tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post3116428713039788985..comments2024-03-14T18:09:09.667-05:00Comments on Do Some Damage: Blood Meridian, Or, What Is That Ending?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-32311800870155955092023-11-24T18:10:17.665-05:002023-11-24T18:10:17.665-05:00I didn't like the book and it's overly com...I didn't like the book and it's overly complicated language. The ambiguous ending was a disappointment. I won't read it again. I read a difficult book from time to time and this was one. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-65064944977252782922023-09-04T21:40:39.450-05:002023-09-04T21:40:39.450-05:00Can't shake the fact that the kid could have k...Can't shake the fact that the kid could have killed the Judge (not once, but several times) -- but didn't, wouldn't, or couldn't. Also, at the end, the dancing wasn't a celebration but rather a ritual (includes blood letting, a war). I think the kid succumbs to his fate, which was to be ritualistically murdered by the Judge as a sacrifice to spurn the possibility of the judge's immortality.<br />RBLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07966056928404033722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-34323874705718431742023-09-01T21:59:52.148-05:002023-09-01T21:59:52.148-05:00the check for 2 cents is in the mail: Blood Merid...the check for 2 cents is in the mail: Blood Meridian narrates how the land from Appalachia to Pacific Coast was taken by the European settlers - brutally, murderously, ferally - the ending denotes the shift that must take place - but the kid is still in feral mode and doesn't fit in with the new reality of saloon culture which heralds the establishment of American civilization - prostitution, alcohol, hedonistic pleasaures, cities, filled with happy people dancing not fighting, the type of people who are disgusted not excited by seeing a dead disfigured corpse in a bathroom stall. The judge has known this all along and led the conquest of the natives and in the last page of the book, leads the transition across the meridian to start the modern american state - which requires killing off the old vicious soldiers (including finally the kid) so a more genteel society can thrive and dance naked. There is no place for the kid and his kind in this new world, so he is snuffed out in a brutal murder with a weaponized piece of metal hardware from the bathroom door by the judge - who is then glad to move on with this American life ! In many ways it is a constant mirror - we create feral killers to perform violence on those we subjugate, but then we must reign those killers in so we can enjoy life ( and the conquests) for a while.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-81789308780128787982023-06-20T20:38:58.760-05:002023-06-20T20:38:58.760-05:00McCarthy was a well read man, in many ways, as wel...McCarthy was a well read man, in many ways, as well as biblically. The judge is represented as the devil himself, acknowledging God, (even quoting scripture on several instances) but not an authority above himself. The judge is God in his own eyes. The ragged, violent gang are all examples of man’s depravity, which takes after the devil himself. The men were gods (judges) in their behavior. Doing as they wanted, when they wanted, not caring or considering consequences, absolute right or wrong(Gods judgement). Just as the judge. The judge reveled in violence and debauchery, as did the entire band of scalp hunters, save the kid and Tobin. Hence the conflict between the judge and those two. <br /><br />The judge killed no member of the gang, except for the two (shot the ex-priest, wounding him) who acknowledged right and wrong behavior. Therefore the kid and ex priest questioned the judges authority, unlike the other members who walked in their darkened depraved minds not knowing they were fulfilling the will of the judge. Any man that has read the Bible through sees the devil in this writing. <br /><br />As far as the ending, the judge killed the kid in the outhouse, possibly sodomizing him. The judge also killed the girl, along with several other children. His taste for the darkest and worst sins is a hunger that cannot be filled. In my humble opinion, this book shows the dangers, and destruction of living amongst the depraved, and specifically, abiding with their master. The kid has a few opportunities to kill the judge, as did Tobin, but neither destroyed the evil force reckoning so much havoc and blood. The judge was the harbinger of their perdition. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-15485109950478179292023-02-19T06:32:12.010-05:002023-02-19T06:32:12.010-05:00I feel the judge kills the kid at the end, snaps h...I feel the judge kills the kid at the end, snaps his neck as he easily did previously. Maybe the horror the men see when they open the door to the jake is the kids blood from the judge mutilating the body. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-86617666259928120822022-12-05T23:54:27.838-05:002022-12-05T23:54:27.838-05:00What about the part where he finds the judge naked...What about the part where he finds the judge naked in the tent with an 11 year old girl and the idiot both also naked? To me implying the judge is a deviant of sorts? I do appreciate your insightful take on the book and will probably have to read it again to fully get it. But i kinda feel like all the characters that go “missing” throughout the book were probably the judge’s victims and that ultimately he does something gruesomely horrible to the kid. This author sort of leaves it up to the reader to interpret tho so no one iS right or wrong. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-78752917949397421872022-10-30T18:29:15.697-05:002022-10-30T18:29:15.697-05:00The notion that Holden isn't real kind of irks...The notion that Holden isn't real kind of irks me. He is clearly real and part of that universe. When he indictes the preacher he is fortelling the crimes of the kid including the rape of Bear girl (I think). He also has at least some supernatural quality , he isn't doing parlor tricks with the coin, I dont know what he was doing but he wasn't doing a cheap trick. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-43472445315162629632022-10-09T19:00:45.415-05:002022-10-09T19:00:45.415-05:00Bro that is so far off. The kid ran with people wh...Bro that is so far off. The kid ran with people who smashed babies against a rock and never left them until they were all dead. He is as bad as all the others. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-6653324779161873992022-05-26T12:38:00.863-05:002022-05-26T12:38:00.863-05:00The kid is the only uncorrupted being in this book...The kid is the only uncorrupted being in this book. He values life. The Judge (a representative of chaos and meaninglessness) is at odds with the kid. It’s the Judge’s goal to snuff out Life, not just the physical aspect of life (their are many “Glantons” around for that job), but the hope that is Life. The kid doesn’t want to give that up as represented in his conflict with the young teenager. He wants to live even after seeing and doing the worst of the worst unto to his fellow beings, he wants to live and will not let anyone take it from him. He is Hope. What he sees in the outhouse is the most cruel act committed by the Judge upon the young girl. It is my belief that the kid killed himself. He had seen too much and had no hope left. Blood Meridian is the hardest book I’ve ever read. Not only in the style with which it written, but the content. It makes want to hug my family. It makes me cry.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-74194381482962052482022-01-23T21:56:35.337-05:002022-01-23T21:56:35.337-05:00Agreed. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to arrive at...Agreed. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to arrive at a simple conclusion. Like The red writing in Kutz’s notes. What’s enticing about this story isn’t just the capacity to tap into feral nature. It’s cultivating freedom from all opinions, especially one’s ownElan Freudenthalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04635809980339240867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-57135158738781089112022-01-23T17:24:43.652-05:002022-01-23T17:24:43.652-05:00Interesting... but I don’t want to believe the Kid...Interesting... but I don’t want to believe the Kid gets corrupted. Which makes this theory all the more likely Elan Freudenthalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04635809980339240867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-21978028446043498142022-01-09T03:11:00.777-05:002022-01-09T03:11:00.777-05:00Not meantioned in this summary of the books conclu...Not meantioned in this summary of the books conclusion is the girl who was grinding the organ as the bear danced. She is missing and people are looking for her. Their is a history of missing and murdered children in the vicinity of Judge Holden. It might be their are to bodies in the jakes.Tampa Reedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05529294925149016876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-81985751822400347242021-06-19T13:38:59.599-05:002021-06-19T13:38:59.599-05:00Holy shit I realize this comment is 8 years old bu...Holy shit I realize this comment is 8 years old but I need to say this absolutely killed me with laughter.parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06221170423864221604noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-74452959025276354692021-04-22T08:40:30.774-05:002021-04-22T08:40:30.774-05:00Maybe the ending is left vague so the reader can b...Maybe the ending is left vague so the reader can be left wanting for a descriptor of the violence, so we recognize in ourselves a need to quantify domination in the same way the judge does, or alternatively, we have been dominated by the violence in the text throughout the entire work, to the point where we view violence and war as incredibly natural and primordial, and so when we are denied that violence we feel lost. I think we are supposed to either crave the violence, or want for the suffering that comes with reading it, or both. Either way, we fall into the role of the judge or one of his many victims. I think when the judge says that what exists without my knowledge exists without my consent was a powerful line, and it is a sentiment shared by the reader by the end of the novel. We want to know what the judge did, why the judge did it, and how he is able to celebrate so freely. And in questioning the endings ambiguity, we understand the thirst for violence, as the graphic descriptions throughout the entire novel prove to be insufficient compared to the promise of something more. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06482883054386505350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-24410409291471612042021-04-09T00:45:56.954-05:002021-04-09T00:45:56.954-05:00It is my theory that the judge does not actually e...It is my theory that the judge does not actually exist, that he is instead the alter ego of the Kid, the Kid’s dark side. Under that theory what the men see inside the jakes is the defiled and violated and murdered body of the missing little girl. <br /><br />The Kid had come a long way physically and temporally and emotionally and spiritually from the violence of his youth. He even set about to save the eldress in the rocks (before discovering that she was long dead, a dried shell). This occurs at the end of chapter 22. <br /><br />The Kid then showed remarkable patience with the insults from the young Elrod, a forbearance unimaginable for the Kid 30 years earlier. In the end, the Kid is forced to kill Elrod in self defense and something snaps. <br /><br />As a result, the Kid heads into “the biggest town for sin in all of Texas” and of course finds the judge there (the very person he had come to see) and of course commits another atrocity (the very thing he set out to do). <br /><br />The Kid’s descent into darkness again is described in the book’s last chapter, chapter 23. The last line of the preface to that chapter is in German: “Sie mussen schlafen aber Ich muss tanzen” “they have to sleep but I have to dance.” It is the missing little German girl, unspeakably violated, “asleep” in the jakes, and it is the Kid who left her there. <br /><br />And who is the Kid? He is the proxy for all of us, the readers. <br />Tennvolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07769463863266212289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-36148399066029626222021-04-09T00:45:52.657-05:002021-04-09T00:45:52.657-05:00It is my theory that the judge does not actually e...It is my theory that the judge does not actually exist, that he is instead the alter ego of the Kid, the Kid’s dark side. Under that theory what the men see inside the jakes is the defiled and violated and murdered body of the missing little girl. <br /><br />The Kid had come a long way physically and temporally and emotionally and spiritually from the violence of his youth. He even set about to save the eldress in the rocks (before discovering that she was long dead, a dried shell). This occurs at the end of chapter 22. <br /><br />The Kid then showed remarkable patience with the insults from the young Elrod, a forbearance unimaginable for the Kid 30 years earlier. In the end, the Kid is forced to kill Elrod in self defense and something snaps. <br /><br />As a result, the Kid heads into “the biggest town for sin in all of Texas” and of course finds the judge there (the very person he had come to see) and of course commits another atrocity (the very thing he set out to do). <br /><br />The Kid’s descent into darkness again is described in the book’s last chapter, chapter 23. The last line of the preface to that chapter is in German: “Sie mussen schlafen aber Ich muss tanzen” “they have to sleep but I have to dance.” It is the missing little German girl, unspeakably violated, “asleep” in the jakes, and it is the Kid who left her there. <br /><br />And who is the Kid? He is the proxy for all of us, the readers. <br />Tennvolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07769463863266212289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-68392990348501407612021-04-09T00:43:24.117-05:002021-04-09T00:43:24.117-05:00It is my theory that the judge does not actually e...It is my theory that the judge does not actually exist, that he is instead the alter ego of the Kid, the Kid’s dark side. Under that theory what the men see inside the jakes is the defiled and violated and murdered body of the missing little girl. <br /><br />The Kid had come a long way physically and temporally and emotionally and spiritually from the violence of his youth. He even set about to save the eldress in the rocks (before discovering that she was long dead, a dried shell). This occurs at the end of chapter 22. <br /><br />The Kid then showed remarkable patience with the insults from the young Elrod, a forbearance unimaginable for the Kid 30 years earlier. In the end, the Kid is forced to kill Elrod in self defense and something snaps. <br /><br />As a result, the Kid heads into “the biggest town for sin in all of Texas” and of course finds the judge there (the very person he had come to see) and of course commits another atrocity (the very thing he set out to do). <br /><br />The Kid’s descent into darkness again is described in the book’s last chapter, chapter 23. The last line of the preface to that chapter is in German: “Sie mussen schlafen aber Ich muss tanzen” “they have to sleep but I have to dance.” It is the missing little German girl, unspeakably violated, “asleep” in the jakes, and it is the Kid who left her there. <br /><br />And who is the Kid? He is the proxy for all of us, the readers. <br />Tennvolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07769463863266212289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-55915135198950504872021-04-04T11:04:11.640-05:002021-04-04T11:04:11.640-05:00In the street men were calling for the little girl...In the street men were calling for the little girl whose bear was dead because she was lost. they went up among the darkened lots with lanterns and torches calling out to her. <br /><br />It is after this he walks the plank boards to the Jakes and finds the Judge. I believe the Judge raped the girl and may have already killed her. Does the kid participate in the vile and heinous act or is he also murdered for witnessing it. We don’t know. <br /><br />The men who see the aftermath are horrified by what they see. If it was just the kid dead in the jakes why would they be horrified. Dead men are a common occurrence in the west. But a dead child, bloodied and battered isn’t. A. Carsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08502841526405655419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-55560588426664393092021-02-23T05:28:04.783-05:002021-02-23T05:28:04.783-05:00The book is based on Samuel Chamberlain's auto...The book is based on Samuel Chamberlain's autobiography "Confessins". Samuel Chamberlain rode with the gang after the Mexican american war. John Glanton and several of the character's are real people who really were scalp hunters. The Texas state historic website has a lot of information on him... Like, he was one the very first Texas rangers before he joined forces with Judge Holden... Who was in fact a very real person. Samuel Chamberlain described him as the most educated man in North America at the time. He further stated that he he spoke the, (fluently) language of every person the grpup came across. When Chamberlain Matt Holden there was an accusation of him raping and murdering a child. The handprint on the child's throat was so immense that they believe the killer could only have been judge Holden. Hence where the child rapist and murderer theme for the book came from. The vast majority of the book is fact. Samuel Chamberlain is one of the most cited historical sources ro the Mexican American war, the cuvil war, and the inidian wars. He died at home in Massachusetts in 1908Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13489744423147293747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-17983541719397563862021-01-13T00:44:24.102-05:002021-01-13T00:44:24.102-05:003/3 In sum, The Kid must kill his morality by ful...3/3 In sum, The Kid must kill his morality by fully embracing the unrepentant viciousness of his own capacity for savagery to survive the Jake and leave unencumbered across the field as The Man. The Judge dies a corporeal death in the Jakes but reassumes corporeal form in the hall, in a world The Kid, now Man, has no further inhabitance. Both live and die, lose and win, and together emerge separately transformed, through their final embrace in their last 'dance' in the Jake.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05716219447903039887noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-143312666761453032021-01-13T00:44:04.168-05:002021-01-13T00:44:04.168-05:002/3 The Kid becomes The Man basically in the same...2/3 The Kid becomes The Man basically in the same way Tommy Lee Jones transforms in No Country For Old Men - having resisted throughout the story and his whole life, resisted until finally and irrevocably having to face and embrace the truth of amorality and it's empowerment of evil as the fundamental guiding principle of existence the world, through the result of his unmistakable encounter with and his ultimate futility of failure to contain it's walking embodiment, through any disempowered goodness or justice of his actions. Anton Chigurh, who walks free as a human, mortally woundable yet meanderingly immortal at the same time, once this uncompromising phantom enters his life and is able to take leave with such capricious abandon and inevitable ease, once the truth of the amorality of existence and the requisite embrace of evil as the fundamental basis for strength in such existence is unmistakably made clear, by all he encounters. Also,Judge Holden is a pretty transparent mirroring of Brando's Colonel Kurtz archetype, which came out right when McCarthy began writing Blood Meridian (1979). Holden is Brando's Kurtz right down to the large, bald, obese, pale, clothless frame. Kurtz embodies human depravity, but is also its embodiment and embrace as an amortal (yet killable) human. With his meandering soliloquies slowly grooming and tempting and belittling and motivating and mentoring Willard to kill him, to demand of him rejecting his sense of honor and duty, by embracing in totality his inner animal to do so, to cut him down like a beast, with no judge, jury but raw jungle justice, to make Willard become what Kurtz had himself become, through the ritual of his own slaughter, by tempting Willard to complete his task, in the midst of the ritualistic slaughter of the ox (bear), through this act forcing Willard to embrace the hollowness and darkness in his own heart that lay central in the heart of human nature, as Willard realizes, "he wanted me to do it." And as Willard becomes the Hollow Man, purging himself of his inner moral bearings to do the deed, in doing so he claims utter mastery and autonomy of his own destiny now, and can finally commanders himself unimpeded down river. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-81429459773690737892021-01-13T00:43:04.861-05:002021-01-13T00:43:04.861-05:001/3 The Kid kills the Judge. The Kid realized when...1/3 The Kid kills the Judge. The Kid realized when with the dwarf he could not rest nor would ever be at peace until he dealt with the Judge. So he went to the Jakes, where he knew the Judge would be with the little girl. As the door opens, the kid remains stoic, for he knows exactly what to expect. The Judge is ecstatic because the Kid has finally agreed on his own volition to willingly come to him, to embrace the darkness within him in order to face The Judge, to kill or be killed. The embrace and locking of the door is enthusiastic and irreversible. The girl is already dead - The Judge is then ripped to pieces by The Kid who has to carve his way out of the fleshy terrible embrace as they 'dance'. The Kid must dispose of any hesitancy, to fully purge his own soul of any internal morality left within him, and embrace the full nature of his own capacity for savagery to do so, to make it out of the claustrophobic, utterly suffocating death struggle in that darkened tomb of the Jake alive. In doing so, The Kid becomes master of his own destiny. He is serene and calm, completed and transformed when pissing outside of the Jake, now as The Man. He walks away feeling justified, and freed of the trappings of his lifelong embrace of his own discordant, futile self-humanity now discarded with such finality behind him. The next day, it is The Man who overturns the stones in the ground with the walking stick, each hack driven into the ground with true intention and autonomy in his world, as he walks alone, with no path laid before him, in the fields. While the others on the road follow the tracks of their daily lives, disempowered in their own existences like sheep, following the wagon tracks of those paths carved by others before them, that were followed by others even before them, because they have nor will they ever overturn the darkest nature of their own souls as the Kid has to command their own destined to follow the wills of other men, so long as they live. The Judge's body is indeed slaughtered in the Jake, horrifically with the mutilated body of the girl he had ripped apart earlier, but his soul in corporal form has remanifested in the main hall of this Texas town of greatest sin, where he commences to fiddle, cultivate, woo, hypnotize and seduce to the delight of all in the room. He was finally able to turn The Kid, to have him fully embrace and adopt his worldview with abandon, and so now The Judge cannot die, because the ultimate truth of embrace of the depravity of man in the world has once again been affirmed in the one who came closest to owning yet not fully excepting of it, until that night. The Judge was able to fortify depravity and chaos as the governing principle of man once again, in the strongest among them, in the last one who was able to resist most forcefully and far longer than many another. So now The Judge continues the dance with those in the hall ecstatically, his earlier unfinished charge now fulfilled, because only one can now walk away from 'the dance', and in the Kid's life it is now he who walks alone, as The Man. The Kid achieves mastery over himself and his existence, extinguishing his own struggle to maintain self-morality by embracing depravity and amorality a fundamental to his and to all of human existence. Yet the Judge has also won, because he has forced the Kid through his own murder to cross the rubicon, and now he continues his mission with the rest of the world, with these countless other souls he can now attend to with his intentions on the dance floor, stoking and cultivating the depravities of countless others who dance malevolently yet crudely through their own lives, and through this world, intermittently, blind and disempowered. On the dance floor, they all love him, for there are no shortage of willing recipients to his beguiles, if not ultimately his message.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-18694941796229540732020-12-20T16:31:39.965-05:002020-12-20T16:31:39.965-05:00This book should not be read by everyone, I for on...This book should not be read by everyone, I for one, having read it years ago, still find it the fodder of nightmares. "Blood Meridian" has been elevated to the top 5-6 list of the most disturbing, darkest novels ever written. I see the Judge as a malevolent immortal, another "Highlander", but, soulless and totally focused on the "dark side". I for one do not want to know what happened behind that closed door. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-46524399198509490282020-07-05T01:17:00.155-05:002020-07-05T01:17:00.155-05:00I skimmed through most of the comments about the j...I skimmed through most of the comments about the judge, and I couldn't find any reference to a big pointer that he is Satan (or some neo-embodiment of Satan). In the first scene with the judge, he accuses a priest of xyz crimes he didn't commit. And the name Satan literally translates to "the accuser." It didn't jump out to me until about half way through the book, but the judge accusing the holy-man is certainly a reference to Satan accusing God. <br /><br />Again, I don't necessarily think that this means the judge is supernatural, but he is certainly meant to fill that figurative role. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-65928129701759860912020-05-19T21:11:31.892-05:002020-05-19T21:11:31.892-05:00I just finished the book. I think the ending brin...I just finished the book. I think the ending brings the book full circle for the Judge. In the beginning be was able to convince the townspeople of the raping of the young girl. In the end he is dancing, he will never die. I believe that he had taken the "bear girl" and the Kid walked in and caught him. He then murdered them both but was able to make it appear as though the kid had been the kidnapper and rapist.<br /><br />I took the "He will never die" to mean that he had never and would never be caught or even accused. <br /><br />I can see how this book needs to be read repeatedly though.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17412399087802741909noreply@blogger.com