Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by BMc2020 | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

BMc2020

A book I have never read and never will.

(I watched the Wendigoon 5 hour review of it so I know the plot though)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu6STuj4njw

edit: Downvotes? I will never watch A Serbian Film either, are you going to downvote me for that too?

View on HN

Everybody talks about the violence in BM but that's not its point. It's not an exploitation story designed to shock for the sheer fun of shocking.

To me it's a beautifully-written poetic exploration of a world without evil. For evil to exist there must be something else to compare it to. And there's nothing else in BM. It's just a mundane world of unceasing animal violence reduced to the quotidian. I imagine the inhabitants of WW II concentration camps might recognize such a world.

A world without evil is a much scarier place than one where the concept of evil needs to exist in order to contrast it with something else.

I barely though it was violent.

Everyone should read it for the writing style alone, it's great.

I appreciate what you’re saying but I thought McCarthy was not suggesting this is a world without good and evil. But rather the forces at work are beyond our ability to control or even understand. Termites never know why pesticide is being sprayed. At least that was my take from Blood Meridian, the Road and No Country. For instance, the scalp hunters are often horrified but in awe of the judge, subconsciously aware their souls have been signed away. And that part at the end where the kid falls before the dying woman and almost begs for some explanation for what is happening. As McKenna said, trying to use our reason and science is like “throwing an ice cube into a blast furnace.”

And I should say McCarthy is not fixated on just evil, but equally on the goodness that miraculously finds us. Only time I’ve ever openly sobbed from a book was the end of The Road.

I expect the downvotes are because having you glory in the fact that you have decided not to read this book doesn't add anything of value to the conversation.

perhaps the downvotes are because you aren't adding to the discussion. you haven't read the book, you don't say why, and you have no comment on the linked essay.

I thought the YT you linked was great, thanks. I don’t have the stomach for violence but have been curious about BM for ages so this was a great way to get a sense for what all the fuss was about. No substitute for reading it, I’m sure. But great on its own.

Thanks. 3.3 million views in 4 weeks for a book from 1985. Gives me hope people are thirsty for quality.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com