I just got my copy off Amazon last week. After watching some YouTube videos on it, it intrigued me. Some videos crapped on it and said it was poorly written others said it was masterpiece. I am going to start reading it this weekend. I also ordered The Road with it as well which is supposed to be good.
I didn't like it or hate it. The brutality sticks with you for a while and I often times find myself thinking about the judge and how there is true evil in this world and by the grace of God hope not to run into them.
I really really liked Ben Nichols the last pale light in the West which is a little album inspired by the story
Yea , he's just the guy for a project like that. I don't really think he would attempt to tone it down at all and his style would actually work really well for the story. But it also doesn't seem like something that he would do as it isn't his style. Yea it's violent but there's not much humor or fun to be had in that one . Qt is an artist and his movies are fun look great and are mad quotable...but they don't really make you want to sit around by yourself and think wtf did I just take in or make you depressed.
Just so I'm clear here I'm not dissing Tarantino at all. Just doesn't seem like his type story. But I'm sure he'd crush it if he took on the project.
Listened to the audiobook a while back. It was alright. Kinda gimmicky. Not the classic some people make it out to be.
I felt the same way about No Country For Old Men, by the way. The movie is massively better than the audiobook*. Something to think about for anyone saying a Blood Meridian movie can't be made. Any filmmaker in this particular era of film should stay the hell away from it obviously. But down the line, sure. Why not?
*Although the narrator made a couple of funny voices. Carla Jean in particular sounded like something out of a Disney animated movie. So that may have had something to do with it.
Yes, first read in about 10 years, still difficult to comprehend/understand etc but well worth it. Your mind will be working like a poet for a while after.
Last I heard about 10 years ago Tommy Lee Jones owns the movie rights and James Franco was rumored to be interested in helping get it produced, but it would be much more difficult to adapt than The Road or No Country for Old Men due to the sheer amount of material and of course the (I'm serious here) next level violence/brutality.
What is that creep Franco even up to these days? Or Tommy Lee Jones for that matter?
I've seen this talked about a lot but didn't find a thread solely for it. I finished reading it a couple of days ago and I'm still thinking a lot about it. I know it gets a lot of heat for being self important or pretentious, etc. and a lot of criticisms are legit, but I still think it's an amazing novel. Yeah, you have to force your way through parts but it doesn't take away from the powerful and straight up frightening story.
I also disagree with a popular interpretation of the ending.
Most say the kid/man was killed by the Judge at the end. I don't think the kid got raped or killed. He was simply enveloped by the Judge. He was enveloped by evil. I thought the kid finally bought wholesale into evil and was fully overcome by it after resisting. Now he's a Glanton, Davy Brown, Jackson, etc. And might have been the one who took the missing girl after succumbing to the judge/evil. It seems, though, most are totally sure he died, even pro critics, and many think he was raped as well. So now I've been thinking about all the different interpretations.
Some of the other interpretations are interesting. Either way, I loved this book. This is the only thing I've read of McCarthy's though I've watched The Road and No Country for Old Men. I'll probably go ahead and read those. Blood Meridian seems to get a lot of comparisons to Moby Dick which I'm finally gonna actually read next.
So what did you guys think of the novel? How did you interpret the ending and the book?
Blood Meridian is pretty much a postmodern Moby Dick with the main drive being the Gnostic theme and stealing bits of Dostoevsky and Faulkner along the way. Check out the late great Harold Bloom's essays on the novel. He was the last great critic of the Western Canon and has great takes on Melville as well.
One of the most frightening books I have ever read. The evil that men can do never ceases to amaze me. And I think the Judge killed the Kid because the Kid just wasn't over impressed with the Judge and the Judge couldn't handle not being worshiped.
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