Posts from — January 2011

Be forewarned. The following contains spoilers.

The other day I finished Blood Meridian. How exactly I came to it I’m not entirely sure. Partly it must have been having seen No Country for Old Men a little while ago; partly it must have been Harold Bloom’s enthusiastic recommendation. The more I read about it before touching the thing itself, the clearer it became that the central focus and attraction of the book would be the judge, and so indeed it turned out. The first time we meet him, at a revival meeting, he announces to a crowd that the preacher at the pulpit is a fraud, and that he had been run out of Fort Smith Arkansas for having congress with a goat, and that he was also wanted for violating children. So far, the judge is merely interesting, and we wonder a little about him and how he came to know these things. But then the crowd begin to ask him questions, to which he answers only negatively.

Judge, how did you come to have the goods on that no-account?

Goods? said the judge.

When was you in Fort Smith?

Fort Smith?

Where did you know him to know all that stuff on him?

You mean the Reverend Green?

Yessir. I reckon you was in Fort Smith fore ye come but here.

I was never in Fort Smith in my life. Doubt that he was.

They looked from one to the other.

Well where was it you run up on him?

I never laid eyes on the man before today. Never even heard of him.

He raised his glass and drank.

There was a strange silence in the room. The men looked like mud effigies. Finally someone began to laugh. Then another. Soon they were all laughing together. Someone bought the judge a drink.

Now we are fascinated. [Read more →]