From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: A question regarding the conclusion of *Blood Meridian*
Date: 23 Jan 1993 13:26:03 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
NNTP-Posting-Host: cyclops.eece.unm.edu

In article <C1ArCt.52D@news.iastate.edu> s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu writes:
>
>I asked the r.a.b.binicals about *Blood Meridian* the other day, and
>received not answer one,
>
	Give them a break, it's a new semester.

>[deleted - questions I don't feel like adddressing right now]

>
>...I'm left a little frustrated with the book, for I know not,
>have little sense of, what McCarthy is ultimately *about* in this work.
>What is he trying to *do*?  
>

	Yes, the novel peaked for me in the middle, around Chp. 11.
	After finishing, I was somewhat disappointed with the
	ending, feeling that he had put so much effort into the language
	that the plot suffered somewhat.  Also, that he was simply
	not concerned with characterisation; the only 'character'
	in the book is the judge, and he seemed less and less
	believable as the book progressed.  McCarthy does not
	bother to give the judge a past or make him more than a
	one-sided incarnation of human evil.  In saying this,
	I am recalling one of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha characters
	(perhaps in _A, A_?) who bludgeons his way into the county,
	building a big white mansion, fighting with the blacks,
	who is quite evil, but quite human as well, with an
	explicitly laid out past.  The judge has none of this
	believability; the man is pure Teflon.

	On the other hand, perhaps some of this was intentional.
	I think that the band of desperadoes resembles a rabid
	wolf pack wandering the plains like a dust-devil, 
	leaving a path of random destruction in its wake,
	the survivor's wails carried off and lost in the wind.
	The 'army' is basically a herd of voracious animals,
	even and especially Jake, who appears to have some
	dim gleams of connectivity with his fellow beings,
	but only in a blind, unconscious, brutish sort of a way.
	These are characters who belong in the landscape they
	operate in: Desert characters, very different than
	the lush southern characters in Faulkner, where the
	focus of the story always centers on human
	inter-relationships.  I think that this may account
	for some of the 'chainsaw massacre' aspect of the novel
	that you object to -- McCarthy's character's human
	interactions are more based on the billiard ball model.
	Consider that a couple of the characters are based on
	real people (does anyone know more about the history
	McCarthy is drawing from?), and that I think he means to
	integrate them with the harsh climate.  Perhaps he is
	saying "How do you account for these people's actions
	unless you take into full account their environment,
	not so much their 'upbringing,' but their physical
	surroundings?"  And I still object to putting this
	novel in the horror genre; I do not feel that McCarthy's
	object was to titillate the reader, or that violence
	doth a horror novel make.

	And mind that all of the above is based on this one
	novel of McCarthy's. :)
	
	Another interesting topic is the 'philosophy' of
	the judge, which I do not recall enough right now
	to comment on, except to say that it was less than
	convincing, especially in light of the non-stick
	nature of the judge's character -- I just didn't
	care what his philosophy was; could have been anything!
	Tell us what *you* think.
	
>
>michael mcdonald

rms