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Everybody talks about the violence in BM but that's not its point. It's not an exploitation story designed to shock for the sheer fun of shocking. To me it's a
by dreamcompiler 3y ago
Everybody talks about the violence in BM but that's not its point. It's not an exploitation story designed to shock for the sheer fun of shocking.
To me it's a beautifully-written poetic exploration of a world without evil. For evil to exist there must be something else to compare it to. And there's nothing else in BM. It's just a mundane world of unceasing animal violence reduced to the quotidian. I imagine the inhabitants of WW II concentration camps might recognize such a world.
A world without evil is a much scarier place than one where the concept of evil needs to exist in order to contrast it with something else.
- thomasfromcdnjs 3y agoI barely though it was violent. Everyone should read it for the writing style alone, it's great.
- _match 3y agoI appreciate what you’re saying but I thought McCarthy was not suggesting this is a world without good and evil. But rather the forces at work are beyond our ability to control or even understand. Termites never know why pesticide is being sprayed. At least that was my take from Blood Meridian, the Road and No Country. For instance, the scalp hunters are often horrified but in awe of the judge, subconsciously aware their souls have been signed away. And that part at the end where the kid falls before the dying woman and almost begs for some explanation for what is happening. As McKenna said, trying to use our reason and science is like “throwing an ice cube into a blast furnace.” And I should say McCarthy is not fixated on just evil, but equally on the goodness that miraculously finds us. Only time I’ve ever openly sobbed from a book was the end of The Road.