Blood Meridian

[Ian Livingston]

I see fences, division, the ownership illusion and all the doubt sown
within it. Stones are the bones of the earth. A soul in every one. Striking
the fire out of the surfaces of what serves best beneath the skin. Vanity.
All is vanity.

On Sat, Jun 3, 2017 at 11:00 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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=0ahUKEwiMgurEiKPUA
>> hVY6WMKHWMaA2oQ6AEIFTAB#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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