Blood Meridian

[Mark Thibodeau]

Hi Robert! Any deep reader of Cormac McCarthy's is a friend indeed (to
massacre a mixed paraphrase).

Any opinions on the identity of the nameless man pissing by the jakes who
warns the passerby not to enter, only for the passerby not to heed,
whereupon he opens finds the undescribed horror left behind by the Judge
(or was it really the Judge?). I've lately been intrigued by the notion
that "the Judge enfolding the Kid up into his arms" in the jakes was NOT
the physical judge, but a metaphorical one - the evil that allows him (the
Kid) to perform an atrocity (kill the little girl who was afraid of the
bear) and then become the Kid no more, but just some anonymous man (the
pisser).

Whaddaya think?
JERKY

On Sat, Jun 3, 2017 at 10:15 PM, jesse gooch <jlguuch at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wow! Good catch. Neat parallel.
> Thanks for stepping out of the shadows to post it.
>
> On Jun 3, 2017, at 10:05 PM, Robert <reiffert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Does this help?
>
> 20 And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened
> cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so.
>
> 21 Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in
> his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up
> fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then
> the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.
>
> Judges KJV
>
>
> There is some explication here: https://books.google.
> com/books?id=Wk8_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA609&lpg=PA609&dq=strike+
> fire+out+of+the+rock+God&source=bl&ots=Ez1id13G_J&sig=
> y-RKT8dtnG5EFJnkr1_OZbtxbAk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMgurEiKPUAhVY6WMKHWMaA
> 2oQ6AEIFTAB#v=onepage&q=strike%20fire%20out%20of%
> 20the%20rock%20God&f=false
>
>
> Blood Meridian may have been my intro to CM, a long while ago.
>
>
> hmmm - first time posting, long lurking,...
> R. Eiffert
>
> On Jun 3, 2017 5:44 PM, "jesse gooch" <jlguuch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I’ve tried to find some “carrying the fire” thread to follow with the
> “enkindles the stone” sentence, since that shows up in so much of his work,
> leaving/starting the fire for others to carry etc. But I think I’m just
> reaching.
> You’re right, total bastard! Only solution is to read it again next year.
> Perhaps James Franco will be able to get the movie rights and he can
> explain it.
>
> On Jun 3, 2017, at 8:37 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Such a memorable and cryptic ending. I remember taking it as a kind of
> image of The Judge as this terrible eternal fool character leading us
> idiots off into the future. The key word is progress for me - under the
> rubric of reason and science and technological advancement he weaves this
> spell that has mortals bewitched but what he's really doing is as inane as
> digging pointless potholes. The book offers us no alternative it would be
> preferable to follow, either.
> What a bastard!
>
> On 4 Jun 2017 10:27 AM, "jesse gooch" <jlguuch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Just finished rereading Blood Meridian and wondered if anyone had any
>> thoughts on the epilogue. Every time I finish the book I have to read it a
>> few times, shrug, and then accept that it will continue to elude me.
>>
>> "In the dawn there is a man progressing over the plain by means of holes
>> which he is making in the ground. He uses an implement with two handles and
>> he chucks it into the hole and he enkindles the stone in the hole with his
>> steel hole by hole striking the fire out of the rock which God has put
>> there. On the plain behind him are the wanderers in search of bones and
>> those who do not search and they move haltingly in the light like
>> mechanisms whose movements are monitored with escapement and pallet so that
>> they appear restrained by a prudence or reflectiveness which has no inner
>> reality and they cross in their progress one by one that track of holes
>> that runs to the rim of the visible ground and which seems less the pursuit
>> of some continuance than the verification of a principle, a validation of
>> sequence and causality as if each round and perfect hole owed its existence
>> to the one before it there on that prairie upon which are the bones and the
>> gatherers of bones and those who do not gather. He strikes fire in the hole
>> and draws out his steel. Then they all move on again."
>>
>
>
>
>
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