tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061009.post5801488348350977365..comments2023-08-19T14:12:52.220+02:00Comments on Reflection & Inquiries: Dirge for all humanityGeoffrey Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041450398780043453noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061009.post-41246565616314697532009-04-23T11:59:00.000+02:002009-04-23T11:59:00.000+02:00A "Kierkegaardian Gurdjieffite"? Just the type of ...A "Kierkegaardian Gurdjieffite"? Just the type of reader McCarthy is after, I imagine. Now I'll have to read <I>Blood Meridian</I>.Geoffrey Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04041450398780043453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061009.post-44912840085841567492009-04-21T17:43:00.000+02:002009-04-21T17:43:00.000+02:00A close friend and cousin of mine is a sort of Kie...A close friend and cousin of mine is a sort of Kierkegaardian Gurdjieffite. He doesn’t read many novels. A couple of years ago he arrived at my house from a transcontinental flight consumed with enthusiasm with a book he had picked up in the airport, McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. He urged me strongly to read it. I have two comments on it. First the writing is thrilling. It recounts the adventurers of a group of men bounty hunting mostly in Sonora. The descriptions of the desert and various bizarre phenomena they encounter are breathtaking. Time and time again I put down the book in awe and astonishment at the beauty of a paragraph. The other is that this is the bleakest book I had ever read. This is a totally Hobbesian world liberally laced with atrocities. Every man’s hand is raised against every other, and the few women’s hands are raised ineffectually in self-defense. <br /><br />After a while he wrote me that he had found another McCarthy book that he liked even better, The Road. As I began reading it at first I was deeply relieved that in this book there are two human beings who care for each other, the father and son mentioned above. As I continued reading I realized that their deep commitment to each other only made the book more painful because of their dire circumstances. With respect to prose I think The Road is terrific, but not as thrilling as Blood Meridian.Dirk van Nouhuyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17920127581598506664noreply@blogger.com