(urth) Blood Meridian - still utterly and completely off topic

[Daniel D Jones]

On Wednesday 02 August 2006 20:19, maru dubshinki wrote:
> On 8/1/06, don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I've just finished reading Blood Meridian by Cormac
> > McCarthy and I wish to express that it is one of the
> > finest modern novels I have ever read, neck and neck
> > w/ BotNS and Tim Obrien's The Things They Carried. It
> > is also quite possibly the most violent literary book
> > ever written. Incredible.
> >
> > Don
>
> I have to ask, why you think it is so marvelous? I read that just last
> year, and I remember thinking in incomprehension that the judge was a
> marvelous character, but that the rest seemed pretty pointless and
> gratuitious (Harold Bloom's criticism notwithstanding).

Still off topic but these comments intrigued me, and so I purchased the book.  
First, I have to agree that it's an excellent novel.  I thought the kid was 
as interesting as the Judge, albeit in a different manner.  You do realize 
that the book, while fiction, is heavily based on real events?  Many of the 
characters, including Glanton and Judge Holden, were real people.  If you're 
not already conversant with it, you might find the following interesting:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Scalpin/heads.html

In case the URL gets distorted by email:

http://tinyurl.com/gweur

It may make the violence less gratuitious to realize that it's reasonably 
historically accurate.

Second, the volume I picked up included Harold Bloom's introduction.  After 
reading it, I'm tempted to smack him upside the head with Stephen King's 
latest novel.  Wouldn't you assume that a literary critic would realize that 
an introduction is read BEFORE you read the book, and that giving away the 
ending of the work in question is probably not a good idea?  If anyone else 
decides to read the book, you might want to read Bloom's intro as an 
afterward.