When you want to deepen your understanding of a text, where do you go? I know that academics will write books, essays, monographs, etc. analyzing books and providing interpretation and context. Where can I find a bibliography of these to read?
A while ago I made a post inquiring about the difficulty of Blood Meridian and whether it would be worth it to read another McCarthy first or whether I could jump right in, since I'm pretty new to literature, let alone challenging stuff like Blood Meridian. I really appreciate all the responses I got. This seems like a cool community. I decided to go for it, and if I got bored of it I would take a break and read The Road or something.
Thankfully, it clicked pretty much instantaneously. By the massacre of Captain White and his crew, I was already completely engrossed in McCarthy's language and his beautiful descriptions of landscape. One thing I will note is that the book is fucking hard. If I remember correctly, there were a few comments under my last post that said it's not as difficult as its reputation suggests, and I'm sure that's true for them, but it wasn't true for me, probably because I've not acquainted to books like these. The prose is so dense, the sentence structures can be very complex, the sentences themselves can be extremely long-winded, everything is steeped in figurative language, and it's filled with so many archaic and obscure words that test even the limits of the dictionary's knowledge. I found it frustrating to read at times and I essentially slowed to a crawl, but I never felt like quitting because everything was so immaculately written. It's so relentlessly bleak that I found myself able to only read about 15 pages a day without it consuming my mood for the rest of the day. I think that's the most difficult part about it. The whole thing just brings on a sort of dread and such a primal discomfort and disgust in humanity. One thing people talk about that I do think is overplayed is the lack of quotation marks. It really wasn't an issue. It's almost always pretty easy to tell when someone is talking and who is talking. a better understanding of the themes you start to realize that every little detail has meaning. He doesn't just reveal Bathcat's death a few chapters early because it's an unconventional thing to do, he does it to support the novel's theme of the unchangeable nature of fate and destiny.
I haven't read any literary criticism of it yet and I tried to stay away from outside sources as much as I could while reading it (I wasn't perfect) so my analysis of the themes and the meaning of it all is probably incomplete, but this is what I got from it on a first read. I know there's debate about whether the judge is supernatural, the devil himself, or just a person, but he's definitely a devil-like figure that represents the worst possible evil that the world and humanity has within them. He feels no remorse and rationalizes every cruel thing he does as the way the world/humanity is. The other characters are all more human. The kid, Toadvine, and Tobin all have human moments of remorse and empathy, however few they might be, throughout the story. But they essentially trust that since the judge is smarter than them and they can't really understand his speeches, he must be right that what they are doing is okay. It's hard to verify that this is the case because there's not really any interiority (which I'll get to in a second), but that seemed like that's the way it was to me. The characters can be uncomfortably human that you can almost see yourself in them in a way. It makes you think about, if you were in the kid's position in his same exact circumstances, would you do the same? They feel more human but that doesn't make them "better". It's a crushing realization that even at their most human, they are just as despicable and capable of violence as the judge at his worst. The way they felt about it won't matter in the history books. It won't matter when they're gone. That's why, in my opinion, there's no interiority. If there's no evidence something existed, it really didn't matter. It's a very uncomfortable exploration of humanity's relationship with violence and with war.
There's so much more that's interesting to me that I could say about it (the ending and the idea that war and knowledge come from the same desire to control in humanity are two I've been thinking about a lot) but I think that's all I feel like I wanna say at the moment. Thank you all so much for encouraging me to read this masterpiece that I will definitely read again many times in the future! I've heard there are many allusions to Moby-Dick and Paradise Lost within it and I haven't read those, so maybe I will and come back to Blood Meridian afterward and see how my thoughts have changed. Which Cormac McCarthy book should I read next? I'm interested in Suttree, though maybe I'll read a different one first because I've heard that one is quite the challenge as well. I know there are far more challenging books out there but I'm proud of myself for finishing Blood Meridian. Other famously difficult works of literature that I want to read feel more approachable now that I've read one. Using the word "difficult" doesn't feel right anymore because I did enjoy reading it and learning new words and sifting through sentences trying to make sense of them. I also feel like my comprehension of this one is exponentially better than it is for most books because it forced me to slow down. Anyway, I'm open to any suggestions. What are your interpretations of Blood Meridian?
Hello! I'm not that big of a reader generally, I was really into it as a kid and then I didn't read anything for pleasure throughout all of high school (I graduate soon). Two weeks ago, I decided I wanted to pick it back up for a few reasons, mostly because I was disappointed in myself for abandoning it. I read The Old Man and the Sea, which while good, didn't rekindle that flame like I wanted it to, so I then read Jane Eyre and loved it. That experience encouraged me want to read more, so I asked my English teacher who I frequently talk to about movies for recommendations and he said one of his favourite novels was Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Like I said, not too big a reader, so I had never heard of it before but apparently it has quite a reputation for being challenging and difficult. That being said, everything I've heard about the book (on top of my English teacher's recommendation) piques my curiosity greatly and I'm really excited to read it. As I'm sure you're all very well-acquainted with the novel, I wanted to ask about how challenging it really is? Will I be good to dive into it if I'm patient with it or should I read another McCarthy first? If so, which one? Part of me is intimidated by it, but part of me also wants to prove I can handle a really challenging book so that a whole new world of challenging literature is open to me. Sorry if this gets asked a lot, but I'm sure you'll take any chance you can get to introduce someone to your favourite author.