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I read The Road years ago, but I was probably too young to fully understand it; more recently, I read Blood Meridian a few months ago for my book club. Few nove
by dvt 3y ago
I read The Road years ago, but I was probably too young to fully understand it; more recently, I read Blood Meridian a few months ago for my book club. Few novels have had me think about them as much (Dostoevsky's Demons and Melville's Moby Dick come to mind). McCarthy was an absolute American treasure.
Rest in peace. His poetic Blood Meridian epilogue really stuck with me:
"In the dawn there is a man progressing over the plain by means of holes which he is making in the ground. He uses an implement with two handles and he chucks it into the hole and he enkindles the stone in the hole with his steel hole by hole striking the fire out of the rock which God has put there. On the plain behind him are the wanderers in search of bones and those who do not search and they move haltingly in the light like mechanisms whose movements are monitored with escapement and pallet so that they appear restrained by a prudence or reflectiveness which has no inner reality and they cross in their progress one by one that track of holes that runs to the rim of the visible ground and which seems less the pursuit of some continuance than the verification of a principle, a validation of sequence and causality as if each round and perfect hole owed its existence to the one before it there on that prairie upon which are the bones and the gatherers of bones and those who do not gather. He strikes fire in the hole and draws out his steel. Then they all move on again."
- Solvency 3y agoWhy do you suppose Blood Meridian hasn't been put to film yet?
- alpineidyll3 3y agoWho would you cast as the judge?
- googlryas 3y agoKane - aka Glenn Thomas Jacobs. 7'0, 330 lbs, light complexion, looks good hairless, has acting experience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_(wrestler)#/media/File:The_big_red_machine.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_(wrestler)#/media/File:Th...
- wholinator2 3y agoWhile he might look right, there's a lot more to the judge than looks. I'm unfamiliar with his acting experience but i think the movie will 100% fall flat if the judge isn't right. I'm not sure kane has the range
- defen 3y agoPlus he's the mayor of Knoxville, McCarthy's old hometown.
- dmbche 3y agoHaving just seen someone mention Phillip Seymour Hoffman, I am drooling imagining what that would have looked like.
- akiselev 3y agoDe-aged Clancy Brown or Michael Ironside.
- Slow_Hand 3y agoIt's hard to say why, but Clancy Brown is the one person I can see with the physicality of The Judge. Maybe it's because of his role as The Kurgan in Highlander.
- southernplaces7 3y agoClancy Brown or Glenn Fleshler (True Detective season 1) probably come closest in my view. Another one, if he were younger and bulkier, and hairless, who I think fits best with the book's overall description of the Judge would be Sid Haig. The important aspect of an actor for the Judge wouldn't just be his physicality and baldness, it would also have to be a certain very particular type of sinister air. Few large actors have that.
- stubybubs 3y agoI'm gonna be brave and say Dave Bautista. I haven't seen Knock at the Cabin yet, but it looks like he's got the range from the previews. He's big enough and imposing enough as well.
- hindsightbias 3y agoD’Onofrio
- JasserInicide 3y agoGlenn Fleshler, the main villain from True Detective S1. As soon as I started reading Blood Meridian, he was the first guy that popped into my head. He has that surreal quasi-supernatural energy.
- HyperSane 3y agoComplete CGI character like Thanos played by Vincent D'Onfrio.
- dvt 3y agoIt's extremely violent, borderline-surreal in some places, excruciatingly slow in others (by design), occasionally has two or three levels of story-within-a-story. Unlike some of his other novels, it's more of an epic than a story, which is usually very hard to put on film. The closest I can think of is something like Ben-Hur or Apocalypse Now (which adapted Conrad's Heart of Darkness); both were famously plagued by production issues.
- dimitrios1 3y agoYou've seen Yellowstone, no? I don't think violence is an issue anymore for americans.
- jebarker 3y agoI haven't seen Yellowstone but I'd be amazed if it comes at all close to Blood Meridian for violence. I can't think of any movie or TV show that would. edit: American Psycho might have if they'd stayed faithful to the book
- poisonarena 3y agoBecause nobody could handle the judge, that, and would take such a particular style of photography to capture the prose. I think mostly because of the complex characters like the judge, and the violence.
- lordfrito 3y agoMarlon Brando would have been amazing as the Judge.
- mmanfrin 3y agoPhillip Seymour Hoffman would have, he truly would have been perfect. The best suggestion I've heard for someone living is Vince D'Onofrio but I don't know if he has the total range needed.
- voisin 3y agoMarlon Brando from Apocalypse Now would have killed it as Judge Holden.
- Tao3300 3y agoToo mumbly. One of the things that makes the Judge so terrifying is how articulate and eloquent he is.
- kgwgk 3y agoIt's coming. Or at least it was coming. The adaptation was probably far from finished and may be abandoned now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36316524 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36316524
- porphyra 3y agoIs it merely a coincidence that Judge Holden was described as "face destitute of hair" and the director, John Hillcoat, is also bald and devoid of both eyebrows and facial hair?
- maherbeg 3y agoI feel like it would do better as a limited series ideally on HBO.
- zerbinxx 3y agoIdk, I feel like HBO (or any mainstream tele studio) might butcher it by trying to hamfistedly make it a revisionist Western along the lines of “White Man Bad” without catching the actual point about evil being inherent in everything. Thats undoubtedly a part of the reason as to why it hasn’t made it to screen yet - it’s not a story that fits nicely into the sort of Hollywood trope oriented storytelling that dominates mainstream TV.
- petsfed 3y agoAgreed. Its not even that a "white man bad" reading of Blood Meridian is wrong per se, its just woefully incomplete. It'd be like if Apocalypse Now was just John Wick in the jungle, or Blade Runner was just a police procedural with flying cars. Like, yes, that is the skeleton on which the piece is hung, but it is not at all what makes the piece great.
- idlewords 3y agoThe musical numbers are notoriously hard to stage
- mrbombastic 3y agoCan’t wait until “No Country for Old Men” hits Broadway
- robertlagrant 3y agoI bet you can hear the silenced shotgun number all the way up in the gods at the Albert with its acoustics.
- Tao3300 3y agoYou just need a few fiddlers for the big dance scene.
- subsubzero 3y agoLooks like they are finally working on a film version as of April 2023: > it was announced in April 2023 that New Regency is set to produce a feature film based on the novel, with McCarthy and his son serving as executive producers and John Hillcoat serving as director. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian
- atombender 3y agoHillcoat made The Proposition, which is a very McCartyesque film in its bleakness and violence. It's a great movie, written by and scored by Nick Cave. I thought his adaptation of The Road was fine (though maybe a book that doesn't need an adaptation), and he hasn't done anything interesting since then, in my opinion. But Blood Meridian may be better material for him.
- johnvaluk 3y agoWhenever someone wishes for a film adaptation of Blood Meridian, I recommend The Proposition. I'll be amazed if any Blood Meridian movie is as good.
- tehnub 3y agoWSJ: People have said "Blood Meridian" is unfilmable because of the sheer darkness and violence of the story. CM: That's all crap. The fact that's it's a bleak and bloody story has nothing to do with whether or not you can put it on the screen. That's not the issue. The issue is it would be very difficult to do and would require someone with a bountiful imagination and a lot of balls. But the payoff could be extraordinary. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704576204574529703577274572 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704576204574529...
- walrus01 3y agoIf somebody managed to raise the money to make multiple human centipede films, or "a serbian film", anything is possible.
- Synaesthesia 3y agoSomehow don't see Hollywood making a movie about how the US was based on a terrible genocide.
- waihtis 3y agoI disagree, I think it would fit perfectly over the zeitgeist where national pride of any kind is reviled
- Synaesthesia 3y agoSo that's why Top Gun did so well? Or any blockbuster movie recently, particularly action movies?
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- dmbche 3y agoFrom my reading and working in editing movies: The point of the book is not at all the visual, most of it is very subtle. One commentary that I heard that was very astute pointed out that many parts of the book are specifically not detailed, one big example being that we rarely if ever witness the Kid killing or partaking in the murder/general viciousness of the gang. This means that a large part of the book is emulated in your brain while reading - did you infer that the kid is doing all this, and is just as bad as them? Is he an observer, like you, and doesn't leave because he doesn't know better? Does he actively try to avoid unnecessary violence? Your reading of these things will affect your reading of further parts - like the accusations of Holden, saying that the Kid was always a traitor to the spirit of the gang, which are not specific enough to be factual, but you absolutely know what he means while reading (depending on how you characterised the Kid). All this means that any one expression of the story would betray the oeuvre (in my mind), which aims to get you in the boots of these horrible men and understand that they are part of you (between other things). The stark writing and purposeful lack of factual descriptions of some key points make Blood Meridian a very evocative work, rather than descriptive. Half of it is and remains in your mind, and that's simply not what movies do. All this to say - you can do a movie showing what happens in the book, and it would be good! But it would contain very little of why the book is so beloved and respected.
- rurp 3y agoI think some books just don't adapt to movies well. Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite books and I was shocked to learn it was being made into a movie, it just didn't seem like the right format. Despite a lot of talent and money going into it, the film didn't turn out that great and was probably an impossible task.
- stubybubs 3y agoI would hope any good director would have the sense to know that it probably isn't for them. I can't imagine Spielberg picking this up. Gangs of New York is about as close as Scorsese could get but still too Hollywood. The Cohens did a great job of No Country but don't seem like a fit for Blood Meridian. And hopefully nobody would offer it to somebody second rate.
- ftxbro 3y agoterry gilliam
- breakbread 3y agoPaul Thomas Anderson?
- JasserInicide 3y agoThe number of directors that could do it justice is very short. Lynch, Cronenberg, Friedkin.
- HyperSane 3y agoThe hundreds of people being brutally murdered would make it hard to not be NC-17 rated. The Judge would be nearly impossible to cast.
- oAlbe 3y agoAt risk of sounding stupid in public, what does that epilogue mean? I've read it several times now, and aside from being surprised at how fluid it still reads despite the parsimonious use of punctuation, I really can't figure out what it's talking about.
- dvt 3y agoNot stupid at all! There's a long tradition of figuring out what it means (just google "Blood Meridian epilogue"), but the short answer is that McCarthy was probably playing around with ideas, having a bit of fun, waxing poetic. But there's some elements in the passage about determinism, causality, exploitation, the man with the instrument being a "pioneer" of the American West, the holes being railroad tracks, or fence posts, or mine stake poles (referencing the imminent gold rush), etc. Like like with all poetry, it's a joy to think about and dissect.
- mcbutterbunz 3y agoI'm not a strong reader and Blood Meridian took me a few times to read and appreciate. I just remember thinking how crazy it was that almost the entire page was a single run-on sentence. I really liked the book but it was difficult for me to read and understand.
- l33tbro 3y agoSome say it's more like approaching poetry than prose with his work. There is certainly causality and narrative development in his writing, but he often uses his magisterial command of language to impart a cosmic dimension to the simplest of instances or utterances.
- dclowd9901 3y agoIt’s not all like that. Just the things that can’t suitably be explained as events. The native assault on the brigade comes to mind. How could you adequately describe such an event with words. It’s a horror poem in the way he writes it and if you haven’t read it, it is as chilling as it sounds.
- ftio 3y agoI choose to read this as describing a frustrating round of golf.
- ethbr0 3y agoTruly an indictment of those who build golf courses, by which metric Florida is utterly damned.
- ftxbro 3y ago"A legion of golfers, dozens in number, dressed in plaid or argyle or attired in golfing gear from a bygone era, with visors and gloves and golf bags still stained with the grass and dirt of prior rounds. Some wore knickers and tam o'shanters, while others donned bright polo shirts and khaki shorts. One golfer carried a large umbrella, another wore white knee-high socks stained with grass, and another wore a bloodstained wedding veil. Some wore hats adorned with feathers or made of rawhide, and one even dressed in the armor of a medieval knight. The golfers' faces were painted in outrageous patterns, like a troupe of carnival performers, all howling and shouting in a language unintelligible to the uninitiated, as they approached the tee box like a raiding party from a wilder world than that of the manicured course they terrorized, screeching and yammering, their clothing billowing behind them like smoke from some infernal realm."
- ckw 3y agoA phalanx of mace-wielders, legioned by the dozens, swathed in interlocking geometries of archaic clan and tribal shroud, donned in specters of yesteryears garb. Upon crowns they bore the half moons of sun-shielders, hands sheathed in the callused gloves bearing the earthen residue of the wars waged on emerald fields. Some festooned in old world breeches and shapeshifter's bonnets, others in the blaring colors of plebeian polo and desert-dusted shorts. Among these warriors, a solitary figure, a shielder of storms, his trusty parasol held high. Another’s lower limbs swathed in ghostly shroud, baptized by the verdant life of the fields. And still another, a tragic bride, her veil sanguinary from the love-feast unholy. Feathers plucked from the winged ones adorned the headgear of some, the rawhide caps of others akin to the primal trophies of untamed hunts. A lone paladin armored in the steel and iron of yore. Faces beneath this motley parade painted in the ghastly festival hues of the carnivalesque. A cacophony of unknown tongues ricocheted, a grotesque operetta resounding in the ears of those unversed. As they approached the maiden's tee, they were as a raiding horde birthed from some primeval chaos, an epoch more untamed than the manicured world they stormed upon. The shrill discordance of their cries echoing, their raiments in their wake, whispering tales of an infernal dimension, billowing like the smoky breath of the underworld's beast.
- narrator 3y agoI'm confused why The Road is said to be such great literature. Half the book is " Kid: Daddy, I'm scared. Dad: Don't be scared. " What's really funny is how it has become an all purpose meme for a bad future if we don't go along with whatever the latest political program is. Klaus Schwab even references it in his recent book "The Grand Narrative" as an alternative future that will come to pass if we don't do everything right even though the future disaster, from the hints given in The Road, is clearly not climate change.
- tehnub 3y agoI don't think it is generally considered to be as great as his other works like Blood Meridian, Suttree, and All the Pretty Horses. It's just his most popular.
- williamcotton 3y agoDo yourself a favor and read that prose out loud to yourself. It has amazing rhythm and flow! How he was able to do this for page after page is just astonishing.
- registeredcorn 3y agoI don't wish to be too dismissive, but I listened to the audiobook for Blood Meridian and found it to be noticeably boring. There were some neat phrases here and there, the descriptions were fun, but felt pretty ripped off of both time and money. It's frustrating because I generally like writing in a similar manner to how he wrote, but I found it incredibly dull to listen to for any length of time. It was just this meandering mess of "here and there" without anything to pay attention to, or have a need to care for. It wasn't that I hated it, I just didn't like it either. I was entirely indifferent to it, other than a vague sense of politely waiting for it to end. I didn't feel I lost much by listening to it, but had nothing to gain either. It was just a distraction of other things I could have been listening to instead.
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- dbtc 3y agoRead it from the pulpit! Thanks for sharing the quote.
- HlessClaudesman 3y ago"Already gunfire was general within the tent..." That line encapsulates so much.
- noduerme 3y agoThe Road was really poorly written, but it did have an emotional resonance. It was beautiful in some ways, but it was a pretty crappy novel that didn't deserve a fraction of the attention it received. I'm still a bit baffled as to why it received that much attention. I picked it up at random off my gf's bookshelf last year, and read it in a day. It was quite simplistic. Calling it reductive would be giving it undue credit. If you write a novel that aims to distill a genre into its own __prototype methods, you should leave the reader with a feeling that you're doing something more important and artful than simply cashing in on the existing archetype. Perhaps, like, a critique of the archetype itself embedded in the work would give the reader something more to think about. [edit] I'd also just call attention to "Earth Abides" by George R. Stewart (1949). This pulpy, pathos-ridden, amazing jerk-off sci-fi fantasy of being the last person on earth already hits pretty much all the major themes. If you're going to write the dark and traumatizing version of it with a boy in tow, how about adding something to the genre rather than collecting accolades based on an unproven assumption that by reducing it to parts you have somehow expanded upon it?
- javier2 3y agoI like that you enjoy this, but it gives me absolutely nothing. And I do find that interesting.