke down and read Blood Meridian this year and was just totally blown away.
The Road is so good, read recommended by my father - it made me so sad! Loved it.
You gotta watch No Country For Old Men. I think you’ll appreciate it more than the book because it truly brings to life that cinematic aspect you talked about. It’s my favorite western movie of all time.
Praised four McCarthy books, the marriage proposals are going to be streaming in.
Haha there’s a line alright lol
I rarely leave a comment (maybe 5 times or less a year), but I enjoyed this video so much, I had to write a token of my appreciation.
I have seen many entertaining and useful videos on TH-cam, but haven't seen something so "valuable" to my personal interest in a long time. As someone who's been wanting to get into Cormac McCarthy's works but is also overwhelmed, this was a helpful video. Thank you.
🩷
I can't agree more. Life changing author.
The Comanche ambush in Blood Meridian is some of the best writing I've ever read. It is crazy how amazing McCarthy's writing is even when writing utterly horrific material.
You should read Suttree. It’s also really good.
His best work in my opinion
I bought it & am planning to read it. I just finished the Border Trilogy & I think I need a break from McCarthy for a book or two before I get to it.
Yeah Suttree is super underrated. Great recommendation. Also the rest of the Border Trilogy after all the pretty horses is amazing for anyone who hasn’t read them. The Crossing is one of my favorites of his.
Loved this video! You will absolutely love finishing the Border Trilogy. The Crossing and Cities of the Plain are both incredible and powerful, and you’ll get to find out what becomes of John Grady Cole!
I saw the bookshelf. We walked through many bookstores to find the ideal copy. This is going be a looooong ride 🤠🐎
hehehe
Blood Meridian actually was my first Cormac McCarthy book and it made me want to read everything he's ever written. It was nice that everything past that wasn't quite so dark and brutal, but I would have read it even if it was. He's just so damn good.
For whatever reason the TH-cam algorithm fed me this video. You now have a new subscriber!
I just found you on here - the enthusiasm you have is awesome, and I really enjoyed your analysis/description of these texts too. Excellent work!
Apathy. Bears who dance, and bears who don't.
Butcher's Crossing by John Edward Williams is also worth a read.
Not me watching this the day all the fucked up shit about him come out… really good video nonetheless
Blood Meridian was the first McCarthy I read, and really the first non-picture book for me in years. I absolutely loved it. His long metaphorical diatribes about how the low sunlight hits the desert are so compelling. It's almost psychadelic. The Judge has been living rent-free in my head since I read it.
I read "Blood Meridian" when I was 13 and it broke me.
It would have broken any of us at 13. Whatever age someone reads it at, if it didn't hurt you're already broken.
I've read The Road and just ordered 5 more McCarthy books because of this review, thank you so much! Your points were eloquently made as well which I very much appreciated. If you haven't read it yet (new here so I have catching up to do) I highly recommend Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry. One of my favorites and an interesting example of self reflection from an author I think.
Suttree is comac McCarthy’s real masterpiece!!!
The opening couple paragraphs are some of my favorite of everything I’ve ever read. Transcendent.
Literally just commented the same thing
Some of those paragraphs are dense as tropic thickets but if you persevere you will be rewarded.
@@careyatchison1348 I agree it’s dense, but not as dense as “The orchard keeper”, that is hands-down, his hardest work to grapple with.
This brought back fond memories of my first time reading McCarthy. The man was a treasure. ❤
0:23 lol, great reference.
😉
Great video! The descriptions of love in All the Pretty Horses reminded me of Frederik Backman and he is the person who I think writes love in all forms best, no matter what he makes me cry in every book
Anxious People made me reevaluate my relationship with my parents
the passenger and stella maris are pressed to be new favorites based on your taste. don't let anyone tell you theyre not fucking perfect books until you read them yourself
i can't wait!!!
They are my personal favorites of McCarthy. There's nothing like them, and I immediately reread them after finishing Stella Maris the first time. They are on my shortlist of favorite books that I reread. I think in time, as they are understood and discussed more, they will get the recognition they deserve. Oppenheimer came out some months after my first read, and it's a chilling pairing (pssst, @valliyarnl if you haven't seen Oppenheimer, I recommend it. Would make a good primer for the era and some of the themes).
Good to meet ya, Josh. Happy to know another who knows these books' beauty.
First I want to thank you for the video and how you approach the subject of the books you discuss. You're thorough in your analysis, you help us understand how you arrived at more personal feelings and positions on the books you read and even if I don't agree I can trace the path you took to get there...
One thing about the point you made near the 20:11 mark in the video was the effect of blood meridian on your sensitivity to violence. To speak well of that feature of our (human) nature, those of us who are called to use violence (hopefully for good ends like defending one's nation in war, or stopping evil as a police officer) can't be continuously sensitive to the point of horror and breakdown because some roles and some seasons of us (humans) require close quarters with it. Now the ethical dilemma of dealing with it continuously in our culture and pop culture is may be a different thing entirely, but I think the mechanism of desensitization to violence is there for a reason - to protect those who can't help but see it.
If you're interested in western books... I'm telling you that you HAVE to read Lonesome Dove (unless you have already, this us the first of yours videos I've seen). And you are very pretty!
100% agree. It’s a masterpiece. And the series is incredible as well.
@@jeffkenamon1806 that's interesting, I haven't continued with the series. But this is my sign to
@@themangaculture Oops! My bad, should have clarified. I meant the tv series from 1989. I haven’t read any of the other books, but I have watched the tv series adaptations. They’re mostly fine, but the original (book and tv series) is just so damn good.
@@jeffkenamon1806Streets of Laredo is beautiful and nearly as good as Lonesome Dove in my opinion.
@@scox0005 Nice, good to know!
Well worth reading. A unique style and a profound voice. Cormac McCarthy 👏
Would.
Congrats on this video Wera! Great analysis. 🙌 McCarthy is a giant of literature.
I fell in love with his work after reading The Road. I followed that up with the brilliantly melancholic All the Pretty Horses and nihilistic Sunset Unlimited. I’m looking forward to continuing my journey by reading Blood Meridian or No Country next.
Thanks for watching!! Sunset Limited is definitely on the TBR but for now I’m focused on getting through all his novels :) have you watched the tv adaptation? I think I might do it first and then go back the source material
@ I did not see it, yet. I think Johanna told me that it’s very good.
In my mind Blood Meridian, No Country and The Road is a trilogy in that order.
Excellent video!
I had no idea No Country for Old Men was a McCarthy book. So I've seen two movies based on his work, and I loved both. He's already on my TBR, so it's great to hear this perspective and I can't wait to get to him.
McCarthy’s got that Dawg in him… and it takes over your soul when you read his works. All of a sudden you’re a straight talking philosophical lone ranger gazing up at the stars and reflecting on the meaning of the universe, trying to find the light in a sea of crippling darkness.
But seriously though they’re great
💯
I read The Road when it first came out. I still think about. It still haunts me. Beautifully written.
Haunts. Great word to capture that books effect
Hi Wera
Hi!
That is the greatest emoji I have ever seen!!
For anyone who isn't sure if they'd like westerns, I recommend some Weird West like "Wake of Vultures" by Lila Bowen, or "Make Me No Grave" by Hayley Stone.
Child of God will leave you empty, and you'll never forget it.
It’s on my shelf 👀
I read Child of God and As I Lay Dying back to back. That was one surreal, southern gothic nightmare.
That was my most recent McCarthy read. You are not wrong, so many times I had to reread something to make sure I fully understood WTF I just read
Yeah child of God is a doozy. Incredibly dark, but it's stuck with me for years
I could listen to you read McCarthy all day. Definitely subscribed.
I don’t know of any dude-bros that read McCarthy, and if they did, they’d probably totally misunderstand it and think the Road is really all about how all-protein diets are great for you and how the Judge is like, a stoic, bro. 🤔
So true, bro.
Soybro detected
@carlito:
Nice one brah😅. You get to be a tiny minded little bigot hoping your
' pick me' credentials makes you more appealing to an attractive woman and ignoring your own conceit.
" Pick me. Pick me. I'm not like those guys" 🤣. You don't have enough experience to stand by your assumptions of what a variety of men will read or be into.
Insufferable AND a reductionist
This trend of essentially shadow boxing with vague ass demographics that only exist in people's heads or on dark corners of the internet needs to die off
McCarthy was a master before he moved West, with a career stretching back to the 1960s. He was considered the new Faulkner with his Southern novels. "Suttree" and "Child of God" are representative of that time, and brilliant. He was probably America's greatest writer. I put him over all the others, including the Holy Trinity (Hem, Faulk, Fitz). It's weird hearing that he is considered "dude-bro lit" - that's like calling Toni Morrison "chick lit". Anyway, glad you enjoyed them!
The final two books he published shortly before he died in June 2023, The Passenger and Stella Maris, are a duology and the prose is a bit different from his other works, but they really felt like a goodbye when I read them and they are definitely worth reading. Outer Dark and Child of God are two somewhat shorter earlier works of his that are really good. The last line of Outer Dark is fantastic.
Hey, great video! I am really looking forward to your second video. The Passenger is currently my third favorite book that I have ever read (however, I think Blood Meridian and Suttree are McCarthy’s best works, I just resonated the most with The Passenger). I highly recommend McCarthy’s southern Gothic works: Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, Child of God, and Suttree (read Suttree last). The prose in these works are absolutely gorgeous even though thematically McCarthy is at his most pessimistic…
Thank you for recommendations! I'm looking forward to read them.
Cormac is the man. I keep a copy of Blood Meridian on the nightstand.