"There's a sense of bullet time in these scenes", fantastic way to describe Cormac's depiction of violence in Blood Meridian. Loving the vids so far, great analysis.
I kinda got that, but when I was reading things like the battle scenes or when the Glanton gang is rolling into town fucking everything up, everything seems really chaotic, bloody, ruthless, Only when thinking back on the scenes a chapter or two later like when the gangs are riding about into towns or the kid is stumbling through the desert half dead of starvation and the elements and the writing was slower did I kinda think back on what I'd just read an hour or so before and really picture the butchery. Honestly thats pretty realistic if you think about it in reference to if youve seen something awful. In the moment everything seems to happen almost faster than your brain can think. Afterwards, when the adrenaline dips down and you have time to just think about shit you get a sense of what happened. McCarthy really nailed that on the head with the way he wrote this. Accurate analogies and symbolism, but really quick and straight to the point to emphasis how much chaos there was. The unfamiliar language and lack of quotes or quotation marks during the dialog helped that immensely since so often (for me anyway) youre also trying to pick apart the slangs and dialogs .
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature I sort of disagree with you that the violence is romanticized in any way. It's completely unlike the Iliad for example, where the violence is glorified because you have really cool and skilled people fighting each other and it's a true contest of skill, strength, and ingenuity, sort of like the "ultimate game" Holden refers too. But Blood Meridian doesn't show it like that all. It shows a gang of criminals murder people, women, and children who aren't combatants in any real way, there's no skill to it. It describes the violence excessively and captures those gruesome details that nobody really thinks of when they imagine sanitize violence.
Blood Meridian is one of those novels that are truly awe-inspiring. That McCarthy can so effortlessly and organically use prose in a way so gorgeous and profound to describe the most heinous acts and the most disgusting people imaginable is a true testament to his genius. He's one of those rare authors that never bore me. That said, I disagree with your assessment with the Kid being even remotely pacifist. He demonstrates some small acts of kindness to those whom he travels alongside of but not in any real meaningful way, save the expriest whom he doesn't leave behind and his buying of Toadvine's ear necklace. He has some sentimental qualities, but to say that he "disagrees" or really ever even gives much of an opinion at all during the barbarous acts described wouldn't really be correct. We go for pretty extended amounts of time without hearing anything from him, or even what he's doing during these conflicts. And correct me if I'm wrong but I don't remember a single instance of him giving any type of resistance to the bloodshed in terms of the natives, or really anyone else, save that 15 year old kid he kills at the campfire when he's much older. He did give him a chance to walk away. The Kid is certainly not The Judge, and regards him with a lot of hostility and contempt, but I at no point saw our protagonist as anything resembling a moral center.
It says in the book he has a taste for mindless violence and it never takes it back, so I agree he in no way is a pacifist. He is a corrupt protagonist, and yet by comparison, he becomes something of a moral order, broken and unevolved as he is. He never dawns. He too sets, like the world around him
@@toi_techno Calling them white savages, as if anything they did remotely matches the savagery of a single Commanche raid on an enemy Apache or otherwise tribe, is delusional and anti-history. White people did nothing that compares to what the natives were already doing to each other. Don't act like the Inca weren't sacrificing children and eating hearts out of carved out chests, far before a white man ever got here.
I know this is pedantic - but I think you're doing the author a disservice by describing his work as effortless. I understand McCarthy researched relentlessly and rewrote and edited extensively. I understand why you'd describe his writing as effortless though, his style is so fully realised and apart that it's difficult not to perceive it as almost naturally occurring or always having been there. I don't use the word lightly - but this is part of his genius. I think the other is the creation of a text that can be interpreted in such a varied and robust manner.
Reminds me of “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream” in how it knows that violence will become a way of life beloved by people who’ve never been victims of it.
hey bud, couldnt help but notice your handle being about disrespecting an entire country, and i feel like i know exactly why this isnt capitalism, freind, merely a corporatocracy parading around in a trenchcoat of democracy and capitalism. please dont hate the united states for being the best country overall for its people, and actually try and better it for a change, instead of spitefully creating more division between us.
@@HYpr1337time No. I’m disgusted by the childish behavior that’s become synonymous with us on every level including the government. I’m a proud southerner and conservative but it’s pathetic how people act. You ask a policy question and it’s “well what about” followed by a scripted response meant to never address anything and to never think. I was brought up to be honest, deal square, and to think about what I say. It’s psychotic how people have just decided to grovel to politicians and never actually discuss policy. To the point where you’re not allowed to have an actual opinion. I’m going to be wrong things but when you ask “how are you more trustworthy than anyone else” they refuse to answer because they don’t care about facts. Adults act like children and are proud to never change since they were kids. You don’t have to stop liking things you did when you were in middle school but people just don’t mature. Even the 70 year olds running the country. Just awful people rewarded for being awful. They know their flock WILL NOT question them so they just blatantly lie and scapegoat.
@@PROFESSIONALCRASHOUT Not always bad sure. But when it becomes easy and when we stop looking at people as humans it’ll tear us apart. We see that now with the way pretend to care about our soldiers but treat them as disposable. War is big business for a lot of people so it’s become more about profit than anything. It’s why we didn’t go to war with Saudi Arabia even though they were the ones who financed 9/11. We do a lot of business with them. The withdrawal from Afghanistan could’ve been handled A LOT better but the people who freaked out over the deaths or caused didn’t care when they were dying by the hundreds. They also got offended when you mentioned the countless civilian deaths and destruction of infrastructure. Which was rebuilt by people with ties to the ones who ordered the destruction. If you questioned that you “didn’t support the troops”.
@@NotALiberalSoSkipTheScript yeah it's the selfish bias everyone else has. "I don't care about the problem until it's at my doorstep." That's the main reason the United States tries all this at all. No one else cares until it's their countries being invaded by the terrorism. It's only then do they care. They can sit tight and sleep soundly at night, knowing it's countless nations and countries, countless peoples being oppressed, because there is just nothing but straight power vacuum without things like democracy there. It's every day there's a new piece of shit leader ready for tyranny on his people's. ready to enforce it with terrorism violence and any means possible to achieve ultimate dominance in mind. It's almost like we learned about this in world war 2. But its whatever right. Citizens don't care until it effects them and that's why there's no change.
@@kgilliagorilla2761I’m gonna do the same. I finished it today, I might start up The Road soon but I’m just gonna let it stew for a little bit. I’ve been watching a bunch of lectures and whatnot over it as well
I feel as if Holden winning is a testament about how human cruelty endures even when this “Free” wild world has ended. It always manages to adjust itself to any situation no matter how hard the moral collective attempts to drive it out. It enters in and people are caught completely off guard by it. He never sleeps. He never dies.
I’m 14 and this is the deepest thing I’ve ever read I’m going to reevaluate my whole world view to fit around this! Evil exists in the world, and I always well that’s an earth shattering notion. This is one of the most amazing philosophical revelations of all time! It’s right up there with the great scientist who discovered water is wet, and things dropped will fall to the ground!
@@Mortablunt It seems obvious, yet people have time and again believed war and bloodshed to be over. Just looking at it from 1900 alone, people thought the First World War was the end of armed conflict. Many Marxists thought that their ideologies would pave the way for a bloodless utopia without predators, exploiters, or even murderers (with the Soviet leadership themselves predicting that communism would arrive before the century's end), only for their states to collapse or crumble ideologically. Many neoliberals in the US and Europe thought that with the end of the Cold War, the world would remain set in stone and see no more major catastrophes. Even the war in Ukraine shows this - much of Europe was shocked at the war's outset, that conflict could come to their continent yet again after so much cultural, political, and economic work to avoid another catastrophe. And this shock to not only European citizens, but European governments came despite many eastern European nations and the USA warning the rest of Europe for years prior. Maybe you knew Russia would declare war to "rightfully" gain that Ukrainian land eventually since you have a LPR flag as your profile picture. That is just a brief overview of one century, mainly focused on the West. Not just individuals, but entire cultures do slip into a state of complacency and believing that war and evil is finally over, despite what you say.
@@MortabluntDespite you talking like this is common knowledge, it’s demonstrably not. Whether you agree with the idea that evil is and always will be, in practice most people act as though progress and society is making man better and slowly defeating evil. Being snarky helps nothing.
The thing I find most terrifying about this book is that the whole plot of the book and a personality of judge can, with minor adjustments be put into any time period in human history and pretty much anywhere on the earth - this story could happen in times of ancient Rome, during the Vietnam War, in medieval Europe or modern-day Africa. It seems like the judge truly never sleeps and won't ever die.
@@ChaseDaOrk3767 it's namely a character created by Michael Moorcock from a book of the same name. But the idea pops up in a lot of his other work, not technically reincarnation so much as a other characters filling the same kind of role in different eras throughout his fictional universe.
In my opinion the judge, being a representation of the primal and savage aspects of humanity, won because even at the sunset of the old west the primal aspects of humanity that made the west so brutal live on. In the old west men had the freedom to behave however they pleased. A gang could burn through countless Indian settlements and massacre 100s of people for scalps. Now that the frontier is becoming civilised men are deprived of the freedom to act that way. But the primal urges that created that situation are still alive and well. The only reason the judge is upset is because now those urges have been corked. To quote the Mennonite “The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have power to wake it. Hell aint half full. Hear me. Ye carry war of a madman’s making onto a foreign land. Ye’ll wake more than the dogs.” As long as humans can still ‘wake’ the wrath of god through war the judge lives
the judge is definitely the devil incarnate. given the quote from the tent pastor at the beginning of the entire novel, it comes full circle when you finish the book and/or begin to fully understand the character of judge holden.
@@enigmaticglo I read something quite intersting that he was a twisted ideal of a man instead of being the devil. He shares a lot of similarities with the ideal of an Ubermensch, and his talk about building with stone instead of reeds highlights this even more. It's why he's disapointed with the boy's constant denial of him. He is supernatural, but has his limits, he hasn't manipulated the boy. The boy simply rejected his ideals but had no true answer. He never went through with his repentance or attonement and thus when he meets the judge for one last time he's lost his reflection. He hasn't been corrupted or tempted, he's truly been broken and beaten, with only is fragility being the reason he lost to the judge.
When I first read Blood Meridian, I got like two hours into it and had to start over because I was lost and didn't understand nothin. Now I've read it 3 times and its an all-time great novel imho.
2/3 into it. It feels like a violent fever dream, always a haze drifting between towns, watching as the gang becomes more gluttonous and overtaken by greed, killing more and more without care of who it is. The one part that got me the most thus fat was with the little native boy. all on the same page. It made my stomach hurt, it made me angry. I love this book because I'm fucking appalled. It's realistic fiction, historical fiction. It's so unfortunate that some of this shit definitely happened 😔
It’s fictional, but not “fiction”. The Galton Organization actually did exist and did really commit these acts of genocide. What’s worse is they were but one of many many scalper death squads operating in the West. States like California, South Dakota, Washington, etc all paid bounties for the scalps of Indian men, women, and Children. It was advertised in newspapers and every thing. Many of the miners who came out west became poor and destitute and turned to banditry and scalp hunting as a career. And it was never taught in schools or portrayed in sanitized romantic westerns.
Just one pointer: I don’t think Judge Holden is the sole survivor after he kills the kid.. Tobin(the priest) who escaped the judge and the dessert with the kid dissapeared after they reached civilasation, so i do think Tobin is alive out there.
@@ericm3327 you're mistaking Toadvine to Tobin the Priest, Toadvine and David Brown was the one the Judge captured and was hang'd in the middle of the town.... David Brown was one of Glanton's minions who he ordered to get building materials at a different city which they tried to save but they didn't know he escaped using tricks against the Police Officer he offered a royalties.
This was an amazing breakdown of Blood Meridian, the exact level of quality I'm looking for for such an incredibly deep novel. I've read it 5 times and I'll likely read it many more. Again, thank you for the amazing work, you've got a subscriber out of me, and I'll check out your other Blood Meridian video. Also I just read your recent troubles with your father, and COVID, wishing you the best my man.
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature Sorry for your personal misfortunes. I have watched three of your Cormac McCarthy videos. They are truly outstanding. Please come back soon to educate me further. Do you know many other writers as good as McCarthy? I have subscribed to your channel but can see you have been inactive for a year. Hope you find inspiration and come back to making videos soon. 👍👏♥️
Just finished the book this afternoon I think the night means Death. All men must go into it except for one, the Judge. For he isn't a man but the avatar of war, or the world. He appears out of nowhere in the desert and four decades later it seems he hasn't aged. He always make notes of the sites and artifacts he encounters because he is the world trying to understand itself. In his words war was always there waiting for its ultimate practitioner. That is the beast that will never die and the one that never sleeps. Because there's always Blood on the Meridian.
Benjamin, your literature videos are truly outstanding. No need for the background music. You really do brilliantly explain Cormac McCarthy. I can see you have been inactive for a year now. Please come back soon and educate us further. Do you know other writers/novelists as good as McCarthy? Sorry to hear of your loss and grief. Hope we hear from you soon. ♥️👏👍
I think the graphic descriptions of violence actually do the opposite of glorifying it. It makes vivid an American genocide that isn’t often taught and is heavily sanitized. Also, the general indifference of the Kid helps to show how average people are capable of committing atrocities and how little hope there is for people to behave morally when they are adrift in a world that does not care for them. These aspects of the book leave me with an incredibly strong anti-war sentiment and I read it as an exposé of the American capacity for atrocity/cautionary tale against violence and prejudice
Just finished Blood Meridian today, perfect for me that you made this video just a week ago lol great analysis and hope you cover the epilogue sometime! Subscribed and waiting for more!
Another potential interpretation of “meridian” was that the 98th Meridian just west of Austin Texas was the border of the frontier for Texans and beyond that was Native American country, namely Comancheria. All along that meridian were brutal attacks and atrocities committed by both the Texans and native Americans (namely Comanche) and scalping was a common practice on both sides. In fact, for a 40 year period, the border Comacheria was the most dangerous place in the world in terms of how frequently people were killed in spectacularly brutal ways
I believe the Judge in this novel is some sort of entity that embodies war which is either immortal or has a long life cycle, such as a djinn. Several clues in the novel bring me to this theory, other than the less subtle ones. At least a few times in the novel, the narrator or other characters would refer to the Judges speeches and teaching as if were “reciting” them from memory. A very subtle clue. Could it be that the Judge has lived through so many different time periods and came across similar men which whom he has been saying this same speech and rhetoric to? Something to think about. Another is somewhere in the story it is said that the Judge requests a song from at least 200 years ago. Very subtle clue and could be nothing at all, but why so long ago? Yes he is cultured, but could it also be that he has lived during the time that the song was first composed and it is among his favorites?
I personally believed that the reason the book ends with the judge killing the kid is because the kid had already come to a realization that killing the judge would simply be perpetuating the violence which the kid had come to abhor. Someone had to break the cycle somewhere, and violence begets violence. You can't truly put an end to Violence by being violent in turn, simply put
Disagree, if you let violence defeat you because you think you’re above it you still perpetuate it, maybe in a worse way as you let a killer who kills because they enjoy it go on.
@@tomsnowden6201 don't get me wrong I certainly agree there are times to defend yourself and that would definitely be one of them, but the reason I read into it that way is because of the kids live-and-let-live attitude and the fact that he even attempts to live that way in such a lawless place speaks volumes. Just my interpretation anyway
I disagree with this interpretation; I think the monologue The Judge gives frames that entire situation when he talks about bears that dance and bears that don't; metaphorically he's referring to people who engage with life and participate in the world and make something of themselves, for better or for worse vs those who don't and simply allow themselves to be acted upon -- following through with the metaphor, the Kid (now the Man) had the opportunity to choose to be a participant in the world, be a force of good, leave something positive and make something of himself, be an actor and not allow men like Judge Holden to dance uncontested But instead he chose not to dance and by choosing not to dance he relinquishes his agency and lets evil fester and proceed unmolested, by doing this, the man surrenders control over his own life and thereafter had no real destiny awaiting him other than death, which is delivered by The Judge with his usual deprave cruelty It's a tragedy but the lesson there is that we should not let evil men act freely, we should strive to participate in the world in ways that'll leave a positive impact on others and our surroundings for... and at this point it's a cliché quote but it still rings true "the only thing evil needs to win is for good men to do nothing"
@@mrhello7611 I can definitely see that interpretation and you are right that most definitely applies here. It's also one of the things I love about the book as it most definitely highlights its underlying message by the anti-climax of the ending and yet somehow still manages to be rather ambiguous
The Judge is akin to the Savage Garden concept in Anne Rice novels, or, the Shadows in Babylon 5. He really is neither good nor bad as he is beyond that. Kinda like another Chigur character but with greater depth. He is not so much a person as he is a concept, a symbol that the world comes down to two things: The strong and the weak, you are either one or the other and the strong will always destroy the weak, it's human nature. The judge is literally base human nature made manifest. Peace equals stagnation and weakness, conflict equals change and strength.
@@dillonlizana3337 yea, I started it thinking I would do it in pieces but I had the spare time so ended up listening to the whole thing. I don't regret it but I it was because the story had me lol I had to know what happened!
It's not a major error but worth noting that the Judge and the Kid/Man meet again in 1878. 28 years after their last meeting in the jail not 10. Unless I misremember.
This is also the year that federal currency became a thing no more state by state currency, another allusion to the world being closed in and under control
thank you! the content creator, like me must of used shmoop while reading the book, they say ten years later and I was like wait that's not right and just glanced upon your comment
Dude... excellent analysis. Thank you. I gathered much of what you said in the reading, but I definitely reaped much from listening to your feedback as well. Really appreciate it.
I think the reason the judge survives at the end is because he is the spirit of the old way of life and the old way never truly dies. When they come upon the ruins of the Anasazi he states that transition from higher order to lower order civilization is marked by these ruins. and he tells the priest that this will all be again. The hypocrisies and mask of the civilized world will fall and a world of pure barbarism in which the judge is lord will return. In the universe of McCarthy I think this prophecy comes true in The Road.
I think it's really interesting to think of McCarthy's books all existing in the same universe, and in that sense that's a REALLY good analysis of what the Judge said! You really do see similarities in the way the world feels in The Road to how it feels in Blood Meridian. Thanks for the input!
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature No problem. I'm thinking of doing a video on MCarthys work and part of it would look at his works chronologically. Obviously The Road is the end point but I can't decide if Outer Dark or Blood Meridian is the earliest story in the timeline.Thoughts?
@@onepiecefan74 that's a cool idea! I believe outer dark does make mention of cars and other more modern technological concepts at some point, but I could be wrong. I do know blood meridian takes place way back in 1833, so I think it would take some compelling evidence to believe Outer Dark happens any earlier.
I love the novel and film The Searchers and I can definitely see it as an antithesis to Blood Meridian, wiping away so many of the acceptable tropes of old west stories. It's not like The Searchers is light hearted either. Both the film and novel are classics, the tit for tat genocide between the clashing cultures, but where The Searchers does include a small shred of redemption and hope for the future of America the future in McCarthy is nowhere near as bright or certain to even exist.
I have to thank you. I heard about how great this book was and I found an audio book. It is just easier for me to listen to audio books as I can do two things at once. I enjoyed it but I kept falling asleep whilst I was relaxing at home to it. I didn't know if I should contine as I had listened to so much but felt lost. I have a back catalogue of audio books I want to listen to. I came across your video that made me love the characters and it made me start from the beginning. Ocassionally I would fall asleep because I started listen to it more in my private time but I would rewind and try to follow it more and more. I have just finished the audio book and I have fell in love with this story. I am going to read the actual book. Thank you.
What is also interessing is that sometimes the violence is told in every detail, and sometimes it's just a single sentence as in describing a pure insignificance. Like "at evening they road into a camp of natives and slaughtered them every soul." and that's it.
I think it is incredibly concise. The sentence structure is long, yes, as a result of McCarthy trying to minimise the use of punctuation, but there is very little wasted in terms of language.
Thank you so much for making this video. I have read the book three times in the last couple weeks and felt dummer after every go around. Each time I would notice things that I previously missed which would creat more questions without answering any. After listening to this, I understand that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get all the facets of this very complicated novel.
Judge Holden, was there the first moment that the first caveman picked up a rock and threw it at another caveman to protect his watering hole or hunting area. Judge Holden was there, he is here. Now. he has been in every war that has ever been And every war that will come from now until the end of time. Because of man's ignorance.❤
Interesting story, here: Back in 1991-92 I was Peter Wellers, Union, driver on a flick shot near Keswick, Ontario, on Lake Simcoe. As he, his lovely assistant and I were travelling, the hour back to Toronto, every evening, Peter would sit in back and read, out loud, the book he was delving into, at that time. It was 'Blood Meridian'. Great read and great, disturbing, book! I proceeded, over the years, to read everything that Cormac McCarthy had written. Brilliant is the only word I have. Cheers!🍺
The part about making children choose a door that does not harbor wild lions would obviously be a messed up way of raising children, but I think it speaks to a prevalent part of every person's life that they have to face eventually. And that is you never know what lies behind the next door you are going to open in this short life where you only have so many opportunities to get its many aspirations right. Career, love, adventure, etc. One misstep can spell disaster, sometimes not only in the one facet, but potentially all. Career doesn't work out? You're now broke and cannot financially support a family, go on those adventures, or do those hobbies you had planned. First love doesn't work out? You're now past your golden years for experiencing romance and potentially have to support the children of a partner who no longer loves you. Miss out on that one adventure you wanted to do? Too bad, because behind that door could have been the perfect career or partner for you that would finally make this crazy world make a little bit of sense. But once those doors have been chosen. Once those lions have devoured you for blindly waltzing in, there is often no going back. And like the period of the Wild West, your life will never happen again... I think the Judge's hypothetical child-rearing method came from a place of tough love. He knew the world could be a cruel place that plays cruel jokes on people, and wanted them to be equipped to deal with those at any given moment, while ironically he was one of the people inflicting such cruelty.
In my view, The judge doesn’t kill the kid, the kid is being instructed by the ageless persona of the judge, the judge has become his conscience. The kid walks out to the outhouse and the judge is behind him and something terrifying happens, and the onlookers are shocked at what they’ve seen, some unexplained yet disturbing desecration of the human form. A Man walks away from the scene…in my view the man is the kid but he’s described now as a man because he is ready to do what he was not earlier able to… which is to accept the side of evil fully and to be himself an evil force and to actively make the decision to exert his will upon the world.
I had the same impression for the ending. What do you make of the little girl that was apart of the circus with the beat who went missing at the end of the book? You think the judge or the man had somthing to do with it? I think the man became just like the judge with a thirst for violence . 🤔
What happened to the Mexican juggler? The roadshow preacher knew who the judge was. Did the judge ever take another life himself, with his own hand? We don’t really know what happened to the kid, only imagine. Pure evil works through others and takes no blame himself.
There's a scene where the judge scalps a toddler who he's playing innocently with moments earlier. Glanton almost shoots him for it but holds back. Besides the several other implied murders of children and the kid, there are the apaches he shoots in the volcano sequence.
I just finished this book. Enjoyed your video and helped to understand some of the thoughts I couldn’t put into words about the book. Question. The kid passed up killing the judge several times, and the judge acknowledges this. Is this in a way the judge actually losing because he couldn’t get the kid to be like him? He says he could have loved the kid like a son, what would that have looked like?
Where did you get the recorded reading from the quote in the book made by the man rambling about machines, absolutely love that guys voice and would love to get my hand on the sound file!✌
Man's name is Richard Poe and the entire book is on TH-cam in 2 parts. The first has an illustration of the Apache attack on the military..I have to look up the uploader though so bear with me. Uploaded by Sean Rothman on youtube..
I applaud your effort but 2 things. It was a Comanche war party, not Apaches that wipe out the filibusters. And, I think to assume the Judge killed The Man is too easy. I think he finally corrupted him. I believe the horrific thing in the jakes was the missing girl (the one with the dancing bear). The Man has finally succumbed to the Judge and has violated and murdered her. The Man is the one pissing outside the jakes that tells the other man that walks up "I wouldn't go in there if I was you". The Judge, vindicated in his mission, Dances, he will never die. The carnal nature and lust for violence in humans will never die.
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature that was just my take on the ending. A few reasons for this... before the end, the Man tries to...engage with a dwarf prostitute but can't perform. Also, the fact that if The Man were raped/ and or killed, this isn't something that would necessarily shock the men of this town, who are used to all sorts of horrors and mind-numbing violence and degradation. The violation and death of a child however.. ?
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature that's awesome man! I am not the only one who thought this I can't take full credit, and I know that it's not as accepted as the ending you put forth in your video, which seems to be a common consensus, but I think it's fascinating and it is what I thought on my first read through, and was only reinforced by re-reads and looking at opinions online. One thing is for sure though, either scenario...the Judge wins in the end!
While I still feel the book dragged on with it’s words and it could have conveyed these themes and messages better, you’ve made me appreciate blood meridian more. Not a few hours ago I thought that I wasted two weeks reading a difficult tome that didn’t really have much of a purpose or journey. Just repeated scenes of pointless violence.
Glad I could help! And hey, it's still a fair opinion to have if you think it dragged on or was too wordy as well! Nothing wrong with differing opinions
Well even though I felt like The Road had more to say, I still consider this book good. Guess I didn’t see all the subtext before watching your vids man. Happy Holidays btw.
@@hulkamania5071 this is how I know that blood meridian fans are pretentious as fuck. People like this guy always default to “you didn’t understand it, your take is invalid”. That’s a hallmark of a pretentious person pretending to like something. No, the writing style is just plain ugly and obtuse. I do understand it, I don’t enjoy it.
The kid did a lot of bad things to children throughout the story, as the book clearly indicates the judge had smaller hands than the kid and the first child who was found had large handprints left on them. The kid, as the man, ends it all after ending the bear and the girl. Judge is not a human. No?
what a great review! thank you. proof that quality does not get a lot of hits on youtube. the nature of popularity contests, is that, as a form of war, it is somethong that turns content into shit.
I am from germany, so to me the aspects of mexican and american history are not so important. I read the noval more philosophical. And there are some enigmas. The judge for example is one of it. You said, that he is such primitive. Yeas he is, and he denies the moral law. Nevertheless he is a judge and in some moments he is not primitive. His clothes are one example. So I ask my self, of which law he is the judge. I suspect, he is the incorporation of natural laws. This is maybe the reason because everything has to exist with his knowledge. This could also be the reason why he kills the man at the end of the book. The man can make no peace or compromise with the law of nature. But this explains not, why he has no hair and small feet and sexual degeneration. This makes him ambivalent. But for sure "blood meridian" is one of the greatest novels of all time. A real masterpiece.
The Judge was at least a literal flesh and blood character. Chigur (at least its strongly implied) that Chigur isn't real. He's an abarituon of the cop's mind. He thinks that by defeating Chigur all evil will go away. It won't, someone else will simply take his place.
Really great breakdown bro. One of the best books I've ever read. Tru brutal Americanism. Also read it when i was travlin outwest. Super good and damn, ill but yr book as soon as i get this unemployment
I always thought the ending was trying to explain that even though The Kid moved into the period of america where bloodshed was frowned upon, it can still find you. The Judge will always exist no matter how much society changes, evil people will always exist. I do like the parallel of the merdian being the end, that makes alot more sense.
I feel like the point shows that despite the end of the gruesome Wild West, War always was, is and will be here for humanity no matter how primitive or civilized we pretend to be. The Judge being an embodiment of evil or being referenced as being the devil has a dual meaning, as both being war and just plain evil that never sleeps and will never die. IT will always be, even if WE aren’t anymore.
I would also argue that his many references to dusk, evening, and night implies a new coming of day though, where all will be renewed again. You could quite nearly argue that WWI was the next "day" then there was a night of peace, then WWII was the next dawn, with the final solution the next height of man, a new, more deadly form of dancing, where the lead dancer dominates the follower. Then again peace. Then day rises once more with vietnam, and the cycle continues, as while the sun always sets, it always rises once again.
6:01 This quote from the judge makes me think of the way of modern warfare where politicians ordering drone strikes is the norm and man on man combat is absent
1:30 hold on where does it say the kid doesn’t like it? Sure, at the end you can infer he regrets it all however to say that he did it against his will i think is presumptuous. Though you can’t argue the opposite as well, i think it’s more likely if anything and is certainly my headcanon throughout the story. He was prone to violence after all.
The coming of civilization and death of the Old West didn't end the cycle of violence, in truth, with higher population density etc, the occasions of violence that occur in the western states on an annual basis far exceeds the violence committed over the life of a generation back then. Also, the judge laments the coming of a state and the end of a lawless land, however, the opportunities of scale for violence are amplified by the presence of a state, and the wars committed by that state would leave the judge dancing in glee compared to the relatively somber frontier wars of that time. Admittedly, those wars didn't take place in the west, but many men from western territories have fought and continue to fight in battlefields across the world on behalf of the civilization that the judge laments. Perhaps that's why he was undefeated in the end. I suppose I'll have to read the book myself to understand better.
Blood Meridian is like reading the book of Judges of the Old Testament. Most people would ask “Why is this here? What’s the point of this book?” All there seems to be is violence and darkness, but that’s the point. It serves as an analysis of the depravity of mankind; a reality we shouldn’t be ignorant of.
I have found the three books I’ve read by McCarthy nothing but horrific and depressing AF. I remember reading The Road and putting it down saying “Jesus! That was miserable” Felt the same way about Blood Meridian and No Country…. Depressing and fatalistic. I have no idea how this is considered The Great American Novel
Different strokes I guess. Some people love the dark and macabre. Like women who are into murder documentaries. Idk why they like that shit but they like it.
The Road is bleak as hell but it also has a very strong sense of hope in the face of all the misery. There are still people "carrying the fire" even in the twilight of life on earth. His writing certainly isn't for everyone but they are not so cut and dry even among the all encroaching darkness.
Idk how people believe the Bible is something to be taken literally as the word of a diety. When it really is nothing but propaganda for people who lived under occupation.
I have read BM multiple times over 30 years, and it is only as I age do I understand it more and more. No child, teenager, 20 or 30 year old will truly understand what it means. Because the real meaning is - Nothing matters. Life is violent and brief.
I heard the book before but learnt from it from 5 hr wendigoon video. Thanks for the video as I go down a rabbit hole. I think this may not work live action but as an anime or even video game, this may work
He never sleeps, the Judge. He is dancing, dancing. And he says that he will never die.
ngl hes a smash
He dances in light and in shadow, he is a great favourite. the judge
He says will never die… “whatever exists without my knowledge. Exists without my consent.”
"There's a sense of bullet time in these scenes", fantastic way to describe Cormac's depiction of violence in Blood Meridian. Loving the vids so far, great analysis.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
I kinda got that, but when I was reading things like the battle scenes or when the Glanton gang is rolling into town fucking everything up, everything seems really chaotic, bloody, ruthless, Only when thinking back on the scenes a chapter or two later like when the gangs are riding about into towns or the kid is stumbling through the desert half dead of starvation and the elements and the writing was slower did I kinda think back on what I'd just read an hour or so before and really picture the butchery. Honestly thats pretty realistic if you think about it in reference to if youve seen something awful. In the moment everything seems to happen almost faster than your brain can think. Afterwards, when the adrenaline dips down and you have time to just think about shit you get a sense of what happened. McCarthy really nailed that on the head with the way he wrote this. Accurate analogies and symbolism, but really quick and straight to the point to emphasis how much chaos there was. The unfamiliar language and lack of quotes or quotation marks during the dialog helped that immensely since so often (for me anyway) youre also trying to pick apart the slangs and dialogs .
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature I sort of disagree with you that the violence is romanticized in any way. It's completely unlike the Iliad for example, where the violence is glorified because you have really cool and skilled people fighting each other and it's a true contest of skill, strength, and ingenuity, sort of like the "ultimate game" Holden refers too. But Blood Meridian doesn't show it like that all. It shows a gang of criminals murder people, women, and children who aren't combatants in any real way, there's no skill to it. It describes the violence excessively and captures those gruesome details that nobody really thinks of when they imagine sanitize violence.
I'm not so sure that the kid died, Ben. I have a different theory. McCarthy mislead us but he told us he would the entire book.
Agreed. I'm reading the book, and it feels like this long, warped fever dream painted in blood, clay, sand and chalk.
Blood Meridian is one of those novels that are truly awe-inspiring. That McCarthy can so effortlessly and organically use prose in a way so gorgeous and profound to describe the most heinous acts and the most disgusting people imaginable is a true testament to his genius. He's one of those rare authors that never bore me.
That said, I disagree with your assessment with the Kid being even remotely pacifist. He demonstrates some small acts of kindness to those whom he travels alongside of but not in any real meaningful way, save the expriest whom he doesn't leave behind and his buying of Toadvine's ear necklace. He has some sentimental qualities, but to say that he "disagrees" or really ever even gives much of an opinion at all during the barbarous acts described wouldn't really be correct.
We go for pretty extended amounts of time without hearing anything from him, or even what he's doing during these conflicts. And correct me if I'm wrong but I don't remember a single instance of him giving any type of resistance to the bloodshed in terms of the natives, or really anyone else, save that 15 year old kid he kills at the campfire when he's much older. He did give him a chance to walk away.
The Kid is certainly not The Judge, and regards him with a lot of hostility and contempt, but I at no point saw our protagonist as anything resembling a moral center.
It says in the book he has a taste for mindless violence and it never takes it back, so I agree he in no way is a pacifist. He is a corrupt protagonist, and yet by comparison, he becomes something of a moral order, broken and unevolved as he is. He never dawns. He too sets, like the world around him
That said the judge descibes the kid as the most empathetic towards the natives and seens this trait as a liability and weakness.
A story about the white savages who tore the heart out of Turtle Island and the peoples who lived there..
@@toi_techno Calling them white savages, as if anything they did remotely matches the savagery of a single Commanche raid on an enemy Apache or otherwise tribe, is delusional and anti-history. White people did nothing that compares to what the natives were already doing to each other. Don't act like the Inca weren't sacrificing children and eating hearts out of carved out chests, far before a white man ever got here.
I know this is pedantic - but I think you're doing the author a disservice by describing his work as effortless. I understand McCarthy researched relentlessly and rewrote and edited extensively. I understand why you'd describe his writing as effortless though, his style is so fully realised and apart that it's difficult not to perceive it as almost naturally occurring or always having been there. I don't use the word lightly - but this is part of his genius. I think the other is the creation of a text that can be interpreted in such a varied and robust manner.
Reminds me of “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream” in how it knows that violence will become a way of life beloved by people who’ve never been victims of it.
hey bud, couldnt help but notice your handle being about disrespecting an entire country, and i feel like i know exactly why
this isnt capitalism, freind, merely a corporatocracy parading around in a trenchcoat of democracy and capitalism.
please dont hate the united states for being the best country overall for its people, and actually try and better it for a change, instead of spitefully creating more division between us.
@@HYpr1337time No. I’m disgusted by the childish behavior that’s become synonymous with us on every level including the government. I’m a proud southerner and conservative but it’s pathetic how people act. You ask a policy question and it’s “well what about” followed by a scripted response meant to never address anything and to never think. I was brought up to be honest, deal square, and to think about what I say.
It’s psychotic how people have just decided to grovel to politicians and never actually discuss policy. To the point where you’re not allowed to have an actual opinion. I’m going to be wrong things but when you ask “how are you more trustworthy than anyone else” they refuse to answer because they don’t care about facts.
Adults act like children and are proud to never change since they were kids. You don’t have to stop liking things you did when you were in middle school but people just don’t mature. Even the 70 year olds running the country. Just awful people rewarded for being awful. They know their flock WILL NOT question them so they just blatantly lie and scapegoat.
I mean it's not always bad in my opinion but war is a interesting philosophy to understand.
@@PROFESSIONALCRASHOUT Not always bad sure. But when it becomes easy and when we stop looking at people as humans it’ll tear us apart. We see that now with the way pretend to care about our soldiers but treat them as disposable. War is big business for a lot of people so it’s become more about profit than anything.
It’s why we didn’t go to war with Saudi Arabia even though they were the ones who financed 9/11. We do a lot of business with them. The withdrawal from Afghanistan could’ve been handled A LOT better but the people who freaked out over the deaths or caused didn’t care when they were dying by the hundreds.
They also got offended when you mentioned the countless civilian deaths and destruction of infrastructure. Which was rebuilt by people with ties to the ones who ordered the destruction. If you questioned that you “didn’t support the troops”.
@@NotALiberalSoSkipTheScript yeah it's the selfish bias everyone else has. "I don't care about the problem until it's at my doorstep." That's the main reason the United States tries all this at all. No one else cares until it's their countries being invaded by the terrorism. It's only then do they care. They can sit tight and sleep soundly at night, knowing it's countless nations and countries, countless peoples being oppressed, because there is just nothing but straight power vacuum without things like democracy there. It's every day there's a new piece of shit leader ready for tyranny on his people's. ready to enforce it with terrorism violence and any means possible to achieve ultimate dominance in mind. It's almost like we learned about this in world war 2. But its whatever right. Citizens don't care until it effects them and that's why there's no change.
I felt the same way for about ten minutes. That's how long it took me to start reading the story for a second time.
I’m re reading now after a few months. It’s even better. What a book.
@@kgilliagorilla2761I’m gonna do the same. I finished it today, I might start up The Road soon but I’m just gonna let it stew for a little bit. I’ve been watching a bunch of lectures and whatnot over it as well
@@tose5566the road left me with such an empty feeling its hard to explain, blood Meridian left me like wtf, but the road is just so horrible 😢
I feel as if Holden winning is a testament about how human cruelty endures even when this “Free” wild world has ended. It always manages to adjust itself to any situation no matter how hard the moral collective attempts to drive it out. It enters in and people are caught completely off guard by it. He never sleeps. He never dies.
I’m 14 and this is the deepest thing I’ve ever read I’m going to reevaluate my whole world view to fit around this! Evil exists in the world, and I always well that’s an earth shattering notion. This is one of the most amazing philosophical revelations of all time! It’s right up there with the great scientist who discovered water is wet, and things dropped will fall to the ground!
For some reason it always reminds me of the ending of “Sicario” …Land of wolves
@@Mortablunt It seems obvious, yet people have time and again believed war and bloodshed to be over. Just looking at it from 1900 alone, people thought the First World War was the end of armed conflict. Many Marxists thought that their ideologies would pave the way for a bloodless utopia without predators, exploiters, or even murderers (with the Soviet leadership themselves predicting that communism would arrive before the century's end), only for their states to collapse or crumble ideologically. Many neoliberals in the US and Europe thought that with the end of the Cold War, the world would remain set in stone and see no more major catastrophes. Even the war in Ukraine shows this - much of Europe was shocked at the war's outset, that conflict could come to their continent yet again after so much cultural, political, and economic work to avoid another catastrophe. And this shock to not only European citizens, but European governments came despite many eastern European nations and the USA warning the rest of Europe for years prior. Maybe you knew Russia would declare war to "rightfully" gain that Ukrainian land eventually since you have a LPR flag as your profile picture.
That is just a brief overview of one century, mainly focused on the West. Not just individuals, but entire cultures do slip into a state of complacency and believing that war and evil is finally over, despite what you say.
@@MortabluntDespite you talking like this is common knowledge, it’s demonstrably not. Whether you agree with the idea that evil is and always will be, in practice most people act as though progress and society is making man better and slowly defeating evil. Being snarky helps nothing.
@@kingtufu1it definitely helps me have a laugh, and it’s very, very obvious, this was not the point of the book.
The thing I find most terrifying about this book is that the whole plot of the book and a personality of judge can, with minor adjustments be put into any time period in human history and pretty much anywhere on the earth - this story could happen in times of ancient Rome, during the Vietnam War, in medieval Europe or modern-day Africa. It seems like the judge truly never sleeps and won't ever die.
Sort of like an evil version of the "eternal champion."
the judge is just a metaphor for evil. Thats why never sleeps and can't die. Evil lives on in men
@@jacobstaten2366who or what is the Eternal Champion?
@@ChaseDaOrk3767 it's namely a character created by Michael Moorcock from a book of the same name. But the idea pops up in a lot of his other work, not technically reincarnation so much as a other characters filling the same kind of role in different eras throughout his fictional universe.
@@jacobstaten2366 Oh ok, thanks for clarifying that
In my opinion the judge, being a representation of the primal and savage aspects of humanity, won because even at the sunset of the old west the primal aspects of humanity that made the west so brutal live on. In the old west men had the freedom to behave however they pleased. A gang could burn through countless Indian settlements and massacre 100s of people for scalps. Now that the frontier is becoming civilised men are deprived of the freedom to act that way. But the primal urges that created that situation are still alive and well. The only reason the judge is upset is because now those urges have been corked.
To quote the Mennonite
“The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have power to wake it. Hell aint half full. Hear me. Ye carry war of a madman’s making onto a foreign land. Ye’ll wake more than the dogs.”
As long as humans can still ‘wake’ the wrath of god through war the judge lives
I thought something like that where no matter how civilized this world can get the savagery of men will always continue and live.
I see the Judge as men at their truest.
I hold men in contempt, obviously.
That's dumb, wrath is a sin and God says specifically not to do it in the commandments
the judge is definitely the devil incarnate. given the quote from the tent pastor at the beginning of the entire novel, it comes full circle when you finish the book and/or begin to fully understand the character of judge holden.
@@enigmaticglo I read something quite intersting that he was a twisted ideal of a man instead of being the devil. He shares a lot of similarities with the ideal of an Ubermensch, and his talk about building with stone instead of reeds highlights this even more.
It's why he's disapointed with the boy's constant denial of him. He is supernatural, but has his limits, he hasn't manipulated the boy. The boy simply rejected his ideals but had no true answer. He never went through with his repentance or attonement and thus when he meets the judge for one last time he's lost his reflection. He hasn't been corrupted or tempted, he's truly been broken and beaten, with only is fragility being the reason he lost to the judge.
When I first read Blood Meridian, I got like two hours into it and had to start over because I was lost and didn't understand nothin. Now I've read it 3 times and its an all-time great novel imho.
damn i hate reading
You can't even use correct grammar. Your opinion is irrelevant.
@@SpicyTexan64Will you shut up? Nothin is just a slanged nothing.
@@SpicyTexan64 explain how (you cant)
@@SpicyTexan64bro talking about grammar💀
2/3 into it. It feels like a violent fever dream, always a haze drifting between towns, watching as the gang becomes more gluttonous and overtaken by greed, killing more and more without care of who it is. The one part that got me the most thus fat was with the little native boy. all on the same page. It made my stomach hurt, it made me angry. I love this book because I'm fucking appalled. It's realistic fiction, historical fiction. It's so unfortunate that some of this shit definitely happened 😔
It’s fictional, but not “fiction”. The Galton Organization actually did exist and did really commit these acts of genocide. What’s worse is they were but one of many many scalper death squads operating in the West. States like California, South Dakota, Washington, etc all paid bounties for the scalps of Indian men, women, and Children.
It was advertised in newspapers and every thing. Many of the miners who came out west became poor and destitute and turned to banditry and scalp hunting as a career. And it was never taught in schools or portrayed in sanitized romantic westerns.
This book gets better and better each time you read it. The details truly start to hit you.
Just one pointer: I don’t think Judge Holden is the sole survivor after he kills the kid.. Tobin(the priest) who escaped the judge and the dessert with the kid dissapeared after they reached civilasation, so i do think Tobin is alive out there.
The judge mentions him and brown and says they are the last. He had set the kid and him up. Pretty sure the judge got him as well
@@ericm3327 Who was Brown again? It's been three years since last i read it.. And yeah i guess that's likely, no one gets away from the judge ☠
@@ericm3327 you're mistaking Toadvine to Tobin the Priest, Toadvine and David Brown was the one the Judge captured and was hang'd in the middle of the town.... David Brown was one of Glanton's minions who he ordered to get building materials at a different city which they tried to save but they didn't know he escaped using tricks against the Police Officer he offered a royalties.
@@izshtar Ahaa, the dude with the ear necklace?
@@sindraschronicles265Bathcat initially wears the neclace but Brown takes it from his corpse and wears it for a while.
This was an amazing breakdown of Blood Meridian, the exact level of quality I'm looking for for such an incredibly deep novel. I've read it 5 times and I'll likely read it many more. Again, thank you for the amazing work, you've got a subscriber out of me, and I'll check out your other Blood Meridian video.
Also I just read your recent troubles with your father, and COVID, wishing you the best my man.
amazing? wow
@@mattmarkus4868 what’s the problem bud
This is amazing man. You have a real talent for this and I can tell you thought hard about it.
Thanks! I'm just glad you found it worth your time. Thanks for watching
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature Sorry for your personal misfortunes. I have watched three of your Cormac McCarthy videos. They are truly outstanding. Please come back soon to educate me further. Do you know many other writers as good as McCarthy? I have subscribed to your channel but can see you have been inactive for a year. Hope you find inspiration and come back to making videos soon. 👍👏♥️
Just finished the book this afternoon
I think the night means Death. All men must go into it except for one, the Judge. For he isn't a man but the avatar of war, or the world. He appears out of nowhere in the desert and four decades later it seems he hasn't aged. He always make notes of the sites and artifacts he encounters because he is the world trying to understand itself. In his words war was always there waiting for its ultimate practitioner. That is the beast that will never die and the one that never sleeps. Because there's always Blood on the Meridian.
Benjamin, your literature videos are truly outstanding. No need for the background music. You really do brilliantly explain Cormac McCarthy. I can see you have been inactive for a year now. Please come back soon and educate us further. Do you know other writers/novelists as good as McCarthy? Sorry to hear of your loss and grief. Hope we hear from you soon. ♥️👏👍
Love the text analysis, segment-by-segment. Very well edited too. Great job.
Hey thanks! Glad to know my videos are still making you happy
I think the graphic descriptions of violence actually do the opposite of glorifying it. It makes vivid an American genocide that isn’t often taught and is heavily sanitized.
Also, the general indifference of the Kid helps to show how average people are capable of committing atrocities and how little hope there is for people to behave morally when they are adrift in a world that does not care for them.
These aspects of the book leave me with an incredibly strong anti-war sentiment and I read it as an exposé of the American capacity for atrocity/cautionary tale against violence and prejudice
Just finished Blood Meridian today, perfect for me that you made this video just a week ago lol great analysis and hope you cover the epilogue sometime! Subscribed and waiting for more!
Epilogue should be coming up quite soon. Glad you liked it!
I appreciate you making this video! My dad named me Meridian after this book and I never knew what it was about. This really helped.
Another potential interpretation of “meridian” was that the 98th Meridian just west of Austin Texas was the border of the frontier for Texans and beyond that was Native American country, namely Comancheria. All along that meridian were brutal attacks and atrocities committed by both the Texans and native Americans (namely Comanche) and scalping was a common practice on both sides. In fact, for a 40 year period, the border Comacheria was the most dangerous place in the world in terms of how frequently people were killed in spectacularly brutal ways
I’m only near halfway done(picked it up after reading ‘The Road’) and it’s already my favorite book ever. An incredible work of art.
I believe the Judge in this novel is some sort of entity that embodies war which is either immortal or has a long life cycle, such as a djinn. Several clues in the novel bring me to this theory, other than the less subtle ones.
At least a few times in the novel, the narrator or other characters would refer to the Judges speeches and teaching as if were “reciting” them from memory. A very subtle clue. Could it be that the Judge has lived through so many different time periods and came across similar men which whom he has been saying this same speech and rhetoric to? Something to think about.
Another is somewhere in the story it is said that the Judge requests a song from at least 200 years ago. Very subtle clue and could be nothing at all, but why so long ago? Yes he is cultured, but could it also be that he has lived during the time that the song was first composed and it is among his favorites?
The judge is the devil
He also possesses superhuman strength. At one point in the story, he’s able to lift a howitzer with the same ease as a normal man lifting a rifle.
@@zeeboss7553 I don’t think it’s that cut and dry
As he is described, he could also be a vampire or a Dybbuk (sentient zombie in jewish folklore)
The Judge kind of reminded me of Cain from the Bible, cursed to walk the Earth forever for committing the first murder
Thank you for not making this video 5 hours long
Thank you for making this :)
exactly the sort of recap I wanted to watch after just having finished the book for the first time today
I personally believed that the reason the book ends with the judge killing the kid is because the kid had already come to a realization that killing the judge would simply be perpetuating the violence which the kid had come to abhor. Someone had to break the cycle somewhere, and violence begets violence. You can't truly put an end to Violence by being violent in turn, simply put
Disagree, if you let violence defeat you because you think you’re above it you still perpetuate it, maybe in a worse way as you let a killer who kills because they enjoy it go on.
@@tomsnowden6201 don't get me wrong I certainly agree there are times to defend yourself and that would definitely be one of them, but the reason I read into it that way is because of the kids live-and-let-live attitude and the fact that he even attempts to live that way in such a lawless place speaks volumes. Just my interpretation anyway
I disagree with this interpretation; I think the monologue The Judge gives frames that entire situation when he talks about bears that dance and bears that don't; metaphorically he's referring to people who engage with life and participate in the world and make something of themselves, for better or for worse vs those who don't and simply allow themselves to be acted upon -- following through with the metaphor, the Kid (now the Man) had the opportunity to choose to be a participant in the world, be a force of good, leave something positive and make something of himself, be an actor and not allow men like Judge Holden to dance uncontested
But instead he chose not to dance and by choosing not to dance he relinquishes his agency and lets evil fester and proceed unmolested, by doing this, the man surrenders control over his own life and thereafter had no real destiny awaiting him other than death, which is delivered by The Judge with his usual deprave cruelty
It's a tragedy but the lesson there is that we should not let evil men act freely, we should strive to participate in the world in ways that'll leave a positive impact on others and our surroundings for... and at this point it's a cliché quote but it still rings true "the only thing evil needs to win is for good men to do nothing"
@@mrhello7611 I can definitely see that interpretation and you are right that most definitely applies here. It's also one of the things I love about the book as it most definitely highlights its underlying message by the anti-climax of the ending and yet somehow still manages to be rather ambiguous
The Judge is akin to the Savage Garden concept in Anne Rice novels, or, the Shadows in Babylon 5. He really is neither good nor bad as he is beyond that. Kinda like another Chigur character but with greater depth. He is not so much a person as he is a concept, a symbol that the world comes down to two things: The strong and the weak, you are either one or the other and the strong will always destroy the weak, it's human nature. The judge is literally base human nature made manifest. Peace equals stagnation and weakness, conflict equals change and strength.
Had to come here because as much as I love wendigoon I can't do a 5 hour episode explaining
i thought the same thing but i listened to it while taking a long drive the other day and it was worth it
@@dillonlizana3337 yea, I started it thinking I would do it in pieces but I had the spare time so ended up listening to the whole thing. I don't regret it but I it was because the story had me lol I had to know what happened!
5 hour videos is like what Wendi does
@@achilles4655 oh I know and I love them. This one of his I just couldn't get into for some reason though.
Also the kid had a chance to kill the judge, and chose not to.
Very true
And thats the point. It couldve never been that way
@@vinchenzo2502 hhmmm.
@@mmartinisgreat he had no heart of a common assassin
@@vinchenzo2502 the kid knew how depraved the judge was. He chose not to kill him.
This book as well as Cormacs other books have a deep undertone of dark comedy dotted through. I suggest you read it with this in mind.
The man did have a real gift for blacker than pitch humor.
It's not a major error but worth noting that the Judge and the Kid/Man meet again in 1878.
28 years after their last meeting in the jail not 10. Unless I misremember.
You are correct, I believe
This is also the year that federal currency became a thing no more state by state currency, another allusion to the world being closed in and under control
thank you! the content creator, like me must of used shmoop while reading the book, they say ten years later and I was like wait that's not right and just glanced upon your comment
Where’s your pfp from
Dude... excellent analysis. Thank you. I gathered much of what you said in the reading, but I definitely reaped much from listening to your feedback as well. Really appreciate it.
This book is a Timeless Masterpiece!
Great stuff, Benjamin, thanks!
So is this like Old West Berserk?
In a way, yes.
HOLDENNNNNN
Pretty much
I think the reason the judge survives at the end is because he is the spirit of the old way of life and the old way never truly dies. When they come upon the ruins of the Anasazi he states that transition from higher order to lower order civilization is marked by these ruins. and he tells the priest that this will all be again. The hypocrisies and mask of the civilized world will fall and a world of pure barbarism in which the judge is lord will return. In the universe of McCarthy I think this prophecy comes true in The Road.
I think it's really interesting to think of McCarthy's books all existing in the same universe, and in that sense that's a REALLY good analysis of what the Judge said! You really do see similarities in the way the world feels in The Road to how it feels in Blood Meridian. Thanks for the input!
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature No problem. I'm thinking of doing a video on MCarthys work and part of it would look at his works chronologically. Obviously The Road is the end point but I can't decide if Outer Dark or Blood Meridian is the earliest story in the timeline.Thoughts?
@@onepiecefan74 that's a cool idea! I believe outer dark does make mention of cars and other more modern technological concepts at some point, but I could be wrong. I do know blood meridian takes place way back in 1833, so I think it would take some compelling evidence to believe Outer Dark happens any earlier.
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature That's probably true. I will be doing a re read of it.
Well I'm subbed to you, so if you do end up making the video, I'll check it out!
I love the novel and film The Searchers and I can definitely see it as an antithesis to Blood Meridian, wiping away so many of the acceptable tropes of old west stories. It's not like The Searchers is light hearted either. Both the film and novel are classics, the tit for tat genocide between the clashing cultures, but where The Searchers does include a small shred of redemption and hope for the future of America the future in McCarthy is nowhere near as bright or certain to even exist.
I have to thank you. I heard about how great this book was and I found an audio book. It is just easier for me to listen to audio books as I can do two things at once. I enjoyed it but I kept falling asleep whilst I was relaxing at home to it. I didn't know if I should contine as I had listened to so much but felt lost. I have a back catalogue of audio books I want to listen to. I came across your video that made me love the characters and it made me start from the beginning. Ocassionally I would fall asleep because I started listen to it more in my private time but I would rewind and try to follow it more and more. I have just finished the audio book and I have fell in love with this story. I am going to read the actual book. Thank you.
What is also interessing is that sometimes the violence is told in every detail, and sometimes it's just a single sentence as in describing a pure insignificance. Like "at evening they road into a camp of natives and slaughtered them every soul." and that's it.
That ending was a big Jesus H. Christ moment.
I think it is incredibly concise. The sentence structure is long, yes, as a result of McCarthy trying to minimise the use of punctuation, but there is very little wasted in terms of language.
Thank you so much for making this video. I have read the book three times in the last couple weeks and felt dummer after every go around. Each time I would notice things that I previously missed which would creat more questions without answering any.
After listening to this, I understand that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get all the facets of this very complicated novel.
The "Subscribe to Benjamin August' joke is top fucking notch.
Judge Holden, was there the first moment that the first caveman picked up a rock and threw it at another caveman to protect his watering hole or hunting area. Judge Holden was there, he is here. Now. he has been in every war that has ever been And every war that will come from now until the end of time. Because of man's ignorance.❤
Tremendous book. If this interests you at all, get a copy from your library
Homie, I love your videos! If you keep the same style, production value and you start with other books, it would be lovely
This dude knew the youtube metagame 300 years ago. Fine I'm subscribing.
Interesting story, here: Back in 1991-92 I was Peter Wellers, Union, driver on a flick shot near Keswick, Ontario, on Lake Simcoe. As he, his lovely assistant and I were travelling, the hour back to Toronto, every evening, Peter would sit in back and read, out loud, the book he was delving into, at that time. It was 'Blood Meridian'. Great read and great, disturbing, book! I proceeded, over the years, to read everything that Cormac McCarthy had written. Brilliant is the only word I have. Cheers!🍺
The part about making children choose a door that does not harbor wild lions would obviously be a messed up way of raising children, but I think it speaks to a prevalent part of every person's life that they have to face eventually. And that is you never know what lies behind the next door you are going to open in this short life where you only have so many opportunities to get its many aspirations right. Career, love, adventure, etc. One misstep can spell disaster, sometimes not only in the one facet, but potentially all. Career doesn't work out? You're now broke and cannot financially support a family, go on those adventures, or do those hobbies you had planned. First love doesn't work out? You're now past your golden years for experiencing romance and potentially have to support the children of a partner who no longer loves you. Miss out on that one adventure you wanted to do? Too bad, because behind that door could have been the perfect career or partner for you that would finally make this crazy world make a little bit of sense. But once those doors have been chosen. Once those lions have devoured you for blindly waltzing in, there is often no going back. And like the period of the Wild West, your life will never happen again...
I think the Judge's hypothetical child-rearing method came from a place of tough love. He knew the world could be a cruel place that plays cruel jokes on people, and wanted them to be equipped to deal with those at any given moment, while ironically he was one of the people inflicting such cruelty.
The music being played in the background is unbearable.
Yup. Stopped it after 1 minute.
This sounds like some bullshit AI content mill.
Bruh this was made 3 years ago AI isn't the boogeyman, AI isnt hiding under your bed @@SamuelB89
Yall lame
Don’t watch it then lil bro?
@@plupbronso Shave that femboy hair before you even try that lil bro shit lhh
In my view, The judge doesn’t kill the kid, the kid is being instructed by the ageless persona of the judge, the judge has become his conscience. The kid walks out to the outhouse and the judge is behind him and something terrifying happens, and the onlookers are shocked at what they’ve seen, some unexplained yet disturbing desecration of the human form. A Man walks away from the scene…in my view the man is the kid but he’s described now as a man because he is ready to do what he was not earlier able to… which is to accept the side of evil fully and to be himself an evil force and to actively make the decision to exert his will upon the world.
I had the same impression for the ending. What do you make of the little girl that was apart of the circus with the beat who went missing at the end of the book? You think the judge or the man had somthing to do with it? I think the man became just like the judge with a thirst for violence . 🤔
Amazing
What happened to the Mexican juggler? The roadshow preacher knew who the judge was. Did the judge ever take another life himself, with his own hand? We don’t really know what happened to the kid, only imagine. Pure evil works through others and takes no blame himself.
There's a scene where the judge scalps a toddler who he's playing innocently with moments earlier. Glanton almost shoots him for it but holds back. Besides the several other implied murders of children and the kid, there are the apaches he shoots in the volcano sequence.
@@Elcore It's toadvine that almost shoots the judge after he kills/scalps the captive indian boy I'm pretty sure.
@@TA-by9wv You're right, it's Toadvine. Point about the judge killing people himself is the important bit, though.
Love these novel/comic essays.
I feel like the Coen Brothers are the only ones who can do Blood Meridian justice by making it into a movie.
I had the hardest time getting through this book but I really enjoyed it. Even if it had an open to interpretation ending which usually infuriates me
I agreed with a lot of what you said
But saying it will never happen again is kid of false. That evil lives inside all of us. Could always come out.
I just finished the book this morning.
I just finished this book. Enjoyed your video and helped to understand some of the thoughts I couldn’t put into words about the book.
Question. The kid passed up killing the judge several times, and the judge acknowledges this. Is this in a way the judge actually losing because he couldn’t get the kid to be like him?
He says he could have loved the kid like a son, what would that have looked like?
Holden tells him he did love him like a son, I assume because the kid was very violent and a great shot.
He was a pedophile, and right after saying that he would have loved him like a son, he orders him to let him touch The Kid, so..
The mans blood meridian was his meeting with the Judge and the end of the book.
Where did you get the recorded reading from the quote in the book made by the man rambling about machines, absolutely love that guys voice and would love to get my hand on the sound file!✌
Man's name is Richard Poe and the entire book is on TH-cam in 2 parts. The first has an illustration of the Apache attack on the military..I have to look up the uploader though so bear with me.
Uploaded by Sean Rothman on youtube..
Thanks man, your an absolut legend!😄👍
@@thelittleheathenfromSweden NP just finished listening to it a week ago and have replayed it here and there for how gripping it truly is. Peace ✌
I applaud your effort but 2 things.
It was a Comanche war party, not Apaches that wipe out the filibusters.
And, I think to assume the Judge killed The Man is too easy. I think he finally corrupted him. I believe the horrific thing in the jakes was the missing girl (the one with the dancing bear). The Man has finally succumbed to the Judge and has violated and murdered her. The Man is the one pissing outside the jakes that tells the other man that walks up "I wouldn't go in there if I was you". The Judge, vindicated in his mission, Dances, he will never die. The carnal nature and lust for violence in humans will never die.
Yes it was Comanches
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature I love your video though
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature that was just my take on the ending. A few reasons for this... before the end, the Man tries to...engage with a dwarf prostitute but can't perform. Also, the fact that if The Man were raped/ and or killed, this isn't something that would necessarily shock the men of this town, who are used to all sorts of horrors and mind-numbing violence and degradation. The violation and death of a child however.. ?
@@wolfthornnholtzklau4913 I think it's an interesting take, actually. Maybe worthy of doing an in-depth video!
@@BenjaminAugustLiterature that's awesome man! I am not the only one who thought this I can't take full credit, and I know that it's not as accepted as the ending you put forth in your video, which seems to be a common consensus, but I think it's fascinating and it is what I thought on my first read through, and was only reinforced by re-reads and looking at opinions online.
One thing is for sure though, either scenario...the Judge wins in the end!
My friend and I are big Cormac McCarthy fans. He’ll call me and say “So on a scale of Suttree to The Road how you doing today”😂😂
That book is *THE AMERICAN NOVEL!*
Great video. You gained a subscriber.
While I still feel the book dragged on with it’s words and it could have conveyed these themes and messages better, you’ve made me appreciate blood meridian more.
Not a few hours ago I thought that I wasted two weeks reading a difficult tome that didn’t really have much of a purpose or journey. Just repeated scenes of pointless violence.
Glad I could help! And hey, it's still a fair opinion to have if you think it dragged on or was too wordy as well! Nothing wrong with differing opinions
Well even though I felt like The Road had more to say, I still consider this book good. Guess I didn’t see all the subtext before watching your vids man. Happy Holidays btw.
That's fair and I might even agree if I ever do an analysis of The Road, I think. Happy holidays!
you did not understand it and need to read it again because you have a bad take bro
@@hulkamania5071 this is how I know that blood meridian fans are pretentious as fuck. People like this guy always default to “you didn’t understand it, your take is invalid”. That’s a hallmark of a pretentious person pretending to like something. No, the writing style is just plain ugly and obtuse. I do understand it, I don’t enjoy it.
I’m seeing a lot of inspiration that Rockstar took in making Red Dead Redemption 2
The kid did a lot of bad things to children throughout the story, as the book clearly indicates the judge had smaller hands than the kid and the first child who was found had large handprints left on them. The kid, as the man, ends it all after ending the bear and the girl. Judge is not a human. No?
Wow ! That was a VERY general summary of the story at the beginning 😂 SO much context missing. But that’s the point, I know. Just found it funny
what a great review! thank you.
proof that quality does not get a lot of hits on youtube.
the nature of popularity contests, is that, as a form of war, it is somethong that turns content into shit.
Haha thanks for the comment, man. Glad you enjoyed.
“And what are you supposed to come away from the book with?”
Trauma, you are meant to come away with trauma
I am from germany, so to me the aspects of mexican and american history are not so important. I read the noval more philosophical. And there are some enigmas. The judge for example is one of it. You said, that he is such primitive. Yeas he is, and he denies the moral law. Nevertheless he is a judge and in some moments he is not primitive. His clothes are one example. So I ask my self, of which law he is the judge. I suspect, he is the incorporation of natural laws. This is maybe the reason because everything has to exist with his knowledge. This could also be the reason why he kills the man at the end of the book. The man can make no peace or compromise with the law of nature. But this explains not, why he has no hair and small feet and sexual degeneration. This makes him ambivalent. But for sure "blood meridian" is one of the greatest novels of all time. A real masterpiece.
Does anyone see the connection between the judge and anton chigurh
The Judge was at least a literal flesh and blood character. Chigur (at least its strongly implied) that Chigur isn't real. He's an abarituon of the cop's mind. He thinks that by defeating Chigur all evil will go away. It won't, someone else will simply take his place.
The Judge is Sundowner from Metal Gear Rising!
I saw the book as a commentary on subjective and manipulative cruelty.
Really great breakdown bro. One of the best books I've ever read. Tru brutal Americanism. Also read it when i was travlin outwest. Super good and damn, ill but yr book as soon as i get this unemployment
I always thought the ending was trying to explain that even though The Kid moved into the period of america where bloodshed was frowned upon, it can still find you. The Judge will always exist no matter how much society changes, evil people will always exist. I do like the parallel of the merdian being the end, that makes alot more sense.
Don't even need to watch the rest of the video. Just seeing...that thing...is enough to know a lot of people are not going to have a good time.
Very very interesting video, well explained and set out. Thank you so much!
I feel like the point shows that despite the end of the gruesome Wild West, War always was, is and will be here for humanity no matter how primitive or civilized we pretend to be. The Judge being an embodiment of evil or being referenced as being the devil has a dual meaning, as both being war and just plain evil that never sleeps and will never die. IT will always be, even if WE aren’t anymore.
I would also argue that his many references to dusk, evening, and night implies a new coming of day though, where all will be renewed again. You could quite nearly argue that WWI was the next "day" then there was a night of peace, then WWII was the next dawn, with the final solution the next height of man, a new, more deadly form of dancing, where the lead dancer dominates the follower. Then again peace. Then day rises once more with vietnam, and the cycle continues, as while the sun always sets, it always rises once again.
6:01
This quote from the judge makes me think of the way of modern warfare where politicians ordering drone strikes is the norm and man on man combat is absent
1:30 hold on where does it say the kid doesn’t like it? Sure, at the end you can infer he regrets it all however to say that he did it against his will i think is presumptuous. Though you can’t argue the opposite as well, i think it’s more likely if anything and is certainly my headcanon throughout the story. He was prone to violence after all.
Got to five mins and couldnt stand the music anymore
I liked it
@@DominicBednar-ot3fn "yeah nails on chalkboard sound very pleasant"
I subscribed to Benjamin August.
Not surprising that you are a writer. It was pretty apparent while I was listening to you
So he’s sorta Sundowner, he’s a villain who’s straightforward and honest, albeit despicable at that.
don't read another book until you have read BLOOD MERIDIAN... you will be thinking about this book until forever
They should turn this into a graphic novel
The coming of civilization and death of the Old West didn't end the cycle of violence, in truth, with higher population density etc, the occasions of violence that occur in the western states on an annual basis far exceeds the violence committed over the life of a generation back then. Also, the judge laments the coming of a state and the end of a lawless land, however, the opportunities of scale for violence are amplified by the presence of a state, and the wars committed by that state would leave the judge dancing in glee compared to the relatively somber frontier wars of that time. Admittedly, those wars didn't take place in the west, but many men from western territories have fought and continue to fight in battlefields across the world on behalf of the civilization that the judge laments. Perhaps that's why he was undefeated in the end. I suppose I'll have to read the book myself to understand better.
"every explanation video made without my knowledge, is created without my consent"
-Me
Blood Meridian is like reading the book of Judges of the Old Testament. Most people would ask “Why is this here? What’s the point of this book?” All there seems to be is violence and darkness, but that’s the point. It serves as an analysis of the depravity of mankind; a reality we shouldn’t be ignorant of.
I have found the three books I’ve read by McCarthy nothing but horrific and depressing AF. I remember reading The Road and putting it down saying “Jesus! That was miserable”
Felt the same way about Blood Meridian and No Country…. Depressing and fatalistic. I have no idea how this is considered The Great American Novel
Different strokes I guess. Some people love the dark and macabre. Like women who are into murder documentaries. Idk why they like that shit but they like it.
The Road is bleak as hell but it also has a very strong sense of hope in the face of all the misery. There are still people "carrying the fire" even in the twilight of life on earth. His writing certainly isn't for everyone but they are not so cut and dry even among the all encroaching darkness.
Idk how people believe the Bible is something to be taken literally as the word of a diety. When it really is nothing but propaganda for people who lived under occupation.
11:45 you were real smooth with that shameless self advertisement
Never realized how similar some of the themes of this book are to those in red dead 1 and 2. Seems like rockstar did their homework.
Great video. Thank you for the interesting analysis.
I would love blood meridian to get a musical made by the same people behind Hadestown
Thanks for helping me appreciate a book that was so.. mush.
Someone just suggested this to me oh lord I cant wait to sink my teeth into this
Musical companion to Blood Meridian-
Hex: or Printing in the Infernal Method
Listen to it 👂
I have read BM multiple times over 30 years, and it is only as I age do I understand it more and more. No child, teenager, 20 or 30 year old will truly understand what it means. Because the real meaning is - Nothing matters. Life is violent and brief.
I heard the book before but learnt from it from 5 hr wendigoon video. Thanks for the video as I go down a rabbit hole.
I think this may not work live action but as an anime or even video game, this may work