Blood Meridian was better than I could have ever expected. It’s Shakespearean, Odyssean, and honestly biblical in it’s proportion as an American western epic. I wouldn’t even consider it a novel on its own - rather, it’s pure poetry with the length and characteristics of a novel. Every sentence is packed with rich, vivid language and rare words not only appropriate in their places in passages throughout the text, but well-suited to the time period the novel finds itself in. I’m just surprised someone in our lifetime could write at such an elevated level.

@ericsierra-franco7802

Жыл бұрын

Very well stated!

@jeremyhopkins577

Жыл бұрын

Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon is the only other novel I feel this way about, where every line is so rich and sure. Bloom thought very highly of it.

@toi_techno

11 ай бұрын

It's a story about the cruel white savages who tore the heart out of Turtle Island and the peoples who lived there. You can tell McCarthy despises what America is.

i dont think mccarthy likes people to put political meaning behind his books. I remember someone saying that his book 'the road' was a warning about nuclear warfare, and a call for peace. Mccarthy's response was that it was a book about a father who loves his son.

@Laocoon283

Жыл бұрын

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their own peril. It is the spectator, not life, that art really mirrors.

@milesgardner9918

Жыл бұрын

Artist lose the right to interpret their work once it’s published. That is for the readers to do, all the author can do is state what they intended.

@gaseredtune5284

Жыл бұрын

@@milesgardner9918 and bloom's reading here is astoundingly shallow.

@marcomartinez8608

Жыл бұрын

I know I'm responding to a ten year old comment but all art is political. All media is political. Some writers will however resist to say anything concrete about their books lest it become just about that

@gaseredtune5284

Жыл бұрын

@@marcomartinez8608 yes, but if you think blood meridian is about gun control, you have an extremely low view of the book. Blood meridian would be relevant 2 thousand years ago. Before things become political, they are metaphysical and spiritual. Politics is a result of the human heart and if you take a good book to mean "this reinforces my politics" you have decided to reject the most important part of the work, you the reader, your soul.

You've done something silly. You heard someone mention modern politics alongside a discussion of a book you really like and took umbridge with this. But you didn't think it through. Bloom isn't saying McCarthy is writing exclusively in regards to modern politics, he's saying the theme of violence (evidently seen in the book) operates as a jumping point into the American psyche; both past and present. He is affirming what McCarthy says about human nature. Well, one reading of the text.

Blood Meridian and Moby Dick are the two novels that have taken up residence in my brain. I think about them daily and still re-read them. To me they just seem to be perfect literature.

Blood Meridian isn't a judgement or a stance on guns and violence. It's an exploration of violence. It's meant to search deep within the reader about their darkest times, and reflect back. Brilliant novel.

@chubbsub7170

5 жыл бұрын

Totally agree

I think people in this thread are misunderstanding the way Bloom is talking about Blood Meridian and gun control. The morals and themes of Blood Meridian can be applied to America and the gun issues, Blood Meridian is not about gun issues.

@CrowsofAcheron

6 жыл бұрын

You can draw a direct line from the American Right's gun nuttery and the insatiable lust for war as described by the Judge in Blood Meridian. One can look at American politics with an aesthetic eye, and see that Charleton Heston and many other gun advocates are oblivious to the violence they excuse. Literature can and should comment on our times.

@liper13

5 жыл бұрын

@@CrowsofAcheron Weak comment. Blood Meridian has nothing to do with your anti-American politics.

@JuanGomez-zs2le

4 жыл бұрын

I misunderstood it because I can hardly hear him.

@mmartinisgreat

4 жыл бұрын

Acceptance of violence in culture.

@bensagal-morris8072

3 жыл бұрын

@@liper13 Is it anti American to be truthful of America’s history and the horrendous violence it created?

I really think while it is very American it definitely speaks to something in everyone

I was wandering around a bookstore during lunch one day. I saw the title and it drew my eyes. I picked up the book. I bought the book. I began my experience with Cormac McCarthy. I cried. I read it again. I stopped. Just could not finish it the 2nd time.Thank you for this video which I found on this 2nd day of January, 2023

Damn, I've read Blood Meridian almost as many times as Bloom. There are three things I read and re-read constantly. The Complete Montaigne, Runciman's History of the Crusades and Blood Meridian. It is the most powerful thing I have ever read.

@hkchrism

3 жыл бұрын

I am looking into all of these. Thank you.

@tHEdANKcRUSADER

3 жыл бұрын

I to have read this book MANY TIMES. What comes to mind is a quote from Mark Twain “The only bad thing about re reading a great book, is it stops you from reading another”

@nicksinderson3302

Жыл бұрын

I 've read this book 2 times. Once 20 years ago and once a week ago...l am now on read 3 and devouring it faster and getting more from it on this read...

@graham6132

Жыл бұрын

You might want to read more than three books.

@callahan9119

Жыл бұрын

@@graham6132 Work on your comprehension.

Suttree is a masterpiece, All the Pretty Horses is a masterpiece, Outer Dark is a masterpiece, The Road is a masterpiece, Child of God is a masterpiece, Blood Meridian is the masterpiece of American literature.

@chrisallenmax

5 жыл бұрын

timkjazz there were brief moments in outer dark and child of God; and of course Blood Meridian that are some of the most powerful passages I’ve ever read

@leighsimmons2663

4 жыл бұрын

The crossing is another banger. Always felt it was very underrated.

@StudioSerious1

4 жыл бұрын

I dont think The Road is a mastepiece, but I agree with the other novels.

@xbadburnsx6836

3 жыл бұрын

I’m not sure you know what masterpiece means

@TheVCRTimeMachine

3 жыл бұрын

The Road was brilliant until he resorted to a cheap "deus ex machina" resolution. Ruined the entire book for me.

Yes, it is a challenging read. But also rewarding and certainly thought provoking.

The book Blood Meriden delivers the endless chaotic gore that the movie Apocalypse Now promised. In the jungles and and coiling rivers of the Mekong Delta and the Vietnam War, it is the End of reason ( the Doors reference) and the heart of the monsters reaped by the sleep of reason ( Artist Francis Goya reference). The sleep of reason we do not inquire at, but multiplies in our primal fears.

when i read the book. a lot of words i didn’t know, i didn’t bother to look up 98% of the time because i didn’t want to break the rhythm. and i figured with the spanish, the kid doesn’t speak spanish and maybe that’s what was intended just to infer what was said. i figure it would be nice to know spanish. and i remember later keeping words in my head and lookin them up. i think that made for a better read, my first time. the first quarter of it was like what the hell i can’t read but man after awhile i got the rhythm of it and man. i’ll be smokin me a joint and readin it and i’ve never been more immersed in a world. that book has me filleted in two after i finished it just this week.

@MMMM-qg7ln

2 жыл бұрын

I couldnt agree more. It IS a difficult book to start with.

@ireviewshtuff

Жыл бұрын

Sangre de Gomez. Sangre de la gente.

McCarthy is certainly our finest living novelist. I feel he transcends Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

@jonnyhatter35

5 жыл бұрын

he does transcend them. But, is that such a great accomplishment? Hemingway and Fitzgerald are overrated. The real question is, does McCarthy transcend Faulkner. I would say they're on very equal footing.

@mmartinisgreat

4 жыл бұрын

And king

@kevinjboconnor

4 жыл бұрын

I have read All The Pretty Horses. He may be in the company of Hemingway/Fitzgerald, but books like A Farewell to Arms and The Great Gatsby are irrefutable classics.

@alphonseelric5722

4 жыл бұрын

The Pynch!

@leventetakacs1641

4 жыл бұрын

@@alphonseelric5722 indeed McCarthy and Pynchon are equally brilliant

McCarthy didn’t write about current going ons, everything he wrote could have been based anywhere at anytime, downright universal in its application

Well said. I do think Bloom's sudden veering into gun control was a bit awkward. But your general point is completely correct.

@michael7v6

3 жыл бұрын

Liberals love to let you know.

The way this interviewer asks questions if you were to just listen to the audio makes this entire clip sound like an excerpt of some 20 minutes into a traffic stop with Bloom sweet talking his way out of it, and having some success at that

It's been awhile since I read Blood Meridian but I remember being so taken aback by why they were suddenly killing women and children. Then it sort of dawned on me that they were just collecting scalps because they realized the sheriffs would never know or care about the difference between Apache scalps or any one else's. But it was the fact that McCarthy (that I recall) never held our hand and explained that beforehand that made it so chilling. Sometimes it's what you don't write. But I don't think it's an allegory about guns. McCarthy is no pacifist. He seems far more despairing than that. He seems to believe violence is practically encoded in our DNA and there's no getting it out. That, more than the graphic descriptions of people getting their heads bashed in, is what makes the book so disturbing. Bloom seems to have whitewashed away its more unsettling traits.

Thank you for this upload!

Bloom is a rare animal. We'll never see his like again. Watch him while you can, you generation of vipers.

@flamingfleets

9 жыл бұрын

Nemo Cassum You sound like the person everyone actively avoids at dinner parties.

@mercop1472

7 жыл бұрын

Nemo Cassum Could not agree with you more. I have had the honor of speaking with him two or three times. He is the Great Gray Haired Critic of America.

@llamawizard

5 жыл бұрын

Anyone who extrapolates BM to be cannon for the anti gun political movement is either an idiot, or has an agenda, or both if they are gullible enough to convince themselves. It's about the violence inherent to the human condition. If there weren't guns, then it would be swords. If not, then bows and arrows. If not that, then hammers to smash people's brains in, etc.

@andrewmihovich4252

3 жыл бұрын

Why, sir...

@richardravenclaw318

3 жыл бұрын

@@flamingfleets "why do you not flee from the wrath to come?" it's john the baptist talking about jesus. the judge would know this.

I see Blood Meridian as a story about fate. The Kid/The Man must accept his fate at some point or another after running from it throughout the entire story (The Judge). His fate is directly proportional to the life he lived and to the heinous acts he committed and continuously attempted to avoid accepting responsibility for. Maybe that says more about me than what McCarthy intended to convey, but I think that's indicative of great art. It was a difficult book to read, but it was appropriately rewarding to complete it. A bit easier the second read through. Haven't read it a third time yet.

There is nothing above politics? That can be disproved simply by the intense aesthetic admiration of this book by people who have vastly different views on government policy. I believe for the most part that we all want the same thing, but we have great differences about how to get there. This is where we get stuck in terms of politics. And art takes us right through to that place of synergy and mutuality, where all things are possible, if only for a little while.

@womplad9864

Жыл бұрын

Lol I mean it's good if a book can mean anything to anyone but this is a massive stretch I just got linked this for his description of the Judge which is pretty much from the book.

Cormac's only masterpiece.... well I think the majority of his writings could be considered masterpieces to be honest

@andrewreeves9158

5 жыл бұрын

ENiGMA agreed, I think they all are

I get the impression that it is not the attribution of political themes per se which you find objectionable, but politics that run contrary to your own. At any rate, you can't be serious that subjects like the American culture of violence are somehow beneath McCarthy or other great novelists.

I found the vocabulary in this book very challenging.

@Fonzleberry

3 жыл бұрын

The more you read the more extensive your vocabulary will become. Failing that, get a kindle; they have a dictionary function that will allow you to look up those pesky words.

@twomindz79

3 жыл бұрын

It's the lack of punctuation. The 15 sentences with no full stops or commas.

@ross-sound-journal

Жыл бұрын

It is also unsettling.

@mikeoglen6848

5 ай бұрын

What language, in particular, did you find challenging?

Y'all get ready bc the next video in your queue is about to BLOW YOUR MF EAR DRUMS OUT

Blood Meridian is a Gnostic tale. Bloom knows this, given his own Gnostic proclivities.

@zelfa1616

Жыл бұрын

Do elaborate sir! I am interested

@ryanthomas7119

Жыл бұрын

No it's not 😂

Deadwood is the ultimate western. Dexter even tags his dialog.

"Clark, who led last year’s expedition to the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, and UC Berkeley colleague Tim D. White, also said that a re-examination of a 300,000-year-old fossil skull found in the same region earlier showed evidence of having been scalped." -That's at the very beginning of the book. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with guns.

@werohk2926

6 жыл бұрын

Pretend for a minute though that guns aren't a political issue. That quote in the epigraph is the very closest the book comes to suggesting that we have an obsession with weapons, because you can't scalp someone without a weapon. To suggest we are obsessed with knives wouldn't really be making the same argument, because knives have myriad nonviolent uses. That's why I think Bloom uses guns as an example, because they are nothing BUT weapons. The book is an American novel, and since guns are more common and more politicized in America then they are in any other country on the planet, you can't really say that Americans aren't largely attached to being weaponized. Whether or not you believe that being a weaponized culture is healthy is a different argument altogether and is the one where I think political agendas begin to come into play.

@sayerslayer1854

Жыл бұрын

​@@werohk2926 i disagree. Guns don't just end lives, they SAVE lives. Same with knives. They can end lives but their myriad uses also aid in sustaining life.

The comment's obsession with the gun situation in the US, clearly proves his point

@leventetakacs1641

4 жыл бұрын

definetely. yes, Blood Meridian is about the universality of violence (in all cultures, all time periods) but it is also pretty much about the fetishization of gun culture and it's 19th century roots in modern America. That's the whole thing. It's a complex book, it's about a lot of things.

@roneads9421

3 жыл бұрын

@@leventetakacs1641 c. c c. C c c c c c c c c. , , , ,,, a zzz vzzzzzzz of fvzz zvz n.v bbb.bb.bbbnnbbbbbbbbbbbb;b b b bbn in n.v, n.v bnb.

@dallasburns7806

3 жыл бұрын

No it doesn’t.

@nicholasmaxwell9899

3 жыл бұрын

@@leventetakacs1641 Absolutely nothing in the book even insinuates that gun ownership is a concern of any kind. I actually think Mccarthy is either Apolitical or possibly conservative.

@leventetakacs1641

3 жыл бұрын

@@nicholasmaxwell9899 I agree. I am not against gun ownership myself. But you can't deny that the fusion of american imperial ideals and genocide is a major theme of the novel, and the "gun problem" is just a simple symbol of this. Obviously guns in themselves aren't the problem.

I love Blood Meridian, every other western novel feels so watered down once you've red it. It is inherently American.

"...a terrible parable..." Bloom was a poet; he just didn't know it.

Can't hear a word (hardly) even on full volume. :-(

@fergal2424

4 жыл бұрын

pendorran you were deaf as fuck then.

@colonynaut1627

3 жыл бұрын

@@fergal2424 He's not, I have this on the highest setting on an outdoor speaker.

@fergal2424

3 жыл бұрын

@@colonynaut1627 you'd want hearing aids as well then.

@colonynaut1627

3 жыл бұрын

@@fergal2424 What?

@fergal2424

3 жыл бұрын

@@colonynaut1627 what??

being meant for something implies there is some greater force that not only created us but is guiding us as well.

@jameskresl

4 жыл бұрын

Or a thing's characteristics fit so seamlessly into something else's, it can be said that the two things were meant for each other. Somewhat whimsical, but not necessarily implying a lack of free will.

@1995yuda

Жыл бұрын

The name's God.

I have to agree with Bloom, reading the massacre moments, I felt like I wanted to cry.

What does he say after Suttre? Does he mention some other books?

Although I very much respect Harold Bloom & I've listened to his lectures & found much wealth in what he had to say, I find it comical how a man of such high intellect kinda missed the message of Blood Meridian. There's a McCarthy quote I believe from one of his interviews: "There's no such thing as life without bloodshed. I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous." McCarthy's definitely a conservative, he believes in the inevitability of violence as a naturally inextricable facet of human nature & I'm willing to bet he looks down upon, or at least laughs at the misguidedness of establishment liberal-intellectual professors hijacking his art by foolishly tying the message of gun control to Blood Meridian. 😆

@user-ju7ze9to4k

2 жыл бұрын

Very well said. I would have assumed as much about the man.

@1995yuda

Жыл бұрын

@@HellAintHalfFull Well, while I do feel like your memory validates the main comment's take on McCarthy, which I happen to agree with, it's possible McCarthy was asking these questions simply on account of him being a Writer. That's what we do, gather information, and use it.

@mj2495

11 ай бұрын

Gun control is but a bump in the road.

God Bless

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their own peril. It is the spectator, not life, that art really mirrors.

@edmund184 Perhaps because the motor car is not designed to kill people, and abortion has obvious positive societal benefits. This contrasts with firearms, which at best can be excused as useful for self-defense. Also keep in mind that Bloom never said to ban guns, he stated there is a problem with american culture for it's focus on violence and firearms.

I'm so glad he managed to talk about Blood Meridian for 30 seconds before blabbering on and on and on...

It bears the traits of the universal and does concern the heart of man. That violent heart sees itself expressed and enabled far too well in The land of the Free.

Blood Meridian isn't a novel politically decrying the evils of gun ownership; it's a novel exploring violence and its repercussions, not unlike the work of Peckinpah and Tarantino. Read the actual book with real intensity, and then read Blooms work on the Western Canon. Bloom gets consistently gotten dumped on by the SJWs and their School of Resentment. The finest lesson to embrace from Bloom is that good art serves art for the sake of good art. Not political expediency. Art made subservient to politics kills Art.

IMO Blood Meridian is "about" many things and about none of those things specifically. It is not a manifesto. Our efforts to define and explain it intellectually are, in part I suspect, attempts to separate and cauterise ourselves from the actions of its principal protagonists.

Blood Meridian is terrifying, and gripping. You cannot unread it.

Came here to learn more about Blood Meridian. Came away thinking "what would Harold Bloom have said about a recent political leader." )

@Steve-Richter

Жыл бұрын

What a nut case. No indication he would grant any rights to working class republicans.

@moharak

7 ай бұрын

His ridiculous bleating about guns and Bush seem almost quaint and civilized compared to the naked over the top bile spewed by the left of late. Justbas whiny and ridiculous though.

The best book he wrote is Suttree. If Blood meridian is a string quartet, Suttree is an entire orchestra symphony.

Just want to give my two cents on the comments here. I have a first-class BA in literature from a top-10 university, so I'm not 'up there' but I am capable of critical thinking and chipping in with a point. For a start, why is everyone getting so butthurt? The whole point of an intellectual discussion is you discuss. You might not like Harold Bloom but he is the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale and he is considered to be amongst the most prominent critics of the 20th century. So, you know, respect that. He might actually know what he's talking about. If you don't like his point, ask yourself 'why' and then explain yourselves with intelligence and without throwing insults. Frankly, the discussion below is unworthy of Cormac McCarthy. If you want my two cents, this book is not an evaluation of America's obsession with firearms. To me, it reads a lot more like a race analogy and an exploration of man's obsession with war, violence etc. I do think it is written to be mirrored against a modern society. Is it any wonder that we have such turmoil? Such inequalities? When the time that preceded us was so devoid of compassion and so steeped in violence. "Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.”

@1995yuda

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for writing a sensible comment in this madhouse. God bless you.

@mj2495

11 ай бұрын

We (as homo sapiens) have two close relatives. One, Pan troglodytes, is murderous and warlike. Another, Pan paniscus is also very like mankind too, but in a different way, with an exaggerated sexual way of life. When these stories are related, take them for what they are. Interesting perhaps, compelling and lyrical too. No relation to such minutiae as whether you can or not own firearms.

Without insulting this person, who so richly deserves it, I would state that by viewing forms of art through a pre-set political or idealogical lens filter, one does a great disservice to art in its broad sense. Art gives to us, not the other way around.

@1995yuda

Жыл бұрын

While your comment is absolutely truthful you should leave an open space for such explorations, there's no point in forcing people to view or interpret art correctly, the process is as important as the goal. The mysticism of interpretation, the possibilities, is what draws people in. That is why authors leave clues. Bloom is not unaware of your position and its merit, he knowingly applies different lenses to Literature and believe me - you'll thank him for that once you read his stuff, even when you disagree.

@Pointsman190 haha "useful for self-defense." It sounds to me like you are making light of something which is not something to be made light of, as self-defense, which can be life-or-death in some situations, seems far more important to me than "societal benefits."

The road side preacher in the tent on that rainy day was correct.

@lotharlamurtra7924

3 жыл бұрын

Indeed. But they don't listen, they don't care. And one of them dies in a fight some hours later.

I find I very much like Professor Bloom, but recording and audio quality is very bad.

Obedience

Bloom leaves out many more villains as he describes the modern day manifestation of the judge. Are we besieged by only the mcveigh's, the Idaho posses, and school attackers in modern day America?

R.I.P

Why is the volume so low on this thing? I had to go to the earbuds for this.

The introduction to my copy of Blood Meridian is by Bloom. He makes a couple of mistakes. Sometimes I wonder if these reviewers actually read the books.

Poor ol’ Bloom, I’ll quote Sargeant Hartman: “the weapon is only a tool, it’s the cold heart that kills”

Also, one step closer to not having to worry about thugs.

You just said,"American is not gun crazy". How many gun related deaths, a year, would you consider a fucking problem?

I think Blood Meridian's a great novel, but I don't understand the elevated comparisons to Melville. Melville's language is dense and opaque, whereas in Blood Meridian it's pretty straight forward (not to mention Moby Dick didn't speak Dutch). I'd say it's closer (if anything) to a spiritual sequel to Frankenstein, where the Monster is well-articulated and describes his descent into anti-societal murder through poetic allusions to Prometheus Unbound. It's Miltonian in a sense, where the character Satan is evil yet is so eloquent he makes it sound somewhat alluring. But, saying it's beyond Faulkner etc. misses the mark.

man Harold Bloom really triggers the psued's

What was he talking about w the people in Idaho? The racists or FBI standoff?

Yes, this is all about gun laws this book, of course. Of course it's political.

gaaa the sound!

“a terrible parable,” - Politikz

>Recent Mason & Dixon :(

Unwatchable due to audio.

Your here for the dance.

Jesus Christ where is the volume.

10 YEARSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

His placement of this book undermines every other judgment.

Blood Merridian is set in America. It is not about America. It is about the heart of man. It has many parallels with Moby Dick and Heart of Darkness.

5:10

there's nothing worse than when someone takes another's piece of art and fabricates a meaning that suits their own beliefs

what if emmitt till had an ar15

You guys are all full of crap. Harold Bloom is a man who has read and has opinions. You don’t have to agree with him, he wouldn’t care anyways.

Politics is always part of writing; but not in terms of dems vs reps. To say that Bloom is talking about dems vs reps is like saying that the story of Adam and Eve is about the perils of eating naked. Talk about missing the point completely.

And 10 years on it only gets worse

Well said.

@cbiz16 I would just like to specify and say that in my original comment, I never said anything that would point to the idea that self-defense is not a legitimate concern, I was merely implying that the argument that guns should only be made illegal if abortion is is a poor argument. And the idea that I was "making light" of self-defense by saying that guns aren't as productive to society as abortion makes no sense: one helps millions of women, the other helps fight the crime it creates.

Love it! I am in complete agreement

Bloom's failed attempts to read Blood Meridian makes a lot of sense in context with his emphasis on guns. He seems to refuse to accept humans' ever-present potential for violence. For me, Blood Meridian revealed how fragile civilization is. Removing consequences was enough to unleash mass, ruthless violence. That lesson is usually an argument for responsible, defensive gun ownership. Political demagoguery is another. Americans are probably more violent and more obsessed with guns because we're the descendants of people who chose or were forced to brave violence and the unknown. That's how we got and remained here.

@finze1

3 жыл бұрын

Failed attempts to read? And you're a world-class scholar, are you?

@MMMM-qg7ln

2 жыл бұрын

This commnt is so absurd.

@thellewelynmoss

2 жыл бұрын

@@finze1 He says in the beginning that he failed two times. As did I

I just want to know what necessary violence you think occurred in blood meridian.

I assume he's talking about W around the 8 minute mark, but in hindsight Bush was an avid reader as I recall

@spirovallis7936

6 ай бұрын

really!! avid,no less Who would have thunk it.

In America we always start with the assumption that the brutes are guns. So we let those who live according to the dictates of reason to have guns so we are a nation of reason rather than a nation of brutes.

Holy Shit. Cormac McCarthy’s insomnia is dead! He awaited the approbation of a talentless Critic in vain for Decades; now he may fade into arms of Morpheus knowing H. B.’s Opinions and when he formed them. Blessèd be the Proles!

Please tell me you are watching this in 2018.

@jonnyhatter35

5 жыл бұрын

2019!

@kieranmatiz

4 жыл бұрын

2020 in a couple weeks

@MilesWilliams88

2 жыл бұрын

@@kieranmatiz "2020 in a couple weeks." The good old days! Haha. What a shit year that turned out to be.

The best American novel of the 20th century, at least the last half of the 20th, in my humble statement of objective fact

@1995yuda

Жыл бұрын

lol. do provide a worthy analysis to demonstrate your objective opinion.

Cormac McCarthy said himself Blood Meridian isn't about "good guys vs. bad guys."

@Earbly

6 жыл бұрын

Lol there are no good guys. There are glimmers of empathy and good nature in the kid, which is possibly why the Judge saw in him a threat. Because The Judge wanted to be suzerain of the earth, and the kid showing these traits is a threat to that vision. It is a far more realistic and morally complex novel then "good vs bad". But where did McCarthy say this? He rarely does any interview and the only one I've seen where he talks about Blood Meridian at all is the Oprah interview which was a huge disappointment. But it was cool to see Cormac talk about some things, even though Oprah was so obviously lying about reading Blood Meridian. Honestly her show just caters to far too family friendly and easy-thinking crowd that you can't really do a deep and probing interview with someone like Cormac

Blood Meridian is to the novel as what The Thin Red Line is to cinema. Both haunting, profound and earth-shatteringly beautiful meditations on the endless nature of human violence and world domination. If you think they’re aimed at mere “gun control and such violence” musings you are deeply, DEEPLY mistaken...

@fabiancalderon6729

3 жыл бұрын

War bad

pools don't have intent

Thats one weird old cook

Crazy not to have guns.

Harold Bloom makes me like Blood Meridian less

To read this book as a radical left-wing tome on the evils of guns is laughable drivel from America's worst literary critic. The author had no such intention. Indeed, all of his works are infused with violence and he accepts it as part of the human condition. Blood Meridian is a phenomenal work of historical fiction based on real events with some intriguing stylizations. Judge Holden was a real character based on Samuel Chamberlain's memoir My Confession. His triumph in the novel can be seen as nihilistic but speculating that he represents gun violence in America is sheer madness. There's absolutely no underlying political message in this book and we are grateful for it.

@professorbland

10 жыл бұрын

i laughed out loud when he said that.

@Blaze936

10 жыл бұрын

Thank you for writing this. Bloom is a disgusting, gluttonous sloth.

@adoser93

10 жыл бұрын

I think Bloom would agree with your assessment. This is Bloom's response to reading Blood Meridian as anti-imperialist: "I think that’s too simplistic an understanding of McCarthy...I don’t think McCarthy was interested, at least at that point in his career, in moral judgments, any more than Melville was involved in moral judgments or Faulkner was involved in moral judgments-at least until he got soft later on and produced a beastly book like A Fable. The kind of apocalyptic moral judgments made in No Country For Old Men represents, I think, a sort of falling away on McCarthy’s part. Blood Meridian is too grand for that." I think he was just tying what he saw in Blood Meridian into his political beliefs, not claiming the book is political. The man has built his career fighting against the politicization of literature.

@noahcuriel3018

10 жыл бұрын

No matter what device we have, human nature has a part in the brain of aggression and we kill each other with any devices we can use. Axes, swords, poison gas, bombs, bow and arrow, and probably laser cannons and plasma bombs in the future. To say BM is a critique of gun violence would so myopic that has some of grandest scale of exploring the human mind and condition like other masterpieces like Ulysses or Beloved.

@ronaldmccorkle

10 жыл бұрын

Bloom is being consistent. Of course Blood Meridian is about the violent and aggressive nature of man. Bloom explains elsewhere that the author does not bring pat moral judgments to the table here. This is not a didactic work of fiction. In fact it is just this that makes it so "terrible" (as in evoking terror not as an aesthetic judgment). That we have page after page of extreme violence presented so soberly, so matter of fact, adds to our unease and leaves us room to reflect. Is the violent nature of man an absolute? If so what good is it to fight it? Any? How do we react here? Is there an imperative made recognizable by our reaction to the terror on the page or is it futile? I suppose that if our reaction is as Bloom's, as his characterization of the book as "terrible" suggests, then we can either say we disdain violence of the sort and ought to act to stop it or that we disdain it and do not believe gun control is a way to stop or diminish it. We can disagree with Bloom but he is not being inconsistent and he is not saying the book is written as propaganda for the gun control cause.

Yes we do. What do you want me to do? Apologize for what people that lived in my country did before I was alive or my family had immigrated? Lol.

@Jharrycornelius

5 жыл бұрын

Andrew should germans not pay for the holocaust?

Gun nuts really can't handle even a slight criticism.

@agnewrt

9 жыл бұрын

Blood Meridian nuts can't handle appallingly incorrect and banal analysis from someone who knows better. We didn't come here to watch a fat slob contort literature to promote his political beliefs.

@floppykid

9 жыл бұрын

Phew, you are angry. Head down to the range man, let off a few clips, pretend the target is Harold Bloom. You guys like that yeah?

@suttree3233

3 жыл бұрын

@Exodus yeah, u say that, and yet the only people you ever see retaliating when the government oversteps its bounds are leftists

@finze1

3 жыл бұрын

@Exodus PFFFFT. Hello, European here. That, ugh, never happens? How many times have you actually been to our lovely, democratic continent? America is slipping behind world standards in civil liberty this year. Back in the 70's/80's, we all looked to America as an example of the highest standards in art, culture, democracy but it's seriously a world away from that now.

Does Blood Meridian compare to Gravity's Rainbow or Sabbath's Theater? I'd say not quite.

Of course he misses the entire point of the book. Just as he missed the point of Shakespeare.