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Blood Meridian

Cormac McCarthy

20 readers recommend it across 21 discussions

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THE WORD OF MOUTH

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Original Hacker News comments, in the readers’ own words.

pallas_athena
Since his death, I've been reading (or re-reading) all his books. Rarely I have enjoyed so many books from a single author. I also think Blood Meridian is one the greatest books of all time. According to [1] "his list of great novels stops at four: Ulysses, The Brothers Karamazov, The Sound and the Fury and his favorite, Moby-Dick". They all are a good addition to this thread. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140629023902/http://74.220.215... (https://web.archive.org/web/20140629023902/http://74.220.215.94/~davidkus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61:cormac-mccarthys-apocalypse-&catid=35:articles&Itemid=54)
billybatson
A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley: Decent. I think this book would best be read in conjunction while working through a textbook. I will admit that it did do quite a bit to help relieve math anxiety, but the nature of the book is practicality. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: A reread. A bit depressing considering the state of the world today. I found myself wondering which reality would be preferable. Letters to a Young Mathematician by Ian Stewart: Easy, but fruitful read. I've struggled a lot with math confidence, and this helped alleviate a lot of that. How to Speak, How to Listen by Mortimer J. Adler: A lot of practical advice. My biggest takeaway was this: if it's worth talking about, even if the conversation sucks or the other person doesn't understand, any bit of advancement and understanding is worth the effort. Really helped me increase my patience when talking to people. Quack This Way by David Foster Wallace and Bryan Garner: Super useful and practical discussion between two lovers of language. I keep a copy with me at all times. The Autobiography of Gucci Mane: Just a fun read while on vacation. "If Gucci can do it, you can do it".…
asimpletune
Foreign: * Life: a users manual by George s Perec. * Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal * Auto-da-fe by Elias Canetti Domestic: These are harder because I feel like they’re all pretty well known, but maybe they’re not actually read. Like, known bc people have heard the name, but are not read as much anymore. * Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson * Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon * Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy Actually unknown (but super good) domestic: * Stuff by Larry McMurtry (only famous for lonesome dove)
mabub24
I've always had a soft spot for Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Here's what I wrote about it: Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy. Worth reading for the landscape descriptions alone, McCarthy transforms the American west into a hellscape of inhuman violence, savagery, and evil; and yet, it's a beautiful descent into madness. His character of the Judge is as captivating as he is horrifying. Some choice quotes from him: > "Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent." > "War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god." > "Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view." > "The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos." > "All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage."…
mabub24
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy. Worth reading for the landscape descriptions alone, McCarthy transforms the American west into a hellscape of inhuman violence, savagery, and evil; and yet, it's a beautiful descent into madness. His character of the Judge is as captivating as he is horrifying. Some choice quotes from him: > "Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent." > "War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god." > "Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view." > "The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos." > "All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage."
cgh
I'm not sure what "fundamentally" means in this context, but these certainly made a lasting impact upon my young mind: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter Dune by Frank Herbert Post Office by Charles Bukowski V. by Thomas Pynchon Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy Pretty much everything by JL Borges
brudgers
As a reader of books, one of the good things about growing older is that the books the younger version of myself read are books that this older version of myself hasn't and there is great pleasure in rereading the books the younger version of myself read as the older person I am. And that makes this exercise impossible for me. The books I would tell the younger version of myself to read wouldn't resonate the same way (or not at all) with that other person I used to be. Picking books that might have appealed to the younger version of myself accurately would mean picking the books I actually read -- e.g. The Fifth Discipline -- and not books that the younger version of myself tried to read but couldn't but that I read and recommend today: e.g. TAoCP. Part of the complexity is that the world in which I read books today is radically different from that of my younger self. Today I can get a MIX interpreter from the internet [1]...there's even help on StackOverflow. My younger self couldn't because even in the time when there was an internet bandwidth was low and Google didn't exist.…
roymurdock
Older Stuff: The Bible/Quran, The Republic (Plato), The Social Contract (Rousseau), Tao Te Ching (Laozi), Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky), History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides) Newer Stuff: Nine Stories (Salinger), The Razor's Edge (Maugham), Nausea (Sartre), Siddartha (Hesse), Road to Serfdom (Hayek), The Book (Watts), Design of Everyday Things (Norman), Atlas Shrugged (Rand), Invisible Man (Ellison), Debunking Economics (Keen), Blood Meridian (McCarthy), The Center Cannot Hold (Saks), This Time Is Different (Reinhart/Rogoff), Infinite Jest (Wallace), Calvin and Hobbes (Watterson) All of these books are well written and have given me some perspective on interesting people/situations/ways of thinking.
brudgers
I recently reread Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. I was prompted to do so by another book discussion. Not his best book - I think Blood Meridian and The Road are better - but McCarthy is a great writer. For nerd non-fiction, I just read Jim Lovell's Lost Moon which though not a great book, is a good solid book about greatness.

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