u/Dramatic_Archer_1861

Anyone seen them for sale at any store around town? I have seen them at Walgreens and Target in years past.

I just read this part again and I’d like to share what I think it means to me. Y’all can share what you think and tell me if I’m way off or whatever. Btw I’m new to McCarthys writing so it’s pretty dense for me but I’d still like to try and break it down.

“He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to him. He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at every hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should cease. He'd long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men's destinies are given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he'd drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he'd ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them.”

So I will make the foolish choice of trying to simplify this as much as possible in order to understand it. I don’t want to be looking every word up but it says that if he saw portents in the fire it was much the same to him. So I take that as, if he saw any kind of special thing in the fire at this point it doesn’t make much of a difference to him. I think the rest of it is saying that he’s lived live to beyond the fullest and he doesn’t care for consequences anymore, and sort of like there’s no mystery to the universe for him anymore, he’s made his choices and now it doesn’t even matter if he lives or dies, whatever happens happens. It also says he’ll drive the sun to its final endarkenment, which to me means he’s set on a path of darkness or destruction and also maybe at one point he had a destiny but he’s taken his agency or like I don’t know, been selfish and not given an eff so he’s beyond any kind of redemption or something. Idk it’s pretty heavy. And it makes me think of when he sat his horse looking towards where his wife and child were but he turned back.

“They rose and began to saddle the horses. Glanton fetched down a quiver made from ocelot skin and counted out the arrows in it so that there was one for each man and he tore a piece of red flannel into strips and tied these about the footings of four of the shafts and then replaced the counted arrows into the quiver.
He sat on the ground with the quiver upright between his knees while the company filed past. When the kid selected among the shafts to draw one he saw the judge watching him and he paused. He looked at Glanton. He let go the arrow he'd chosen and sorted out another and drew that one. It carried the red tassel. He looked at the judge again and the judge was not watching and he moved on and took his place with Tate and Webster. They were joined finally by a man named Harlan from Texas who had drawn the last arrow and the four of them stood together while the rest saddled their horses and led them out.”

What is the reason he doesn’t take the arrow when he notices the Judge was watching him? And why does the kid look at Glanton? I imagine this is the same as drawing straws and whoever got the tassel is to stay behind.

Anyone else hearing this right now? Must be a chase.