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I like the totally made-up quotes in the beginning. (They're not all fictional.)
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Jul 16, 2023 05:31
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mdemone posted:Rereading is easy mode because you can skim over some of the whaling material you've read five times already Why would I do that
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Jul 16, 2023 05:31
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Heath posted:Why would I do that It's true, the scene with the barrel of sperm is unforgettable
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Jul 16, 2023 05:34
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I tend to reread the entirely made up whale biology chapters more than the plot chapters. I think they're a lot more fun.
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Jul 16, 2023 06:35
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I read Blood Meridian a few years back and enjoyed it so much that when I found out it was McCarthy's response to Moby Dick, I started working my way through it and yeah, I'm finding the random whaling information chapters way more interesting than the actual story chapters. I actually think they work in a modern internet reading way in that they are akin to doing a deep wiki-dive on some fandom page where the editors are so deep in on the subject matter that they've sort of lost their minds. Instead of some insane Silent Hill wiki editor writing a treatise on why Pyramid Head is a living symbolization of male circumcision, you have Ishmael making poo poo up about some species of whale he's never seen. I got to the chapter on whaling rope that I've seen people bring up before as an example as pointless minutiae about whaling and found it was one of my favorite chapters.
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Jul 19, 2023 09:31
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*thinking very hard* herman melville is like a wiki editor
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Jul 19, 2023 09:50
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a_gelatinous_cube posted:I read Blood Meridian a few years back and enjoyed it so much that when I found out it was McCarthy's response to Moby Dick, I started working my way through it and yeah, I'm finding the random whaling information chapters way more interesting than the actual story chapters. I actually think they work in a modern internet reading way in that they are akin to doing a deep wiki-dive on some fandom page where the editors are so deep in on the subject matter that they've sort of lost their minds. Instead of some insane Silent Hill wiki editor writing a treatise on why Pyramid Head is a living symbolization of male circumcision, you have Ishmael making poo poo up about some species of whale he's never seen. I got to the chapter on whaling rope that I've seen people bring up before as an example as pointless minutiae about whaling and found it was one of my favorite chapters. That part about the whaling rope actually has plot relevance, so keep it in the back of your mind for later.
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Jul 20, 2023 03:54
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I'm sort of at a loss for how Moby-Dick has any relevance to Blood Meridian at all, unless the Judge represents the drive that had taken over Ahab I suppose? I'd love for this idea to be developed a little more
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Jul 20, 2023 05:58
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Bilirubin posted:I'm sort of at a loss for how Moby-Dick has any relevance to Blood Meridian at all, unless the Judge represents the drive that had taken over Ahab I suppose? ishmael is there to be a witness and observer of events of a biblical or apocalyptic character. the kid is explicitly mentioned to have a similar role, but, in keeping with mccarthy's particular weltanschauung, the judge does not even give the kid the dignity of a "and I only am escaped alone to tell thee." instead, he is disposed of in the jakes once his ishamelian role is done
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Jul 20, 2023 06:15
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Bilirubin posted:I'm sort of at a loss for how Moby-Dick has any relevance to Blood Meridian at all, unless the Judge represents the drive that had taken over Ahab I suppose? I couldn't tell you any thematic stuff, but there are definitely a lot of little similarities in the details that I've seen. The one that stuck out the most to me so far is the Pequod as a whale-hunting vessel being adorned with the dead parts of whales almost as some sort of perverted whale-cannibal in contrast to Glanton gang as the vessel carrying the kid being similarly decked out in human body parts as human-devouring vehicle. Herman Melville posted:(The Pequod) was a thing of trophies. A cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. Cormac McCarthy posted:...and the trappings of their horses fashioned out of human skin and their bridles woven up from human hair and decorated with human teeth and the riders wearing scapulars or necklace of dried and blackened human ears and the horses rawlooking and wild in the eye and their teeth barred like feral dogs...the whole like a visitation from some heathen land where they and the others like them fed on human flesh. I think there is also a similarity in the grotesque scenes of gore in Moby Dick just inserted blandly and matter-of-factly in parts that reminded me of of the outbursts of violence in Blood Meridian. There definitely seems to be some underlying current of whale being devoured by whale in Moby Dick that I'm sure can be linked to the humans devouring humans themes in Blood Meridian, but I haven't put enough thought into it yet to put down anything meaningful. edit: I think there's something interesting as Glanton as Ahab in that he's not chasing his white whale. He has his white whale. He's riding with him the entire story and the Judge still leads him to an end of utter destruction. Glanton stabbed through the pasteboard mask and what he saw completely hollowed him out. a_gelatinous_cube fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Jul 20, 2023 |
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Jul 20, 2023 08:29
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I really liked this article about McCarthy's work and its connection to the ambitions in the text of Moby Dick, written after his death.
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Jul 20, 2023 14:08
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thanks all, much to think about!
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Jul 20, 2023 18:16
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A few more: The Mennonite near the start of BM echoes Elijah in Moby dick The whale and the judge are big white beings and each book declines to make them tidily symbolic of one thing in particular Ahab: “Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me” Glanton: “be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he’d drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he’d ordered it all ages since” More generally, BM is kind of a gorgeous mystery to me on many levels, but I guess each book is about a motley gang of Americans rampaging across a vast landscape and despoiling it/slaughtering its inhabitants for profit. BM I guess is about violent struggle as the core of human existence, and ahab in Moby dick taking a defiantly ego-driven and antagonistic stance to the universe, being dumb and self-centred enough to look upon the natural world as a contest of wills with you on one side and all created things on the other Lobster Henry fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Jul 20, 2023 |
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Jul 20, 2023 21:38
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I think there is a pretty good juxtaposition of the setting of the books too. In Moby Dick I think the boundary between the surface the characters travel and the ocean depths below is a dividing line between the unknowable mysteries or the human mind and the universe itself which the characters are enamored by but can never cross to find the truth. In Blood Meridian the ocean has been transformed to a vast desert. It's a two-dimensional space blasted by the light of the sun for everyone to see. It's the human psyche laid flat and bare to see, brutal and violent with no depth to explore. The universe is cruel and there is no mystery about it.
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Jul 20, 2023 21:56
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Are you saying that The Ocean is a Desert with its Life Underground? Is America's incredibly annoying hit song the key to understanding the Blood Meridian Moby Dick connection?
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Jul 20, 2023 21:59
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a_gelatinous_cube posted:I think there is a pretty good juxtaposition of the setting of the books too. In Moby Dick I think the boundary between the surface the characters travel and the ocean depths below is a dividing line between the unknowable mysteries or the human mind and the universe itself which the characters are enamored by but can never cross to find the truth. In Blood Meridian the ocean has been transformed to a vast desert. It's a two-dimensional space blasted by the light of the sun for everyone to see. It's the human psyche laid flat and bare to see, brutal and violent with no depth to explore. The universe is cruel and there is no mystery about it. Ooh I like this reading a lot. It ties in nicely with what I think is the big point of divergence between the two books: the garrulous, slightly mysterious, highly charming and personable style of Ishmael, full of depths and opinions and individuality; versus the brutal blank slate of the kid. The only sliver of interiority he gets is awkwardly imposed on him from outside - the judge’s line at the end about the clemency in his heart. All that connects well with Tree Goat’s post too.
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Jul 20, 2023 23:00
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Lobster Henry posted:Ooh I like this reading a lot. It ties in nicely with what I think is the big point of divergence between the two books: the garrulous, slightly mysterious, highly charming and personable style of Ishmael, full of depths and opinions and individuality; versus the brutal blank slate of the kid. The only sliver of interiority he gets is awkwardly imposed on him from outside - the judge’s line at the end about the clemency in his heart. All that connects well with Tree Goat’s post too. Yeah, I think this is what McCarthy was going for with the kid and he lays it out in the first sentence of the book. Herman Melville posted:Call me Ishmael. vs. Cormack McCarthy posted:See the child. I'm kind of curious if any of the Glanton gang members are analogs to the crew of the Pequod in any way because I really haven't been thinking of it much until now.
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Jul 21, 2023 09:02
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Toadvine as Queequeg?
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Jul 21, 2023 17:59
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rectifying a few of my shameful omissions one book at a time, this time by finally starting madame bovary
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Jul 28, 2023 12:00
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ulvir posted:rectifying a few of my shameful omissions one book at a time, this time by finally starting madame bovary It's very good but I like that sort of thing (like Balzac and Сенчин, maybe Great Expectations too). e: I think Flaubert is a much better writer than Balzac. Certainly better than Dickens but who isn't. 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Jul 28, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 12:23
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I bounced on Bovary after half a chapter or so for some reason, but Temptation of St. Anthony and Sentimental Education are both excellent. He's a much better than Balzac, but I do love that energy that Balzac and Stendhal have, where you can just feel the manic pace they're writing at with little or no outlining or planning.
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Jul 28, 2023 17:21
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continuing to read verse novels reading Robert Browning's The Ring and The Book (which is good and you can see why it revived his reputation). Prefigures a lot of true crime "look at this gnarly crime I discovered" stuff, including I went there and walked in the tracks of the victim.
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Jul 28, 2023 19:10
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I read De ansatte (The Employees) by Olga Ravn this week, I had noted it before but was reminded of it by way of Termush (thx Volcano!) A strange, short novel told entirely through anonymous employee interviews. Hard to describe. Scifi in the Atwood sense? Poetic, and existential? What it means to be human, and an "employee". Recommended, though Apparently there's an English translation out that was shortlisted for the booker prize if that means anything
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Jul 28, 2023 20:28
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Carthag Tuek posted:I read De ansatte (The Employees) by Olga Ravn this week, I had noted it before but was reminded of it by way of Termush (thx Volcano!) Aha, this has been on my list to read but I haven't gotten it yet. It definitely sounds interesting though so good to hear good things about it
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Jul 28, 2023 22:09
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Volcano posted:Aha, this has been on my list to read but I haven't gotten it yet. It definitely sounds interesting though so good to hear good things about it nb: termush & employees dont really have a lot in common other than being danish "sf" anyway i figured what the hell, checked what danish librarians rec in that genre & got these two as well. havent read them yet so i cant vouch for them but they sound pretty trashy lol Publius Enigma - Exnihilo.epub Peter Dreyer - Glitch.epub but i did like the employees, it stays with me like an egg in my mouth.
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Jul 28, 2023 22:47
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Carthag Tuek posted:I read De ansatte (The Employees) by Olga Ravn this week, I had noted it before but was reminded of it by way of Termush (thx Volcano!) adding this to my to-read list
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Jul 28, 2023 23:03
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Gaius Marius posted:I bounced on Bovary after half a chapter or so for some reason, but Temptation of St. Anthony and Sentimental Education are both excellent. He's a much better than Balzac, but I do love that energy that Balzac and Stendhal have, where you can just feel the manic pace they're writing at with little or no outlining or planning. This is funny because Balzac apparently rly disliked that about Stendhal "Page 74-5 of Lukács "Studies in European realism" posted:But although Balzac greatly appreciates Stendhal's capacity for characterizing his figures succinctly and yet profoundly by the words he puts in their mouths, he yet expresses considerable dissatisfaction with the style of his novel. He quotes a number of lapses of style and even grammar. But his criticism goes further than this. He demands that Stendhal should subject his novel to very extensive editing, and argues that Chateaubriand and De Maistre often rewrote some of their works. He concludes with the hope that Stendhal's novel, thus rewritten, "would be enriched by that ineffable beauty with which Chateaubriand and De Maistre endowed their favorite books."
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Jul 29, 2023 00:09
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fez_machine posted:continuing to read verse novels I've always found browning's dramatic monologues insufferably annoying but i'm intrigued about how he does a verse novel tbf. You read barrett browning's aurora leigh?
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Jul 29, 2023 11:46
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Jrbg posted:I've always found browning's dramatic monologues insufferably annoying but i'm intrigued about how he does a verse novel tbf. You read barrett browning's aurora leigh? That reads to me like "I've always found Shakespeare insufferably annoying" but you do you. You won't like The Ring and the Book, it's a novel-length series of dramatic monologues. I think it's one of the most delightful books in the English language
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Jul 29, 2023 13:16
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Carthag Tuek posted:I read De ansatte (The Employees) by Olga Ravn this week, I had noted it before but was reminded of it by way of Termush (thx Volcano!) I enjoyed the Employees more than I expected halfway through. I liked how the initial SCP-like atmosphere takes a turn for melancholy. Reminded me of the new Ishiguro a bit, but Ravn's book is better (although not as good as Never Let Me Go, which touches on similar themes)
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Jul 29, 2023 14:06
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Currently reading Piglia's Target in the Night. I always enjoy the obsession of a lot of Lat-Am authors of the seedy side of life, looking forward to seeing what Piglia brings to the table
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Jul 29, 2023 14:08
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Browning’s dramatic monologues rule, shout-out to “caliban upon setebos” and the under-appreciated “mr sludge, the medium” I’ve had the ring and the book open in my tabs for like two months, maybe this is the spur I need to finally get to it
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Jul 29, 2023 22:20
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Read some more "Birotteau" last night, having neglected the book for IDK many many months. Immediately remembered why: So. Many. Names. And they're all French!
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Jul 30, 2023 07:50
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I'm thinking I want to read Master and Margarita for the first time but I don't want too much of it to go over my head. Is there something I can look to as a supplemental reference as I go through chapters? When I read The Idiot for the first time I would stop and go online to dig into certain parts but avoiding spoilers and poorly-written comments was a pain.
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Jul 30, 2023 15:58
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MaM likely won't go over your head. It's been a while since I've read it but I went in knowing nothing and I didn't feel like I was missing much
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Jul 30, 2023 16:03
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In that case I'll go ahead and start it later today. I'm finishing a collection of short stories by Akiyuki Nosaka and I'm noticing a trend of "uh oh this story only has 2-3 more sentences."
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Jul 30, 2023 16:17
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A decent knowledge of the Bible and of that period of Soviet politics should serve you well in understanding how Bulgakov is flip flopping the Judea scenes and the Russia scenes. Otherwise I don't think you need nothing else.
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Jul 30, 2023 17:06
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Gaius Marius posted:A decent knowledge of the Bible and of that period of Soviet politics should serve you well in understanding how Bulgakov is flip flopping the Judea scenes and the Russia scenes. Otherwise I don't think you need nothing else. Ok great, I should fare decently then. As for translators, I have a used Burgin and O'Connor copy I picked up for a song and the internet seems to like them well enough. Anyone wanna jump in and tell me P+V would be better for any reason before I start?
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Jul 30, 2023 17:19
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We don't read p+v round these parts
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Jul 30, 2023 17:28
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P & V!?! ...Get a rope.
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Jul 30, 2023 17:45
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