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comment by Kaius
Kaius  ·  3802 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Hubski Book Club: Blood Meridian: Start!

Can I get in on this? I read the book twice but the last time was over a year ago. Loved it and would like to discuss.





Meriadoc  ·  3802 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I've added your name to the list. You receive every update we make now.

thenewgreen  ·  3802 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Absolutely. The Hubski Book Club is open to all. It will be nice to have someone so familiar with the book. What promoted you to read this book twice?

Kaius  ·  3802 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    What promoted you to read this book twice?

A few reasons, firstly i'm a pretty big Cormac McCarthy fan and have read several of his novels: All the pretty horses, No country for old men, The Road. The first time I read Blood Meridian I really enjoyed it but had the constant feeling that there was a lot more to this book, hidden depths I guess. There is an old Irish saying "Uisce ag sileadh faoi an talamh" which translates as water flowing under the ground... On the surface it was a violent wild west saga full of cruel and weird characters but there was always a sense that I was missing something.

And indeed I was.

I started searching around and found out a few things that opened my eyes, the first of which was the Yale analysis class on Blood Meridian. Probably best left until you have finished the book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgyZ4ia25gg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZFmf4T5L3o

So once I understood what McCarthy was trying to accomplish I reread the novel a couple of years later and enjoyed it again in a whole new light.

Meriadoc  ·  3802 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This will certainly be reposted in my discussion thread at the end of the book, if you'd like.

If you have anything else like those analyses, please feel free to make a post about them and include the group.

Kaius  ·  3801 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm interested to see how many people stick with it despite the violence.

thenewgreen  ·  3801 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm just at page 100 and after reading last night, I looked up images of scalped people/native americans. I could have done without the actual images and should have stuck to my imagination. This book is already pretty gruesome and to think that it gets more so is rather incredible.

Kaius  ·  3801 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yea its pretty tough, all I can say is stick with it. There is a lot of debate over whether the violence actually represents anything or not.

The book opens with 3 epigraphs:

    Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time – Paul Valery

    It is not to be thought that the life of darkness is sunk in misery and lost as if in sorrow. There is no sorrowing. For sorrow is a thing that is swallowed up in death, and death and dying are the very life of the darkness – Jacob Boehme

    Clark, who led last year’s expedition to the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, and UC Berkeley colleague Tim D. White, also said that a reexamination of a 300,000-year-old fossil skull found in the same region earlier shows evidence of having been scalped – The Yuma Daily Sun, June 13, 1982

Personally I think he is setting the tone here by saying "Humans are violent, we have always been violent". I'll let you come to your own conclusions.