I have the second version of the audiobook and it's not as good...Cormac brings new meaning to 'bloody genius.' I wonder how much is stolen from Jeffers' "Bloody Sire." Strange affinities indeed...
The most important thing about the Judge (for those who think they "Get It") is whether or not the HIS views are convincing to you.If they are NOT. Good for you, hope you enjoyed it half as much as I. If they are convincing you probably have been seduced by the eloquent Romanticism of WAR on every page. Books don't shape the World. They shape you. To put It another way if you had murdered uncounted numbers of people yet had an IQ of 180. You would have met all obligs. Debates open IJdgsO.
My professor required this of us... It has since become my favorite book. A Robinson Jeffers approach to natural violence. Few books impress me, but I have become obsessed with this.I listen to this about once a month and have an abridged audiobook, but it does not feature this speaker. I think he conveys the story much better than my copy...
Brilliant reading of a brilliant part of a brilliant book. But the punchline is missing! the very sentence where it climaxes it cut off halfway at the end. "What could I ask of you, that you have not already given? "
I don't think this book should be made into a film. The poetic descriptions and unrelenting violence would ensure that it could only ever be an ultra stylish art house movie and an art house movie wouldn't have the budget to do it justice. Simply, it should just remain a book and we should encourage people to read the story, rather than enabling them to consume it through a terrible blockbuster.
@floppykid meh, I understand what your saying, but I disagree. I think this novel could make an astonishing piece of film. That said, I don't hold much confidence in such a production every being so.
God, I would so love to direct this into a film myself.... granted i have zero experience in that field. Actually I think this would fit the episodic structure of a TV show better.
the best american author of the last 50 years....and Blood Merridian, is in my opinion, his best work to date. I saw it reported that James Gandolfini signed on to direct the movie that Ridley Scott said couldn't be filmed...we'll see if he has the stones to make it right....full of skin peeling, skull scraping maw:) don't forget swams of flies as extras! :) thanks for the post...and keep the stories comin cormac!
I´m not a native speaker but well educated in English. I do not find it so much difficult to read, but rather, it is slow. I took about 2 minutes a page average, reading it attentively and with care. I thought oh, 330-340 pages, ill kill that in a day or two. But it was treacherous, it took me a longer, fruitful time.
"He never sleeps, the judge. He says he will never die"
"And indeed he never has died" -bloom. What a terrifying way to end a novel. Though the judge, and not the narrator, proclaims he will live forever, it is not explained whether mankind will outlive the judge, or if the judge will go down with us.
@robertschelly No, I think American studios are hard at work destroying every piece of art they can. Modern film directors and producers are pathetic, either suckling on the tit of whatever Hollywood exec is paying for their condo or pretentiously attempting to create an original work while failing like a naive child. Give them some time and they'll turn every good idea into a manufactured POS.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the only way this movie could be made would be to break it into two parts and animate it. It would be the only way to accurately depict the physical qualities of the judge. If done correctly, it could completely change the way people view what can be done with animation. It would take a lot of cahones to make Blood Meridian into an animated film. The first film should end with the kid standing in front of the burning tree...
@MaximusDowns I actually really like that idea man. You're right though, it would take a lot of balls and have to be a completely new take on animated film.
The judge reminds me of a sort of Anti-Christ. He teaches his followers, all men fallen to the deepest depths of sin, the pessimistic truths of this fallen world, utilizing parables as his teaching medium.
Conan Stevens is a dead on match for my image of the Judge. Physically, he's perfect for the role. The obvious problem is that he's a little known action movie actor from Australia whose biggest break as of late was landing the role of a Tolkien goblin. In a possible movie adaptation, the Judge must loom over all, so any actor shorter than the stated height in the book would subsequently scale down everyone else. But this is ultimately trifling compared to whether it should be filmed at all.
I need some help. I love McCarthy's prose. I also get central components of the novel - stuff about the Kid and the Judge. But why all the sub-stories? There's a lot of things that the Kid sees and does that don't seem to have any baring on the main thrust of why McCarthy is doing. Is the idea that life just kind of "goes along"? How am I supposed to read those sections to get the most out of the novel? Thanks!
I agree with some of the statements made, but for a moral law to exist, there must be kratos to enforce it. If the powerful are disenfranchised, are they powerful?
This is the most profoundest and darkest wisdom! The reason the Judge is similar to the priest is because Sacrificial Violence is the ultimate founding faith in all spheres of Ideology; Art as Nietzsche said ‘ Is spiritualized cruelty.’ Violence as a historical fact sacralises itself. I would contend that sacrificial violence is the legitimate cause of Identity. Violence and suffering is also the basis and origin memory. Therefore, violence is the crux of Identity.
@rimbaud59 The Judge, a polymath, a genius, a child rapist, an albino malignancy, is the concentrated force of historical evil. The judge dominates a group of men who are desperate, illiterate, incurious and inured to violence. Powerful and sophisticated men have been slaughtering innocents and enemies by manipulating other far less powerful and sophisticated men for centuries, upon centuries. And yet they seem immortal, as they are still with us today...and still at it.
Alexandre Rodrigues as black Jackson/ Ben Foster as Toadvine/ Ashton Holmes as the kid/ Christian Bale as white Jackson/ Stephen Lang as Glanton/ Chris Hemsworth as David Brown/ and I dont know as the Judge
for all of you debating casting choices, let me throw in my 2 cents: this book shouldn't be made into a film. it's an impossible translation. it's far too ethereal, atmospheric, & overwhelmingly violent to ever have justice done to it on film, at least if it goes through hollywood. don't get me wrong; i can't find the words for how much i adore this book. essentially, that's why i don't think it should be done. i just don't think it's possible to be done well. some books should stay books.
Well it was obvious to me that the Judge was a supernatural character, probably demonic. However I didn't realize that he was based on Milton's Satan, until someone pointed out to me the parallel between the scenes where those two characters teach their troops how to make gunpowder.
Well it is obvious that he is evocative of the supernatural. This does not make him a supernatural entity, that would be a cop out. For the judge to mean anything at all he has to stand for something real.
I think that within the context of literature it is possible for a character to be supernatural and stand for something real. The reason why I view the Judge as supernatural is that scene at the end when he is playing the fiddle naked, dancing and shouting that he will live and dance forever (if I remember the scene properly). It reminded me of a Pan dancing at a orgy for Bacchus, though in Greek mythology Pan is not evil, and the Judge most definitely is evil.
Pan may very well be considered Evil from a Judeo-Christian moral perspective, and the judge may not be considered Evil from a pagan perspective; in fact could not be considered so by a Roman perspective, as their morality was not dualistic. The book is rife with Nietzschean allusions, and the judge himself asserts that there is no validity to moral law.
Paradoxically enough, in this very excerpt he also insists that there are "strange affinities" between men of war - such as himself - and Catholic priests.
Gary Oldman as Glanton, Sam Rockwell as Toadvine, Benicio Del Toro as Tobin, Spencer Treat Clark as The Kid (I guess) and and either John Malkovich, William Hurt or Tom Noonan as Judge.
I know most of you will scoff at this but Vince Vaughn could be great for the Judge. Think Clay Pigeons, Psycho. Vince completely shaved, come on you know that's scary!
I'd love to recommend a man to play the Judge, but the truth is I can't, because there is no actor alive who has both the intimidating physical appearance, and eerily commanding presence, to pull it off.
@strayebyrd Precisely... McCarthy afficionados have a mental picture of the Judge...we'd be satisfied with casting's choice?...a film adaptation might work around the physical requirements, yet retain the commanding presence...it would be the role of a lifetime...please, please, just get it out of the Cohen Brother's hands...voiceovers are a no-no in Hollywood, yet The Road, even as a novel is a voiceover...the man's thoughts lend breadth and depth...without them the movie was shallow...
@twotonsushi I thought the Coen's adaptation of NO COUNTRY was brilliant. You didn't like it? I totally agree It'd have to be about presence rather than physicality though. It's a shame Peckinpah is dead. He'd have loved to have taken it on.
Once, I punched, kicked, sweat, bled and almost died though this book. i put it down forever more than once. I hacked, kicked, gagged and crawled through the finality of it, knowing I'd never have to read another book by Cormac again. His are no books for young men.
The ultimate representation of the straw man. Well told, but not so confusing if you listen closely. The strength of his pronouncements need not be seen as truth. In fact the divergences he speaks of are exactly the progress of man and not war. War is the thing of animals. Man, not spiritual or moral, but man as greater than a monkey, and moving forward, but the JUDGE would claim that we are hand cuffed to the past. Not just yesterday, but ALL time. He is wrong. Man is more.
Milk vs War. Why not take a small bow to milk from the breast because without it not a single warrior would exist. ALL warriors were fed by the breast. Games of chance require a mother. However, kids thinks that their world is separate from Mom or Dad. Just like the Judge, he can claim a great thing. The idea of annihilation and the idea that on man can hold the world in his hands, and yet, a mother sits at home with a little sister... while men claim that war is the ultimate game
John Caroll Lynch has the physical presence to play Holden. I don't know if his acting talents are up to snuff though. I can't picture Day Lewis in the role. He doesn't have the very particular kind of physicality that McCarthy depicts Holden as having. Noonan, when he was in Manhunter would have been close to a Holden type appearance, he would have still needed a few extra pounds. In the book Holden is 7 foot tall and broadness to match height. There are no trade offs with that.
if you studied philosophy you would know that his words are anything but pure bullshit, you dont "get" shit son, its an amazing peace of writing with a lot of truth behind it and hes not satan but judge is obviously a demon.
Actually i never asked for your opinion and simply stating something like that without an insightful argument makes you look like a dumb kid probably quoting something you read passing it off like its yours trying to seem "intelligent" without even knowing what it means.
@REDDRAKON I studied philosophy in University. My statement was not something I learned; you will prove my statement with your next comment. Thank you.
You must understand this. The Judge, in this book, is Satan. Or something thereabouts, created to fuck with man's minds and make them think whatever will fuck with that particular man at that particular time. His word is pure bull shit, and yet it sounds like truth. Of course it does. By the way. I am NOT religious. I just "get" Cormac.
As far as who should play him? I vote for Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen, but alas Leonard is too old I think to play with the physical prowess necessary.
@ultramanjonez just stumbled onto this and am getting the book but i dont understand why you say what the judge says is bs the whole war is god is pretty true.
Coen Brothers w/ daniel day lewis as the judge and di caprio with a beard as glanton, maybe some slack jawed walk-on as the kid, and levar burton as brown and Steve Buscemi as Toadvine .... oscar instantly
The Road -Are you going to make a 2nd and 3rd movie? We want to find out what happens to the boy and his new family.. Great movie, The Road but very sad, Hope the world never has anything like that happen !
That's a good monologue. Much better than the overwrought descriptive passages where McCarthy dumps a wheelbarrow of (sometimes incompatible) metaphors over everything.
If they consider making this a film I will do anything in my physical power to stop it. Not because I think it can't be done, but because cinema is dead, all contemporary films are terrible (with the occasional exception). Why defile something so great?
Doesn't The Judge remind you of Anton Chuguir? Those characters parallel one another in behavior and I love it. McCarthy writes characters that I just cannot help but love in their innocence or incredibly sinister personalities.
Yes. Cormac McCarthy often seems to put one semi-supernatural figure in his novels who represents death. It is a recurring theme, much like the image of the man carrying the flame.
@JamesAndaGuitar In a symbolic sense, as harbingers of death, they are similar, but as characters they are quite different. The Judge is a garrulous and sociable man, though a monster, while Chighur is a loner, a man of few words.
The Judge is a proponent to a nihilistic philosophy that is so condemned by general society, but yet as history has shown, so well practiced by general society. The Judge is a man of contradictions, pensive, affable, genial, unflinching and macabre. A timeless entity whose psychological manifestations remain evident in an era of such technological, academic and spiritual progress.
With regard to "The Movie" controversy: it could be a great movie, if it were sufficiently daring as an adaptation, but it would by its nature be an abused movie by nature of its extreme violence. That's to say, it would be perceived by the public as a strange hybrid of art-house, spaghetti western and shock-gore movie at the same time. All of these public opinions may love or hate the film.
The Judge's philosophy is convincing, coherent and morally repugnant. Nietsche, the later HG Wells, Schmidt, Heidegger, Mao, Hitler and Stalin are among the most brilliant adherents.
McCarthy presents moral nihilism as an appealing philosophy in order to demonstrate its final end and destination - utter barbarism and savagery.
@Psifonian2 - I totally agree. Sharian is the only actor I've come across who might be able to pull the Holden character off based on his looks/presence.
Definitely the most dog-eared section in my beaten copy of the book. And I've yet to come across any critic willing to address the scope of the Judge's argument. Perhaps because it's such scary shit.
@Ticalionstalion82 I was thinking Daniel Day Louis, But Rourke would be Good too. How About John Goodman as the Judge, Tommy lee Jones as Toadvine, Matt Damon as the kid, and Robert Duvall as Tobin, the only thong I worry about is will the Director have the balls to make this movie the way it should be made.
@FOX3762 Daniel Day would be a good pick but I think someone a little more low profile would be good too, as far as the Judge I think it would be a strech for Goodman, but I think with the right script it would work, I think Tommy Lee would be good as Tobin the priest, Toadvine: Ben Foster, David Brown: Sam Rockwell, Black Jackson: Michael K Williams, The Kid: Emile Hirsch, I also think a hairless Ron Pearlman with more weight would have the look of the Judge but not the acting chops
@Ticalionstalion82 I was thinking Daniel Day Louis, But Rourke would be Good too. How About John Goodman as the Judge, Tommy lee Jones as Toadvine, Matt Damon as the kid, and Robert Duvall as Tobin, the only thing I worry about is will the Director have the balls to make this movie the way it should be made.
I have the second version of the audiobook and it's not as good...Cormac brings new meaning to 'bloody genius.' I wonder how much is stolen from Jeffers' "Bloody Sire." Strange affinities indeed...
treble970 2 weeks ago
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CaptianJohnGlanton 1 month ago
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CaptianJohnGlanton 1 month ago
The most important thing about the Judge (for those who think they "Get It") is whether or not the HIS views are convincing to you.If they are NOT. Good for you, hope you enjoyed it half as much as I. If they are convincing you probably have been seduced by the eloquent Romanticism of WAR on every page. Books don't shape the World. They shape you. To put It another way if you had murdered uncounted numbers of people yet had an IQ of 180. You would have met all obligs. Debates open IJdgsO.
CaptianJohnGlanton 1 month ago
My professor required this of us... It has since become my favorite book. A Robinson Jeffers approach to natural violence. Few books impress me, but I have become obsessed with this.I listen to this about once a month and have an abridged audiobook, but it does not feature this speaker. I think he conveys the story much better than my copy...
treble970 2 months ago
The only novel I read completely and it turned out to be a true master-piece.
Wish this novel be studied in universities
atheisticaatif 2 months ago
This is a fragment that starts at the bottom of page 261 in my edition. Just in case other people are searching, to read along.
TheRealSmacker 3 months ago
Brilliant reading of a brilliant part of a brilliant book. But the punchline is missing! the very sentence where it climaxes it cut off halfway at the end. "What could I ask of you, that you have not already given? "
TheRealSmacker 3 months ago
Was that antelope dead or alive when he cracked its shin bone...............
floppykid 3 months ago
@floppykid It was dead. It was in the fire.
TheMagmagoblin 1 month ago
@TheMagmagoblin
It's been a while since I've read it, but does it make that explicit?
Seems almost ritualistic, like he does it before he makes this speech.
floppykid 1 month ago
@floppykid lol
AIONBERSERKER 3 weeks ago
@AIONBERSERKER
Che?
floppykid 3 weeks ago
@AIONBERSERKER
What the hell you laughin' at you sum'bitch?!
floppykid 3 weeks ago
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Chookiman 4 months ago
This Is Richard Poe's reading and no other media will top it. Hollywood will destroy this book.
Chookiman 4 months ago 2
@Chookiman yeah......unless the coen do it then it'll be MASTERFUL
Econ1260MetZRoberto 1 month ago
I don't think this book should be made into a film. The poetic descriptions and unrelenting violence would ensure that it could only ever be an ultra stylish art house movie and an art house movie wouldn't have the budget to do it justice. Simply, it should just remain a book and we should encourage people to read the story, rather than enabling them to consume it through a terrible blockbuster.
floppykid 4 months ago
@floppykid meh, I understand what your saying, but I disagree. I think this novel could make an astonishing piece of film. That said, I don't hold much confidence in such a production every being so.
God, I would so love to direct this into a film myself.... granted i have zero experience in that field. Actually I think this would fit the episodic structure of a TV show better.
Perhaps if I win the lottery...
sigmonrunner1 2 months ago
After watching the movie "W.E.I.R.D. World" I actually believe Ed O'Neill would make a great Judge.
LightStijn 4 months ago
Candy and Cigarettes
csdewildt 5 months ago
Why should Ridley Scott do it? I´d prefer someone like the guy who did the Dollars-trilogy... yes I know that director is probably dead.
TheRealSmacker 5 months ago
the best american author of the last 50 years....and Blood Merridian, is in my opinion, his best work to date. I saw it reported that James Gandolfini signed on to direct the movie that Ridley Scott said couldn't be filmed...we'll see if he has the stones to make it right....full of skin peeling, skull scraping maw:) don't forget swams of flies as extras! :) thanks for the post...and keep the stories comin cormac!
kylethompson4 5 months ago
(that's what the Judge looks like)
breeeegs 5 months ago
a great reading, but its hard to picture this voice coming from an obese gigantic hairless man baby
breeeegs 5 months ago 4
@breeeegs Judge Holden is The Devil, he is Satan...
PeterKuypers 5 months ago
maybe Death, or War personified
breeeegs 5 months ago
@PeterKuypers No he's not Satan, he's a Gnostic Archon, read "Gravers False and True: Blood Meridian as Gnostic Tragedy"
AIONBERSERKER 3 months ago
Great part of a great book by a great author.
TheRealSmacker 5 months ago
*Press 1 on your keyboard repeatedly **
sethdesade 5 months ago
writing styles of blood meridian is similar to that of the bible.
llamasarus1 5 months ago
@llamasarus1 Exactly
Econ1260MetZRoberto 1 month ago
I love Cormac McCarthy, but I found this book to be extremely difficult to read.
failmeister51 5 months ago 2
@failmeister51
I´m not a native speaker but well educated in English. I do not find it so much difficult to read, but rather, it is slow. I took about 2 minutes a page average, reading it attentively and with care. I thought oh, 330-340 pages, ill kill that in a day or two. But it was treacherous, it took me a longer, fruitful time.
TheRealSmacker 5 months ago
@failmeister51 Painfully hard to read
Econ1260MetZRoberto 1 month ago
4:45 Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak.
mumdangerous 6 months ago
@mumdangerous I was blown away when I read that
Econ1260MetZRoberto 1 month ago
"He never sleeps, the judge. He says he will never die"
"And indeed he never has died" -bloom. What a terrifying way to end a novel. Though the judge, and not the narrator, proclaims he will live forever, it is not explained whether mankind will outlive the judge, or if the judge will go down with us.
senateb 6 months ago
They could also do Blood M in a series, like Deadwood; only obviously having a definite terminus.
This novel is mindblowing and sad to say I seriously doubt any American studio would have the balls to attempt it.
robertschelly 6 months ago
@robertschelly No, I think American studios are hard at work destroying every piece of art they can. Modern film directors and producers are pathetic, either suckling on the tit of whatever Hollywood exec is paying for their condo or pretentiously attempting to create an original work while failing like a naive child. Give them some time and they'll turn every good idea into a manufactured POS.
jrubin68 5 months ago
tobin traveled through time to dislike this.
msa1985 6 months ago 9
...that you've not already given?
BoneWhyte 7 months ago
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the only way this movie could be made would be to break it into two parts and animate it. It would be the only way to accurately depict the physical qualities of the judge. If done correctly, it could completely change the way people view what can be done with animation. It would take a lot of cahones to make Blood Meridian into an animated film. The first film should end with the kid standing in front of the burning tree...
MaximusDowns 7 months ago
@MaximusDowns I actually really like that idea man. You're right though, it would take a lot of balls and have to be a completely new take on animated film.
I don't see it happening but I'd love to see it.
itsmedude1020 7 months ago
The judge reminds me of a sort of Anti-Christ. He teaches his followers, all men fallen to the deepest depths of sin, the pessimistic truths of this fallen world, utilizing parables as his teaching medium.
itsmedude1020 7 months ago
While this is beautiful, Heston is why I read.
avery2k2 7 months ago
I'd very much like to know if this clip is taken from an audiobook, and if so, where I could acquire it. This man's voice is absolutely perfect.
JBradshawful 7 months ago
"Before man was, war waited for him."
Fucking chills, EVERY time.
SirRunk 7 months ago 15
Conan Stevens is a dead on match for my image of the Judge. Physically, he's perfect for the role. The obvious problem is that he's a little known action movie actor from Australia whose biggest break as of late was landing the role of a Tolkien goblin. In a possible movie adaptation, the Judge must loom over all, so any actor shorter than the stated height in the book would subsequently scale down everyone else. But this is ultimately trifling compared to whether it should be filmed at all.
ElKaNA29073 8 months ago
Why does the Judge save the Idiot?
ElKaNA29073 8 months ago
@ElKaNA29073 Damned good question.
RobertMurph 7 months ago
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ElKaNA29073 8 months ago
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ElKaNA29073 8 months ago
This is the very reason this is an un-filmable book.
heykir456 8 months ago
I need some help. I love McCarthy's prose. I also get central components of the novel - stuff about the Kid and the Judge. But why all the sub-stories? There's a lot of things that the Kid sees and does that don't seem to have any baring on the main thrust of why McCarthy is doing. Is the idea that life just kind of "goes along"? How am I supposed to read those sections to get the most out of the novel? Thanks!
drsuessre14 8 months ago
The last line
"Ah Priest, said the judge. What could I ask of you that you’ve not already given?"
senateb 8 months ago
The Judge, most interesting fictional character ever.
oldirrtydoogz 8 months ago
I agree with some of the statements made, but for a moral law to exist, there must be kratos to enforce it. If the powerful are disenfranchised, are they powerful?
ChristianWarriorUSA 8 months ago
2:04
EthanXin 8 months ago
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EthanXin 8 months ago
1 person is a Mexican.
Bigsquid91 9 months ago 2
the greatest passage on war
\
Assmaster350 9 months ago
This is the most profoundest and darkest wisdom! The reason the Judge is similar to the priest is because Sacrificial Violence is the ultimate founding faith in all spheres of Ideology; Art as Nietzsche said ‘ Is spiritualized cruelty.’ Violence as a historical fact sacralises itself. I would contend that sacrificial violence is the legitimate cause of Identity. Violence and suffering is also the basis and origin memory. Therefore, violence is the crux of Identity.
rimbaud59 10 months ago
@rimbaud59 The Judge, a polymath, a genius, a child rapist, an albino malignancy, is the concentrated force of historical evil. The judge dominates a group of men who are desperate, illiterate, incurious and inured to violence. Powerful and sophisticated men have been slaughtering innocents and enemies by manipulating other far less powerful and sophisticated men for centuries, upon centuries. And yet they seem immortal, as they are still with us today...and still at it.
molloyxx1 8 months ago 4
Michael Shannon could be a good judge if he bulked up a bit
Ticalionstalion82 10 months ago
Alexandre Rodrigues as black Jackson/ Ben Foster as Toadvine/ Ashton Holmes as the kid/ Christian Bale as white Jackson/ Stephen Lang as Glanton/ Chris Hemsworth as David Brown/ and I dont know as the Judge
Ticalionstalion82 10 months ago
James Franco would butcher this book.
ramsesiii55 10 months ago
for all of you debating casting choices, let me throw in my 2 cents: this book shouldn't be made into a film. it's an impossible translation. it's far too ethereal, atmospheric, & overwhelmingly violent to ever have justice done to it on film, at least if it goes through hollywood. don't get me wrong; i can't find the words for how much i adore this book. essentially, that's why i don't think it should be done. i just don't think it's possible to be done well. some books should stay books.
022171 10 months ago 2
A shaved Brendan Gleeson would have kind of the right face for the judge as I picture him.
pullupboy 11 months ago
The Judge, I believe, was based on Milton's Satan. In both Blood Meridian and Paradise Lost the villein gets the most compelling arguments.
JeanCocteau777 11 months ago
@JeanCocteau777 This is where we all line up as you fly out the window and say (waving) "Thank you Captain Obvious!"
ramsesiii55 10 months ago
@ramsesiii55
Well it was obvious to me that the Judge was a supernatural character, probably demonic. However I didn't realize that he was based on Milton's Satan, until someone pointed out to me the parallel between the scenes where those two characters teach their troops how to make gunpowder.
JeanCocteau777 10 months ago
@JeanCocteau777
Well it is obvious that he is evocative of the supernatural. This does not make him a supernatural entity, that would be a cop out. For the judge to mean anything at all he has to stand for something real.
ramsesiii55 10 months ago
@ramsesiii55
I think that within the context of literature it is possible for a character to be supernatural and stand for something real. The reason why I view the Judge as supernatural is that scene at the end when he is playing the fiddle naked, dancing and shouting that he will live and dance forever (if I remember the scene properly). It reminded me of a Pan dancing at a orgy for Bacchus, though in Greek mythology Pan is not evil, and the Judge most definitely is evil.
JeanCocteau777 10 months ago
@JeanCocteau777
Pan may very well be considered Evil from a Judeo-Christian moral perspective, and the judge may not be considered Evil from a pagan perspective; in fact could not be considered so by a Roman perspective, as their morality was not dualistic. The book is rife with Nietzschean allusions, and the judge himself asserts that there is no validity to moral law.
ramsesiii55 10 months ago
@ramsesiii55
Paradoxically enough, in this very excerpt he also insists that there are "strange affinities" between men of war - such as himself - and Catholic priests.
JeanCocteau777 10 months ago
@JeanCocteau777
"On the Priests:
'Among them too are heroes; many of them suffered too much- so they want to make others suffer.
'Yet my blood is related to theirs; and I would know that my blood is honoured even in theirs.'"
Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
This seems apposite to the judge's opinion on priests.
ramsesiii55 10 months ago
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ramsesiii55 10 months ago
Everyone talking about a cast is forgetting Tom Waits as the Judge. It would be EPIC.
McBrannon1000 11 months ago
@McBrannon1000 He would need some stilts!
CaptianJohnGlanton 11 months ago
@McBrannon1000
I always thought Lawrence Tierney would be great for the role, but unfortunately he went and died on us.
JeanCocteau777 10 months ago
War... War never changes. --Fallout
War... War has changed. --MGS4
War... is god. --Blood Meridian
benxgov 11 months ago
steve buscemi could play glanton...he can do pure evil and what kind of man would not give a tip to a waitress
baseballballerina 11 months ago
Chris Cooper as David Brown, I always found him to be one of the more intriuging characters of the book
Ticalionstalion82 11 months ago
Coppola would have been the perfect director, back in the Godfather and Apocalypes Now days,
Ticalionstalion82 11 months ago
Gary Oldman as Glanton, Sam Rockwell as Toadvine, Benicio Del Toro as Tobin, Spencer Treat Clark as The Kid (I guess) and and either John Malkovich, William Hurt or Tom Noonan as Judge.
chickensarealiens 11 months ago
@chickensarealiens Love the idea of Sam Rockwell as Toadvine.
CaptianJohnGlanton 11 months ago
Is there more than one audio version of this book?
S2Cents 11 months ago
kind of like marlin brando in apocalypse now to bad he's not alive anymore.
dirtgerm1 1 year ago
Jesus Christ.........I took this audio book on a road trip and never wanted to get where I was going!
rumblefish89 1 year ago
@rumblefish89 Amen, greatest ever recorded. I own it, not sure who the reader is but he is amazing
CaptianJohnGlanton 11 months ago
The Judge is the greatest character of all time.
"Not three weeks before this he was run out of Forth Smith Arkansas for having congress with a goat. Yes lady, that is what I said. Goat."
StarshipKoyote 1 year ago
Zero dislikes.
mattbors 1 year ago 18
@mattbors not anymore
MalaTemporaCurrunt 6 months ago
I know most of you will scoff at this but Vince Vaughn could be great for the Judge. Think Clay Pigeons, Psycho. Vince completely shaved, come on you know that's scary!
briandsimpson 1 year ago
I'd love to recommend a man to play the Judge, but the truth is I can't, because there is no actor alive who has both the intimidating physical appearance, and eerily commanding presence, to pull it off.
strayebyrd 1 year ago
@strayebyrd
I think Ben Kingsley would be great as the judge. watch Sexy Beast, he's fucking monstrous in it.
jonbongjovie 1 year ago
@strayebyrd Precisely... McCarthy afficionados have a mental picture of the Judge...we'd be satisfied with casting's choice?...a film adaptation might work around the physical requirements, yet retain the commanding presence...it would be the role of a lifetime...please, please, just get it out of the Cohen Brother's hands...voiceovers are a no-no in Hollywood, yet The Road, even as a novel is a voiceover...the man's thoughts lend breadth and depth...without them the movie was shallow...
twotonsushi 1 year ago
@twotonsushi I thought the Coen's adaptation of NO COUNTRY was brilliant. You didn't like it? I totally agree It'd have to be about presence rather than physicality though. It's a shame Peckinpah is dead. He'd have loved to have taken it on.
hanshotfirst1138 1 year ago
The judge never sleeps, the judge never dies.
0AmiidiimA0 1 year ago
like if you think daniel day lewis should play the judge in any film version
skidog110 1 year ago
Cormac McCarthy stop raping my soul
bigbacon12345 1 year ago 17
so much violence, so much beauty and so much truth. Wish everything he said was wrong, but it is true .
Thealyquashen 1 year ago
Once, I punched, kicked, sweat, bled and almost died though this book. i put it down forever more than once. I hacked, kicked, gagged and crawled through the finality of it, knowing I'd never have to read another book by Cormac again. His are no books for young men.
pylgrym 1 year ago
are you young or are you a man?
Thealyquashen 1 year ago
The ultimate representation of the straw man. Well told, but not so confusing if you listen closely. The strength of his pronouncements need not be seen as truth. In fact the divergences he speaks of are exactly the progress of man and not war. War is the thing of animals. Man, not spiritual or moral, but man as greater than a monkey, and moving forward, but the JUDGE would claim that we are hand cuffed to the past. Not just yesterday, but ALL time. He is wrong. Man is more.
ultramanjonez 1 year ago
Milk vs War. Why not take a small bow to milk from the breast because without it not a single warrior would exist. ALL warriors were fed by the breast. Games of chance require a mother. However, kids thinks that their world is separate from Mom or Dad. Just like the Judge, he can claim a great thing. The idea of annihilation and the idea that on man can hold the world in his hands, and yet, a mother sits at home with a little sister... while men claim that war is the ultimate game
ultramanjonez 1 year ago
Who gives the reading? Sounds like Anthony Quinn but not sure...
nelsano3 1 year ago
John Caroll Lynch has the physical presence to play Holden. I don't know if his acting talents are up to snuff though. I can't picture Day Lewis in the role. He doesn't have the very particular kind of physicality that McCarthy depicts Holden as having. Noonan, when he was in Manhunter would have been close to a Holden type appearance, he would have still needed a few extra pounds. In the book Holden is 7 foot tall and broadness to match height. There are no trade offs with that.
MrPGaff 1 year ago
if you studied philosophy you would know that his words are anything but pure bullshit, you dont "get" shit son, its an amazing peace of writing with a lot of truth behind it and hes not satan but judge is obviously a demon.
REDDRAKON 1 year ago
@REDDRAKON Actually war and conflict is a metaphysical truth. Balance and contrasting entities.
MrHeavenist 1 year ago
@MrHeavenist
Actually i never asked for your opinion and simply stating something like that without an insightful argument makes you look like a dumb kid probably quoting something you read passing it off like its yours trying to seem "intelligent" without even knowing what it means.
REDDRAKON 1 year ago
@REDDRAKON I studied philosophy in University. My statement was not something I learned; you will prove my statement with your next comment. Thank you.
MrHeavenist 1 year ago
@MrHeavenist
you just proved me right, thank you.
REDDRAKON 1 year ago
Comment removed
REDDRAKON 1 year ago
You must understand this. The Judge, in this book, is Satan. Or something thereabouts, created to fuck with man's minds and make them think whatever will fuck with that particular man at that particular time. His word is pure bull shit, and yet it sounds like truth. Of course it does. By the way. I am NOT religious. I just "get" Cormac.
As far as who should play him? I vote for Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen, but alas Leonard is too old I think to play with the physical prowess necessary.
ultramanjonez 1 year ago
@ultramanjonez just stumbled onto this and am getting the book but i dont understand why you say what the judge says is bs the whole war is god is pretty true.
DamnationReborn 1 year ago
Coen Brothers w/ daniel day lewis as the judge and di caprio with a beard as glanton, maybe some slack jawed walk-on as the kid, and levar burton as brown and Steve Buscemi as Toadvine .... oscar instantly
billt568 1 year ago
@billt568 this whole comment is blah. better picks, sir. dont go all main stream on me now....
BigBen138 1 year ago
if this were ever made into a film ...
a shaved Kelsey Grammer for Holden!
but it shouldn't be made into a film.
strizic 1 year ago
war was always here,before man was war waited for him,you have to love it!
dizzypilots1 1 year ago
the coen brother should direct blood meridian
joyorder93 1 year ago
The Road -Are you going to make a 2nd and 3rd movie? We want to find out what happens to the boy and his new family.. Great movie, The Road but very sad, Hope the world never has anything like that happen !
maddona1ify 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
We watched The Road we want a 2n and 3rd movie please. We want to know what happend to the boy? And the family
maddona1ify 1 year ago
We watched The Road we want a 2n and 3rd movie please. We want to know what happesnd to the boy? And the family
maddona1ify 1 year ago
i still don't get it. can someone explain.
gatoradeee 1 year ago
That's a good monologue. Much better than the overwrought descriptive passages where McCarthy dumps a wheelbarrow of (sometimes incompatible) metaphors over everything.
Cabochon1360 1 year ago
who does this reading? i really want this recording.
gatoradeee 1 year ago
@gatoradeee
Richard Poe.
Dogar230 1 year ago
Cormac! you are the greatest American writer ever....
No one , not even Shakespeare, can rival you in the kind of writing you do.
you are simply the genius !!
Thealyquashen 1 year ago
@Thealyquashen ...I think I just vomited.
kidblink182 1 year ago
If they consider making this a film I will do anything in my physical power to stop it. Not because I think it can't be done, but because cinema is dead, all contemporary films are terrible (with the occasional exception). Why defile something so great?
jrubin68 1 year ago
@jrubin68
Somebody doesn't watch Bollywood
Skinnyoompalumpa 5 months ago
@Skinnyoompalumpa No, I prefer Ritwik Ghatak and Satyajit Ray.
jrubin68 5 months ago
Derek Mears for Holden?
the5chronicles 1 year ago
If there's one actor who I could picture playing the Judge, it'd be George C. Scott. Just a thought.
MSW86 1 year ago
@MSW86
john goodman. give him a baby to scalp, some dogs to drown, and he can dance naked til he kills the kid in the john.
gastronomike 1 year ago
@gastronomike Woody Harelson was Brown?
BTW John Goodman would be a real messed up Holden. But I mean that in a good way;)
MSW86 1 year ago
Brilliant book. The thing that is perhaps most unsettling about The Judge, is that he might be right about Man.
oldirrtydoogz 1 year ago
anyone know where you could possibly download the audiobook? Ive read it once, but I like the way this guy narrates it.
Ticalionstalion82 1 year ago
He's probably too old, but I always thought if Clancy Brown bulked up that he'd be a great Judge.
meowmix99999 1 year ago
Doesn't The Judge remind you of Anton Chuguir? Those characters parallel one another in behavior and I love it. McCarthy writes characters that I just cannot help but love in their innocence or incredibly sinister personalities.
JamesAndaGuitar 1 year ago
@JamesAndaGuitar
Yes. Cormac McCarthy often seems to put one semi-supernatural figure in his novels who represents death. It is a recurring theme, much like the image of the man carrying the flame.
JeanCocteau777 1 year ago
@JamesAndaGuitar In a symbolic sense, as harbingers of death, they are similar, but as characters they are quite different. The Judge is a garrulous and sociable man, though a monster, while Chighur is a loner, a man of few words.
belisariusorb 1 year ago
The Judge is a proponent to a nihilistic philosophy that is so condemned by general society, but yet as history has shown, so well practiced by general society. The Judge is a man of contradictions, pensive, affable, genial, unflinching and macabre. A timeless entity whose psychological manifestations remain evident in an era of such technological, academic and spiritual progress.
fitzy098 1 year ago
@fitzy098 Well put - especially your description of the Judge. But is he really a man or a kind of god or devil?
belisariusorb 1 year ago
With regard to "The Movie" controversy: it could be a great movie, if it were sufficiently daring as an adaptation, but it would by its nature be an abused movie by nature of its extreme violence. That's to say, it would be perceived by the public as a strange hybrid of art-house, spaghetti western and shock-gore movie at the same time. All of these public opinions may love or hate the film.
belisariusorb 1 year ago
The Judge's philosophy is convincing, coherent and morally repugnant. Nietsche, the later HG Wells, Schmidt, Heidegger, Mao, Hitler and Stalin are among the most brilliant adherents.
McCarthy presents moral nihilism as an appealing philosophy in order to demonstrate its final end and destination - utter barbarism and savagery.
I see the Judge as a prophet of moral relativism.
belisariusorb 1 year ago
I want the entirety on disc. I'm not computer efficient enough to track it down. I listen to it at least once a week.
treble970 1 year ago
@phil7765 It seems to me nothing but a bloodbath dictated by Henry James.
edmund184 1 year ago
John Sharian ("The Machinist") is a perfect candidate for Judge Holden, but no one can play Glanton unless their name is Josh Brolin.
Psifonian2 1 year ago 2
@Psifonian2
I was thinking Lawrence Tierney for the Judge.
JeanCocteau777 1 year ago
@JeanCocteau777 I like Tierney, but he doesn't look much like an enormous hairless infant.
Psifonian2 1 year ago
@Psifonian2 - I totally agree. Sharian is the only actor I've come across who might be able to pull the Holden character off based on his looks/presence.
kenuzy1 1 year ago
Perlman as the Judge,and Russell Crowe as Glanton.
Dusterooni 1 year ago
yup
EyeBeeWeazy 1 year ago
I'm ashamed to say I call the Judge my hero.
bigjstokes 1 year ago 3
Let's not forget that the judge liked a dance as well.
lucidjuicekid 1 year ago
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umgammer 1 year ago
the passage taken from Chapter XVI of the book " Blood Meridian".
Page no - 250.
Thealyquashen 1 year ago
Definitely the most dog-eared section in my beaten copy of the book. And I've yet to come across any critic willing to address the scope of the Judge's argument. Perhaps because it's such scary shit.
ayethereztherub 1 year ago
@ayethereztherub: If you read "A Fighter's Heart" by Sam Sheridan, he speaks of this very passage and he even argues against it.
bobflet 1 year ago
What chapter is this in?
twistedtweek 1 year ago
this is great bravo
slippereal 1 year ago
Mickey Rourke as Glanton
Ticalionstalion82 2 years ago 9
@Ticalionstalion82 I was thinking Daniel Day Louis, But Rourke would be Good too. How About John Goodman as the Judge, Tommy lee Jones as Toadvine, Matt Damon as the kid, and Robert Duvall as Tobin, the only thong I worry about is will the Director have the balls to make this movie the way it should be made.
FOX3762 11 months ago
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chickensarealiens 11 months ago
@FOX3762 Daniel Day would be a good pick but I think someone a little more low profile would be good too, as far as the Judge I think it would be a strech for Goodman, but I think with the right script it would work, I think Tommy Lee would be good as Tobin the priest, Toadvine: Ben Foster, David Brown: Sam Rockwell, Black Jackson: Michael K Williams, The Kid: Emile Hirsch, I also think a hairless Ron Pearlman with more weight would have the look of the Judge but not the acting chops
Ticalionstalion82 11 months ago
@Ticalionstalion82 I was thinking Daniel Day Louis, But Rourke would be Good too. How About John Goodman as the Judge, Tommy lee Jones as Toadvine, Matt Damon as the kid, and Robert Duvall as Tobin, the only thing I worry about is will the Director have the balls to make this movie the way it should be made.
FOX3762 11 months ago
@FOX3762 Who doesn't like John Goodman but is the Judge fat?
S2Cents 11 months ago
Comment removed
CaptianJohnGlanton 11 months ago