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/lit/ - Literature

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20003219 No.20003219 [Reply] [Original]

I wanted to make a thread to discuss this book, which I finished just yesterday. I found after spending a little bit of time on reddit after reading it that the average poster seems to be desperate to create meaning where none (or at least, where less) exists.

The ending is obviously left open for some interpretation. I wanted specifically after finishing to find what others thought of it, and to see where my own opinions lay in the spectrum of thought.

My opinion is pretty simplistic, being that the Judge killed the Kid in the jakes probably in a similar way to how he killed the man in the bar (crushing skull). When he entered the jakes the judge locked the door behind him, clearly its since been unlocked (the judge has left to go dance) and what's left behind is unpleasant (imo, the body of the kid). There is some mystery about what happened to the little girl who owned the bear, but we know that the judge has some tendencies towards children (he killed that Apache girl after dandling her on his knee; he was found at the ferry with the imbecile and a young girl; his relationship with the imbecile in general is strange).

But fuck me, these absolute spergs on reddit run the gamit of ridiculous opinion. The best one I think is that the judge didn't kill the kid, but the entry into the jakes was the kids symbolic Adam eating the apple moment. I don't think this is what happened because of above, but it is the least stupid. One thing people say is that there is evidence in the book (there isn't) that the kid has been raping children in every town and that what was left was the raped corpse of the girl who owned the bear. They say that there were large handmarks on the girls necks, a fact about the glanton gang on Wikipedia omitted from the book, and that the judge is said to have small hands. They say him using the dwarf prostitute points to this but the dwarf prostitute chose him not the other way around. This to me is such an unbelievable stretch and I genuinely felt like I'd missed something when people were spouting this as fact.

Anyway, blog post aside, I want to discuss this book. I've not read a book that challenged me as much as this one did, and I really enjoyed McCarthy's prose throughout. I know it's shilled on this board pretty hard but maybe I'm missing the threads where people actually talk about it.

>> No.20003226

>>20003219
>Look how depressing my books are
>I am so DEEP

>> No.20003346

>>20003219
>This to me is such an unbelievable stretch and I genuinely felt like I'd missed something when people were spouting this as fact.
How is it a stretch? Either way, it doesn't matter. Either the Judge killed the kid physically, or he killed the kid spiritually by tempting him into a heart hardening sin.

Also, the judge hug's the kid in the same way he hugged Glanton by the fire. There's more evidence in the text that the Judge corrupted the kid than otherwise. You think it's a stretch because you're forgetting crucial details in the story itself.

>> No.20003358

>>20003219
“The truth about the farmer, Chuck said, is that anything is possible. Had Sneed not seen it all from store and thereby fed it of its seedness it would appear to you for what it is, a fuck trick in a grocery store, a fuck dream, a gummy bear bepopulate with gucci loafers having neither feed nor seed, a german car, a migratory suckshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded fuck is unspeakable and chucklamitous beyond reckoning.

>> No.20003411

>>20003346
It's a stretch that the kid was raping kids. I said I thought the symbolic ending was a good take, I just dont agree with it personally.

>> No.20003447

>>20003358
vintage

>> No.20003448
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20003448

>There’s something wrong with you.

>> No.20003541

>>20003219
What did you make of the moment at the end of the chapter where the gang are sleeping in the horse stable and the book describes a great illumination? Had to read that part over about three times.

>> No.20003584

>>20003541
I don't really know what the illumination is about. I picked up that they're likening the stable to jail, and I figured the horses were spooked because of the general commotion. I guess the illumination to mean that as their eyes adjust to the darkness they're better able to make out shapes through even the faintest light (presumably the stable isn't completely sealed). But I'm willing to be told otherwise.

>> No.20003606
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20003606

>>20003219
The Kid was already damned for sins of murder throughout the story. He was already damned the moment he laid his eyes on the Judge. He thought he could just ignore Holden and say that "he ain't nothin." The Judge embracing the Kid was a moment of realization and he killed him (either physically or spiritually) solidifying his enteral damnation.

>> No.20003614

>>20003606
If the kid was killed spiritually, what do you say is left in the Jakes that stops the next guy from going in there

>> No.20003618

>>20003614
the dead body of the girl

>> No.20003685

>>20003618
And who do you say killed the girl/where has the kid gone

>> No.20004666

The kid (adult) did kill a boy earlier that chapter. Perhaps the judge's paedophilia finally wore off on him and he sodomized that boy's corpse?

>> No.20005020
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20005020

>>20003219
why didn't they just make friends with the indians?