Welcome to two guys one book. This week we're talking about Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I picked this book. It's a Brian pick certified fresh. Right? No, I picked this book because I just like Cormac McCarthy. I've read the road and No Country for Old Men and just like his style writing, and brief synopsis of Blood Meridian.
We follow the main protagonist is just called the kid, in his adventures in Texas and Mexico in 18-49 1850, and he gets caught up in a gang called Glanton - is one of the characters, the leader of the gang, and they go around basically hunting for Indian scalps because they get paid for them.
It's just a lot of violence and nonsense and then you meet crazy characters like the judge and other people in Glanton’s gang and then shit happens, Glanton gets killed and then the judge and the kid have a final showdown. So Tim. Yeah what you think of this book?
This was the most graphic book I've ever read in my life. Nothing even comes close. Yeah, why did you make me read this?
I slightly regretted it myself actually. Yes, like I said, I liked the road. I like No Country for Old Men. They weren't my favorite books, but I just like how McCarthy writes. With that being said, I don't know why I picked this book either. Because reading reviews online, it's supposed to be really good, but it left me wanting a lot more. Well, it's on the time like top 100 books or something. Like it's really well-received. For some reason. I think it's overrated. I mean, there are good parts to it and we'll get into that but well, the way I typically read is I start a book and then it takes me a while to get into it. But then once I'm into it, I zip through the second half. This was like the complete inverse of that. I started reading I was really enthralled because we kind of bounced around with the kid in a couple different adventures like he.
As you know, basically a vagabond in Texas, he gets caught up with this Captain White I think was the character's name - and then they get attacked by Apaches and then he's bound he's in jail and then all that leading up to it I found interesting because it's like we were following the kid right as soon as he gets caught up in the Glanton gang.
They just go on and on about their travels across the desert left and right and killing Indians -Apaches are not Apaches or just anybody that comes across their path. And I'm so conflicted because the story…I didn't really care for it because like once he got up with Glanton’s gang. I completely lost interest.
It was the same thing droning on over and over but at times I found McCarthy's prose very, beautiful and actually really well done. So is it solely considered a good book because the writing is good and not so much the story?
That's a good point. I think the language he uses is very interesting and the way he writes sentences in general is definitely unique. But plot-wise this did leave a lot to be desired. It did bother me that it started off following the kid and then just stopped kind of like the whole chunk of the middle of the book, and then it kind of comes back to him towards the end and then it started getting engaging again for me. I got more into the book again. But it's just strange to start off with a character and then just kind of move on to these other just violent scene after a violent scene and all of these. Crazy killings, right?
So all he basically describes is them killing or traveling through the desert. There was Glanton, the kid, and the judge and a few other characters like Toadvine and the ex-priest right? That's it. I mean there was black Jackson. I remember black Jackson to because he was memorable in a few scenes but there was no character development at all. it was just reporting what happened. It was basically one long very well-written newspaper article.
I think it would have been a better book if it just followed the kid because he's like a 16-year-old kid or however old he is and goes and joins these crazy Indian hunters and It's a wild ride, but I don't know why he chose this approach.
But well, you know, this is actually based on true events, right? Yeah Samuel Chamberlain. Yeah the account of riding with a Glanton gang was a real person. The judge was…there's some uncertainty of if the judge was a real person or not. But when the Indians attack them there towards the end and killed Glanton. I was kind of like glad right, you know, like he had it coming a bastard. They all are really, they don't really say like what the kid does as part of the Glanton gang, you know, they do they just talk about the gang as a whole and he talks about Glanton or the judge doing some things individually, but all the violence is kind of perpetuated by the whole gang as a body so we don't know what the kid was all involved with, but I would loved it if there could have been time for conflict - like the kid having a conscious as being part of this group. He could have expanded on that maybe and created more internal monologue of what the kids thinking and to provide some conflict along with that. There is not a good character development and you could argue maybe it's part of his like sparse writing style that you just it's implied.
Yeah, there are moments where you feel like maybe he's showing the kid having compassion and maybe going against the norms of the Glanton gang - but on the whole he kind of was just going along with whatever they're doing.
You make a good point because as I look back on The Road and No Country for Old Men there wasn't really much character development there. And you're right but there was more of a compelling story I felt like.
I agree … I read the road a long time ago, and the interesting thing about his writing is that at the beginning is a little hard to get into because he doesn't really do dialogue with like quotations and like he said and she said it's more just like this long strong on sentence actually like that.
Yeah. I mean that's one thing that I'm drawn in McCarthy is… McCarthy is a perfect example… and I always like using EE Cummings as an example too - of how your English teachers are full of shit, because those two guys don't do capitalization or commas or anything like that Cormac McCarthy doesn't do quotations around what the characters are saying and very little, apostrophes for contractions, but it's still wonderfully written - both McCarthy and cummings and so English has all these rules, just like, Society putting the rules. Okay. No, but from the man, but so that's one thing I always hated with English growing up in school was that it imposed all these rules on you yet there are famous people that don't abide them and that's fine. It's just you got to acknowledge that.
Maybe that's like what sets them apart though. That's one of the things that right like he's the master of the run-on sentence is how I would the thing about this book. I really liked was he wrote it almost like he was talking about it from the mid-1800s.
Yeah. I kind of like that your first couple pages and getting into it was a little. Hard to read them halfway through you're just reading along like it's no big deal.
It bothered me some of the words. He used were just so like obscure that you'd have to get out of dictionary. Like what the hell is that even really?
Yeah. I didn't care that much. I just kept thee context. Oh my god get this book done, gotta keep reading. Don’t try and look out for that word cares what that means. He was just gonna kill the character in the next page anyway. Yeah. All that violence.
It was too much. Did it get to you? Yeah, like I can handle a fair amount of stuff. But like I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody remotely squeamish because, there are times when they would kill children in these terrible ways. I don't even want to repeat the scenes but and it just felt like too much. You can make your point in the book without taking it this far. And I guess another issue I had with this was he would randomly throw in some sort of philosophical point made through one character like the judge or someone like that, and it felt like it was stretching or trying hard to be profound.
I don't know if you agree or disagree, but it just didn't seem to have a strong philosophical message. To warrant all the violence or no plot.
No. I took it as just a bleak view of American History, and I get roped into this all the time because I love Westerns like as movies, but they kind of glamorize the Western past. It was a bleak time. And this was even before the Civil War. So I can't fathom what it was like to live in that era. So, I mean, I guess you could make the argument that he was just showing how the true nature of the wild west and how stark it really was, but he didn't come out right and say like he just left it out there. He didn't balance it with anything like you said, like the judge was a proponent of some philosophical thoughts but at the end the judge was just a crazy character.
Anyway, well, it's interesting you say that. I think you're right that a lot of Western fiction does maybe romanticize the past or oversimplify the dynamics of it. So in this book the main characters are either American or Mexican or Indians, like Native Americans, and at different times they're all acting terribly. Right? So it's not this black-and-white thing where it's like a good versus evil… sort of framing of the whole environment. Compared to a lot of other Western stories. I feel like a lot of other Western stories…there's a definitely a hero and definitely a villain but yeah this one everyone's kind of shitty.
And so you could argue the bleakness is intentional the lack of applaud is intentional but a book like The Road had a bunch of better premise for a story. It's like a father and a son trying to survive and it's like post-apocalyptic world with a Western bend to the tone.
But I think that one thing I enjoyed - the World building that he did in that one. In this one it was just like… a lot of going over the desert and some bushes and all they passed under these trees and saw another charred wagon burning ash, it just seemed a little repetitive and yeah just kind of hard to struggle through the second half
I started out highlighting these parts where he's describing the nature, the mountains and the moon and stuff and like, oh, it's really beautiful. But yeah towards the end. It's like, alright, you've said this in of different way 100 times.
So literally the exact same thing happened to me. I noticed that the quotes that I was highlighting and making. Throughout the whole book. They take a most of them the first half of the book. Because by the time I'm halfway through they almost become repetitive and old. Yeah, I mean, they still might be beautiful but it's like, okay, it's I'm like ready for something else, you know? Yeah. I mean, I can only read so many things about the rising in the East and setting in the West - like I know that already, yeah moving on right? But there's like no real other quotes other than him describing the scenery.
So just to give some context for what this reminded me of you've seen Inglourious Basterds right in Tarantino a little bit. It reminded me of how like Brad Pitt's character Lieutenant Aldo Raine recruiting a small group of soldiers to go get scalps of people Nazis in that scenario. It's a little more clear cut that like, You know these Nazis have the bad guys and we're gonna go get their scalps. But in the same way, it's like the one guy is recruiting, these kind of mercenary soldiers to go kill these Indians, because I guess the Mexican towns wanted to feel safer so yeah, that's a good that's a good point. but Inglorious Basterds was so much more fun.
This could have been a lot more fun of a book. I mean it wasn't going for that but right, it just made like yeah, did you have any little parts within the book that you liked a little story here a little way. He described that or whatnot that he found interesting or captivating probably scattered throughout here and there but towards the end I really liked when it was just him trying to escape the judge. The judge started coming after him because they were kind of stranded and he got injured and I guess they're both trying to survive with these Indians surrounding them.
The judge wanted his pistol, right? Oh, yeah. He wanted the gun, the kid wouldn't give it to him. And that was just really suspenseful series of events and it's just a more interesting story like this. They were fighting together and now they're kind of like opposing each other.
So I was interested in that portion. That's all right. I'll come I'll go back to a few of the other things. I like because I want to expand on that judge and versus because you're right. I guess if you take out all the boring stuff that he talks about the Glanton gang and just focuses on the kid. I like that. That would be a good short story, the stuff of the beginning he goes off of the glanton gang and then at the end the shit hits the fan and the judge in him tracking each other in the desert act on that very captivating. Yes. then I also liked him following the kid as he grew up.
And on the west coast and how he kind of just briefly talked about and bounce around town to town or what not. But then at the very end, he meets the judge again. And what was your interpretation of the end? Do you want to summarize what happens first?
All right. Yes, I'll summarize what happens. Basically the judge has gold any buys Toadvine’s hat and he wants to buy the kid’s gun, but the kid says no because the kid is worried that he's just going to take the gun and shoot him. So I think that's why so the kid and ex-priest book are in the desert and then all of a sudden the judge is out there, after them - so the judge is after the kid and the ex-priest because I think he wants the pistol right? But then the kid and the ex-priest hide. They let the judge go the judge basically shouts out saying I know you're hiding but you can come to your senses and we can work out a deal but then that's last week see the kid goes back to Texas later when he's in middle age or whatever and then he sees the judge at some bar where they're showing a dancing bear on the stage.
Someone shoots the dancing bear, but then the judge and the kid goes back and forth about I don't know. What do they try to get philosophical? Yeah, they try to get philosophical and it's kind of just rambling and you're not really sure what they're talking about, but then eventually the kid then goes.
And sleeps with prostitutes and comes down and goes to the outhouses and then there's the judge there and they say basically like the judge wraps him up. Then that's the last we heard of the kid and then the judge is there dancing on the floor of the bar then later.
And yes, we are led to believe that the he kills the kid. I don't know why he kills the kid. Is it just because like in the desert after the Glanton gang is broken up. I understand he wants the pistol because he wants to defend himself or kill the other guys whatever, I understand the judge wants to pistol but like years later to run into him again…I don't understand the motivation for the judge killing the kid right unless that's just it - there is no motivation. The judge is just a heinous creature one Yeah one interesting part about that is that they describe all of those deaths and graphic detail except the kid at the end.
Yeah, they just kind of, you know, leave it to your imagination, but they do have the people coming to the outhouse next right? Like, is that occupied and someone says I won't go in there and then they open the door. They're like, oh good. God Almighty. Yeah, and so like -I did Google a little bit and that's one thing they said is like the so violent of a book but yet maybe it's the atrocities done to the kid are so brutal that you can't, you know fathom them but like I don't know that seems like a cop-out to me…
It wasn't Cormac McCarthy that said that it was other people analyzing the work and I guess that's my main thing is like when people analyze art in general. I guess I'm going more broad. They seem to presume what the artist was trying to do. Unless the artist actually explicitly says it how can you presume that you know?
Yeah that that's kind of what I'm getting as a cop-out for like, oh we have this whole violent book. But yet the end the kid, he doesn't explain what happened to the kid. Well, I mean do we really need to know what happens to the kid? So I think I understand what you're saying. We can't just assume we understand what the author was going for.
But just to observe that contrast where he describes everything in graphic detail up to that point. It's just interesting to note that he chose that different approach right? So maybe there's a reason to it maybe not it's a little maybe it was because we were following along with the kid ran like all those other atrocities were a little removed because a lot of the times they were just nameless Indians or Americans or Mexicans just being slaughtered right which was gruesome, but we weren't following them. I guess. I mean there were some gruesome moments within the gang but you're right maybe because we're following the kid at the end of the book
To go back to the judge though, it seemed to me with everything is character represented that he was just his symbolic figure in the book representing man's violence and propensity towards terrible things. And a lot of the dialogue throughout the book indicates that. I have quotes to the go into, we usually say that at the end then so I don't know if it doesn't matter.
You remember when he talks throughout just like about war and about how wars are sort of natural and righteous and just so it seems like he's sort of representing man's worst instincts and nature.
Okay, he says at one point “Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the week. Historical loss of births at every turn.” So he's just saying that moral law is just as an arbitrary thing and at their core people are these violent evil creatures.
That's kind of how I interpreted it. Okay. Yeah by that, I mean I guess look at it through that lens then you're right he doesn't need a motive to kill the kid at the end he's just the agent of chaos of human’s violent nature,
He is definitely unique as a character. The way he talked he knew like multiple languages. Yeah. Well, they made him seem like this almost Immortal figure who had lived across generations and knew all these languages. And just to highlight this part of the end, the kid sees them across the bar and he says,
“Watching him across the layered smoke in the yellow light was the judge he was sitting at one of the tables. He wore a round hat with a narrow brim and he was among every kind of man, herder and bullwhacker and drover and freighter and miner and hunter and soldier and peddler and gambler and drifter and drunkard and thief and he was among the dregs of the Earth in beggary a thousand years and he was among the scapegrace scions of Eastern dynasties and in all that Motley assemblage he sat by them and yet alone as if he were some other sort of man entire and he seemed little changed or none and all these years.”
Yeah, you see the devil. I mean, that's another theory…Okay I'd buy that right, and then at the end he's like kind of dancing on the tables and just acting wild right so there's a lot of biblical like imagery in this book and references in general, but I don't know if he's literally representing the devil, or if it's just like I said like Mankind's worse instinct. Like how terrible people can be - because some of the things he did in the book… there's one point where they kidnap like an Indian like an Apache kid, and then they're all just kind of like playing with him by the fire and then he just left with him and killed him for no reason so well look it was basically pedophilia. Here's the pedophile. Yeah the judge. Yeah, so he would have sex with like this Indian kids and then killed him.
Yeah. Yeah, it is but that's like I mean - when you think about the worst things a person can do that's what he's doing in all these situations but he's also like scientifically documenting nature as he goes. He had some line that was like “whatever exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.”
Remember? Kind of weird. I don't know, the more we talk about this, the more I’m on board with him being the devil. I actually kind of like that view, rather then trying to rationalize his actions as a man, or like you said just the thought of violence beyond a man.
He's not just compared to every other character in this book. He's a whole different being whether that's meant to be the devil... He just like I said, all things terrible, but also just the spirit of war and blood and gore - he said one line at one point that was like, “Only that man who was offered up himself entire to the blood of war who has been to the floor of the pit and seen horror in the round and learned at last that it speaks to his inmost heart only that man can dance.” and then he's just starts dancing.
So in terms of interesting characters, I guess we could say the judge very much dwarfs the kid. Yeah, and I was into the dynamic between the judge and the kid as well. But that's why I like the end of the book so much is because it did focus on those two, right and yeah because the kid is almost like the reader's perspective.
I mean a little bit - like he's the one going along this journey and you're kind of following in the line, I guess but during the whole Glanton gang shenanigans, we don't really know what the kid is up to. Well, I wonder if there's a reason for that - like he didn't want us to focus too much on the kid’s atrocities.
Sure. I mean, by not buying not saying what he did along with the gang. Yeah, then at the end we’re more empathetic to the kid. That's true. Yeah, and he is a kid, right? Like he said young teenager. You could argue he's almost forced him this situation. He wrote, parts of the book where it was like the kid pulling an arrow out of someone's leg, one of the other gang members,
Was the kid was supposed to kill one of the injured guys, right didn't he left him there? Yeah, the trying to hire or defend him, but that can't be an accident that like didn't highlight the kids killing as much and then he did highlight those moments. So there was an effort to show some empathy toward them I guess so I would have liked more of an effort or more of glimpse until like I mean, I think he could have showed.
If we - if the reader was to go along with the kid, he could have gone into the kid’s psyche a little more and like showed him conflicted as being part of the Glanton gang. I caught with these guys I would die with on my own out here, but these guys are doing horrible things, just explore that a little bit.
Yeah, but that's his style is like that whole minimalist approach which is like you read between the lines. I guess so but this is maybe too much right? I mean the kid would kill people like he killed guys in a bar and stuff. There's so much violence in general like every time they went to a bar.
You're just like shit's about to hit the fan like people are gonna die. I'm like, I don't think that was an accident either. Bar violence is almost the pinnacle of senseless violence and one person would say the wrong thing and then all these people would die and I think the fact that he kept going back to that type of scene again and again and was just like driving this point home.
So I mean like there were parts of the book I enjoyed that really, the way McCarthy writes is so captivating. some things that come to my mind are the initial Apache attack when he was when the kid is with a Captain White. I think that was great when they basically they disguise themselves as Animals part of the herd or something they jump out and just slaughtered the Americans.
I thought that was fast the way those written was amazing and because there's almost an entire page. That was just one sentence. And yeah, somehow it keeps your attention with this incredibly vivid imagery of these Apaches or whatever coming down the hill and so like you can just picture it. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah and like even some of the violent scenes I felt were captivating like. There were two men named Jackson. There was white Jackson a black Jackson and black Jackson beheads white Jackson, right?
Yeah and that paragraph where he describes the head rolling off and on the ground and blood spurting from the stump of his neck. I just found that captivating for some morbid reason. So like if this book was written by a less talented author, there's no way it would reach the popularity or acclaim that it has.
It's not as highly regarded based solely on the storytelling. based on the story alone. It's based on the author's way with words definitely. It's just is it worth the drain to get through? Yes, like I agree. It took us a while to read other books just because you can't really binge read it.
You're just like, oh Jesus like every other page I like what you put in the website is like “Brian picked this book because he likes to read about people suffering.” Right and when we were recorded half way through the book and I'm like, that's right. Yeah a depressing Western. Yeah, but there was some definitely good spots in there that like they were parts where you're just like wow, that's beautiful sentence.
I don't know how he wrote that and maybe that made it worth reading. I don't know at least it's another book off our list. That's true. And if you want to go over some more stuff that we do quotes. I can start since we just talked about that. He’s coming down the hill.
So the first sentence in that description is that he sees them coming, to the initial troop that the kid is with and the author describes them as “A legion of horribles, hundreds and number half-naked or clad in costumes addict or biblical or wardrobe out of a fever dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners.”
And then he goes on for like ten more line and you're just like it's so well done. Yeah, definitely. And a lot of stuff I was drawn to as well. It was just little things, a sentence there in the middle of him rambling on about something and then stuff like this when he describes just them being out in the desert.
“The shadows of the smallest stones lay like pencil lines across the sand and the shapes of the men and their mounts advanced elongate before them like strands of the night from which they ridden like tentacles to bind them to the darkness yet to come.” Yeah. That's really good. Yeah. I can't think of any author who writes quite like that.
Yeah. I guess that's why I'm drawn to him with The Road and No Country for Old Men. I liked but not loved, I wouldn't say any book of his one of my favorites, but just the way he writes so damn good and engaging, and does it overcome the other…. Yeah, but this book was a struggle the other two.
It was fun to read but this one was a struggle. yeah just to go off of that like a little sentence. He would describe the nature as like. “a thin shell of a moon lay capsized over the jagged peaks,” that's a good little sentence or a quick one, “lightning stood in ragged chains far to the south silent the staccato mountains spoken and blue and baron out of the void.”
Yeah. What was up with all that lightning there was like lightning all the time. That's why I don't know. I felt like every time they were riding for a number of days. There's always lightning rolling down the hill sounded good. Yeah, and then one time when the kid and somebody was stranded in the desert a group of Mexicans came by and they said in broken English the Mexicans were talkin to the kid and they said “when the Lambs is lost in the mountain, he said they is cry. Sometimes come the Mother sometimes the wolf.”
Okay, I like that quote with you going for the well, he's basically the Mexicans basically telling them that when the lamb is lost. It's a metaphor. The lamb is lost in the desert the Lambs gonna cry. Sometimes the mother comes sometimes it's the wolf.
So the Mexican they let them go. That's okay. They basically the warning them that like, if you make a ruckus out here when you're stranded. Okay. You don't know who's gonna come along. Yeah, it's like a parable. Yeah, I like that. Come on Tim. I had to explain that to you?
Come on, honestly, It’s like you were zoning out that I just hit off of it and parts of the book. Yeah. Absolutely. I completely understand. this is one of those books where you can just kind of skim two or three pages and not have that sink in or if you're in another state of mind when reading it stuff can really stick to you and I find it interesting how we you know, I like doing this quote thing where we pick up our favorite parts of the book because.
Whether I'm reading it intently or just kind of my mind tends to wander when I read. Yeah, so if I'm reading a couple pages when my mind is wandering, I'm not going to remember those as much I'm still gonna get the gist of what's going on, but that's why I think it's so fascinating that different people read the same book and it's different things stand out to them take everything away from absolutely. I like hearing your favorite parts because yeah, maybe I missed it or just overlooked it on my first read,
Here’s one about mountains again. “The jagged mountains were pure blue in the dawn and everywhere birds twitter and the sun when it rose cut the moon in the west so that they lay opposite to each other across the earth the sun white-hot and the moon of pale replica as if they were the ends of a common bore beyond whose terminals burned world's past all reckoning.”
Who comes up with shit like that? I'm like, yeah. I see I agree. His language is beautiful. But like there are times when I thought he was also stretching a bit like going overboard. Oh just like you didn't just trying to little too hard. Yeah, he went to that well few too many times.
Yeah. I mean, I loved it. But you gotta like find the balance. Right? Right. I'll do one more and it's kind of a long one…So this is when the kid got separated from the Glanton gang and he's just kind of on his own and I think they had just been attacked or something.
So he's like often the distance and he says talkin about the kid. “He moves North all day and in the long light of the evening. He saw from that high rimland, the collision of armies remote and silent upon the plain below the dark little horses circled and the landscape shifted in the paling light and the mountains beyond brooded and darkening silhouette the distant horsemen rode and parried and a faint drift of smoke passed over them and they moved on up the deepening shade of the valley floor leaving behind them the shapes of mortal men who had lost their lives in that play.He watched all of this past below him mute and ordered and senseless until the war in horsemen were gone in the sudden rush of dark that fell over the desert.”
Yeah, I remember that passage to that was good. I think that was another time when I was captivated is when the kid was by himself.
Yeah trying to catch up to the gang. And yeah, and that was seen it from his perspective. Yeah, but just to like say one more thing about that is it's an interesting view because so much of the book is them having this firsthand warring experience, but in this passage, he's watching it from a distance.
So if you could just picture it just like these two armies clashing and over the horizon and not even knowing like who it is, but just seeing how senses the looks kind of in the zoomed out view thought that was a good sure. Yeah. one I liked was when Glanton's gang passed another gang of Mexicans.
They were peaceful at least they didn't kill him this time. they passed each other and then uh, “And so these parties divided upon that midnight plane each passing back the way the other had come pursuing as all travelers must inversions without end upon other men's journey. That's good. Yeah, and just another part of this book I like I don't there's no quote or anything--but well, I'll read a quote here. It's when I think the kid is getting told a story by somebody how the judge how they came upon the judge and the desert initially they were low on gunpowder and he basically created gunpowder. Do you remember do you remember that part?
Yeah where he followed bats into the cave and got the guano from the bat the bat dung and then mixed it with saltpeter or something and then but then they had to piss in it as well. So the guy's telling the story. We hold for our members and at it we went and the judge on his knees needing the mass with his naked arms and the piss was splashing about and he was crying out to us piss man piss for your very souls.
That's just I mean, yeah the judge is interesting character. I will say that I mean it's just., I wanted to like him more but like you said he's done so many terrible things that I mean, I guess that's this point though. I think that example you read is just how he would sprinkle these moments of levity throughout here and there I don't know if you remember when planting was getting his gun from.
Like an arms dealer type person and so he's trying it out and he just shoots every animal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's like the light I didn't say the quote but it was like and the cat just disappeared shoots a cat he shoots to go and then a Mexican woman comes out of her house and they tell her to go back inside you just picture this crazy guy and shooting everything in sight.
So I feel like that was I mean, it's like ridiculous but not that was funny. Yeah, and I was fascinated. It seemed like the pistols were the main weapon because thinking about this was before the Civil War and so the they still bear what was that called muzzleloading mostly loading rifles right or so like the pistols with the revolving action, you could get five or six rounds off relatively quickly.
It seemed like they at that time he was purchasing. High-powered pistol or revolver? So it seemed like that was the weapon to have which I found interesting. Yeah, I guess I don't know as much about the context of what the most desirable artillery is because you have Native Americans shooting arrows at you, and then there's people would.
Sorry, I think lancers and then there's the rifles and then pistol probably would be the most desirable. Right right and I also did like that part when black Jackson got killed like black Jackson was killed at the ferry that they commandeered and he was the first casualty of the Indian onslaught that eventually broke up the Glanton gang.
I feel like that that whole scene right takes an arrow through the abdomen and then in the groin he's stumbling there and then he gets clubbed. He was like by the river. Yeah. That was well written. Yeah, so I was more than happy to see Glanton and the gang meet their demise. Well, it's weird to have this group of characters who make up so much of the book and then you're so happy when they're getting killed and because it's like you've been following them around and you don't really know him that well like I mean, sometimes he would give a number about how many were in the Gang.
I think I named all the characters, even the remote peripheral ones like Jackson. There were no, I think they were like 20 or something in the gang. Yeah. okay. There was a good number. I just felt like there, as far as he would actually talk about. Yeah, he kept it on purpose nothing.
Yeah. I guess I was just one more thing. I wanted to mention, So remember when just before the kid goes on this whole adventure if you want to call it that down south the reason he's going is because he got in a fight with a Mexican bartender, right? He kills his bartender.
And then this guy the original Captain, hears about this and wants to recruit him to go to Mexico to kill Mexicans, right? Like that's his angle. And so this is just part of the like there's not a lot of dialogue in this book, but this is part of this long section where the captain is trying to convince this kid to go to Mexico.
So he says, “I don't think you're the sort of chap to abandon the land that Americans fought and died for to a foreign power. And mark my word unless Americans act people like you and me who take their country seriously while those mollycoddled in Washington sit on their hind sides unless we act Mexico and I mean the whole of the country will one day fly a European flag Monroe Doctrine or no”
So it's just interesting to see this mindset where you can see it throughout American history.
This kind of like expansionist like, ‘take over territory before another country gets there’. But then this Captain is the one who dies very suddenly and in not a glorious way and the kid even calls him a fool not long after that and regrets ever going along with him. So I think Cormac McCarthy was trying to highlight the flaws of this kind of the expansionist mindset and this kind of mentality cool.
Yeah. I mean through that point I was still engrossed in the book, it was until he got with a Glanton gang. Yeah. Well this launches you into that whole journey, right? You're like well all this crazy stuffs gonna happen, but then it just drags on it gets repetitive.
Yeah, so, all right ratin time. Yeah good. Well, I'm conflicted because. Cormac McCarthy is a great writer, but I'm gonna be harder in my reviews now. I'm this is a 2 out of 5 out of 5. Yeah. Wow, two out of five man. I mean, I had to sit down and make myself read the second half until I got to like you said when the Glanton gang got busted up.
Yeah. It was the kid against the judge that was interesting again, but. Yeah, I gotta be harsher with my reviews is what I've decided, Midnight in the Garden of Evil. Yeah, I don't want to relive that please. I'm gonna be I'm gonna start being harsh with my reviews and I think McCarthy is a great writer.
This is nothing against his legacy or his work. I just think Blood Meridian is a 2 out of 5, I give it 3 out of 5. Okay, I think. The more I sort of chew on this and research theories online, I think about like the judge what her represents…What all the violence might have been trying to highlight.
I see maybe there's more depth to it that I might have overlooked and in addition to the good language and stuff. I still don't love the book. I wouldn't really recommend it to people. It's so violent and hard to read. I agree. I think this has more depth to it than the average novel.
Yes. But plot-wise left a lot. Right right. Not a lot of character development. Yeah. So, sorry Tim read this one, but I'm glad I it was on my list for a while. So I'm glad I got it done. And alright my challenge to you then is to find a better Western. Because that hard come on just like I found myself like I was digging the first half.
Yeah, it was like, a kid going out to Texas and the wild west and all that stuff. So I haven't read many westerns wrong if I don't think any so if you find a good legitimate Western, right? Yeah, we’ll do another Western eventually I think. We're trying to mix it up a lot everytime.
Yeah, so we got plenty of time.. What are we reading? Next? Next book? How to live, a life of Montagne and it's by Sarah Bakewell, this British… I guess philosophy writer and she's just kind of summarizing.
I don't know if summarizes is right word. But like, going through a lot of Montaigne's essays and writings which are pretty famous and extracting the life lessons from them and it's supposed to be good. I'm excited. I feel like I'm too I think you'll be a nice change of pace from Blood Meridian. Yes complete opposite.
Yeah. Blood Meridian is how to die. This is how to live something, refreshing and yeah. Nice to right thanks for listening and go to our website two guys one book your thoughts. Yeah. I mean we're trying to make this a social book club thing. So you can see everything we're going to read in the future and then join her book club and leave comments and then we'll like talk about them in the episodes.
So to everybody who's listening not very yeah all five of you Mom and Dad. Yeah. See you next time next time.