Blood Meridian

Mon Jun 5 15:12:11 CDT 2017

My experience was similar to Mark's when I finished the book the first time i.e.: “THIS is what genius feels like." I was one year in to a 114 month prison sentence, and friend of mine that taught english at a MN university for her entire career, sent me a list of "Time Magazine’s top 100 books of the century,” (or something like that) and told me to let her know if I wanted to read any of them and she’d send them in. I picked Blood Meridian and Gravity’s Rainbow at random, recognizing Cormac, but not even knowing who Pynchon was. She laughed a little when I told her what I wanted and said something like “that will take up some time,” which was obviously the point. After finishing both of them I was in a daze. After using the word “awesome” about 200k times (grew up in 80s-90s) I finally knew what awe felt like. Trying to explain either of the books to the other people in the joint was a little disappointing. I’d enjoyed the style and lyricism of the books that I’d just kind-of let them wash over me (reminiscent of the first time I read Howl) without picking up on how difficult the stories were to follow, so when I tried talking to people about them and they asked what they were about, I was at a loss.. It was like I’d had a religious experience in a world of atheists and had nobody to celebrate with.

My first Strangelove was similar too, except when that happened, I had the video store clerk to talk to. On a side note: The clerks in video rental stores were by far the coolest people I've ever met. Having some guy in a shoebox-sized store hand you a white box for a VHS cassette with “Tetsuo’s The Iron Man” written on it in blue highlighter and say “You NEED to watch this" also falls squarely into the realm of spiritual experience. Those guys were so cool….
> On Jun 5, 2017, at 12:41 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Blood Meridian's ending, that scene with the Judge dancing and the swirling, vertiginous repetition of the prose, is quite possibly the single most viscerally affecting reading experience of my life so far. I had to put the book down and calm myself down the first time I read it, and I remember thinking "THIS is what genius feels like." Kind of like the first time I watched Dr Strangelove and Slim Pickens' bomb-ride simultaneously thrilled and terrified me to the point of coming close to putting me in a medical state of shock.
> 
> Pynchon affects me in similar ways, and I think of his writing as some sort of literary wine that is delicious, but which gets you drunk on a sip, which makes getting through his novels in one go such a challenge.
> 
> I have not read The Orchard Keeper, but I will. Right now, I'm reading Delillo's Zero K. I'm about a third of the way through, and there's a lot to think about, that's for sure... I'll post a review to my blog when I'm done. After that, I'll be reading The Sellout and doing the same.
> 
> Jerky
> 
> On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 11:53 AM, Jade Becker <jbecker13 at georgefox.edu <mailto:jbecker13 at georgefox.edu>> wrote:
> When I finished Blood Meridian, I remember thinking that it had to be one of the most profound (and profoundly unsettling) books I'd encountered. That maybe it held a Moby-Dick-type brilliance. I think it still does, probably.
> 
> I tried to re-read it about a year ago, and found that the brutality, coupled with knowing that McCarthy would, in the last pages, leave us with that image of the dancing Judge ("He says that he will never die"), were too much for me to relive without some not significant mental health repercussions... That last scene is just plain old terrifying.
> 
> I'm curious about The Counselor--I very much enjoyed The Sunset Limited, which was nuanced and totally real feeling, and so I'd like to read more of his plays/screenplays.
> 
> Mark, I also found Outer Dark pretty great. Have you (or anyone else) read The Orchard Keeper? I've attempted it an embarrassing amount of times and haven't gotten through it, despite its brevity.
> 
> On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 8:27 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com <mailto:jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>> wrote:
> I love everything I've read and seen from Cormac McCarthy. His Appalachian Gothic novels (Child of God and Outer Dark) are both easy reads AND rich, complex reading experiences. I thought The Counselor was fantastic and ahead of its time (post True Detective, it wears its darkness well). And of course, The Road... the ultimate fathers and sons heart-stomper.
> 
> But yeah, I think Blood Meridian is his best in so many ways.
> 
> Jerky
> 
> On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 10:25 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com <mailto:richard.romeo at gmail.com>> wrote:
> i'm too old for Blood Meridian, now. I went thru a phase. Suttree sticks with me still
> 
> and yet too young for Pynchon still. my anger breeds ephemeral
> rich 
> 
> On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 10:20 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com <mailto:fqmorris at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Suttree vs Blood Meridian?  Tastes differ, it seems.
> 
> On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 9:15 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com <mailto:richard.romeo at gmail.com>> wrote:
> I would try Suttree, Joseph--a much better book than Blood Meridian (which I highly respect and would recommend but do not love). 
> 
> rich
> 
> On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 12:15 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net <mailto:brook7 at sover.net>> wrote:
> First step to get out of hole, stop digging. First step to cooling down, stop starting fires.  We want the evolution of the species to require the sum total of human genius but what does that mean when so much skill has been developed for burning down the house.
> 
> There is a certain kind of gnosticism that sees this as a hell planet ruled by deception.  In such a world fiends have a supernatural advantage. McCarthy seems to waver between something like that and a kind of grim survivalism. His is a mind I don’t care to visit ever again despite the  visceral prose style.
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> -- 
> 
> Jade Becker
> (530) 518-6859 <tel:(530)%20518-6859>
> George Fox University | Class of 2017
> Writing Consultant, George Fox University Academic Resource Center
> The Crescent, Editor-in-Chief
> 

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