The Dark Philosophy of Cormac McCarthy

Поділитися
Вставка
  • Опубліковано 27 кві 2024
  • Find out what information of yours (passwords, bank information, addresses, etc.) has been accessible in online databases completely for free: aura.com/epochphilosophy
    (Actually a little ashamed how much of my information has been leaked online but we don't need to talk about that. All gone now!)
    ---
    Cormac McCarthy has quickly became my favorite author. He stands as an
    author committed to exploring the darkest side of humanity, in varied
    ways, difficult to explore in traditional philosophy. For that, we
    explore the hidden philosophical kernels embedded in his works.
    Book's Discussed in Video:
    Blood Meridian: amzn.to/3IoyFmV
    No Country for Old Men: amzn.to/3V6NcLm
    Suttree: amzn.to/3Tqopk6
    The Passenger: amzn.to/48KJx96
    The Road: amzn.to/3T8aPkj
    This entire channel is funded by you all. If this channel is something you enjoy, supporting keeps it alive. You'll receive early access to videos, exclusive content, discord access, editing tutorials, and more! / epochphilosophy
    Same exact perks if you prefer to support via the UA-cam member section:
    / @epochphilosophy
    If you want to support the channel for free, consider using the amazon affiliate link: amzn.to/32hdeQB
    Socials:
    Twitter► / epochphilosophy
    Instagram► / epochphilosophy
    Timestamps:
    0:00 Who is McCarthy?
    6:46 Blood Meridian and Hobbes
    10:29 The Epilogue
    11:49 Violence & History
    16:24 No Country For Old Men Dream Scene
    18:00 The Eternal Recurrence of Violence
    21:12 Existentialism of McCarthy
    23:50 Reality Under Reality
    28:32 McCarthy's Legacy
  • Розваги

КОМЕНТАРІ • 340

  • @epochphilosophy
    @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +26

    Want to send some extra love to Patrons at the $10 tier and above: j roberts, Kate, Tona Cadena, Artin Salimi, Brendon Lemon, Cedric Wattman, Edward G, George M. Dyck, Jack Warren, Javier Lopez, martin le, Michelle Ford, Michelle Winther, Neil Laurenson, Nick Golden, Owen Moynihan, Praful, Samuel, Solomon Shindler, Uri Fruchtmann
    If interested in supporting the channel, sign up here: www.patreon.com/epochphilosophy

  • @evenings.6170
    @evenings.6170 Місяць тому +304

    1:25 is the beginning

    • @pichirisu
      @pichirisu Місяць тому +15

      Thanks. Fuck ads in all forms.

    • @Henry-kv7zl
      @Henry-kv7zl Місяць тому +12

      ​@@pichirisuthey let creators make free stuff like this .

    • @snorriivan6365
      @snorriivan6365 Місяць тому +5

      @@Henry-kv7zl that would be okay with only side banners with no sound like before...

    • @Henry-kv7zl
      @Henry-kv7zl Місяць тому +10

      @@snorriivan6365 honestly man it's free content with entirely skippable ads. There is necessarily an economy to entertainment. This is a very consumer friendly version.

    • @ercarter
      @ercarter 28 днів тому

      6:28 is even beginninger

  • @ramonalejandrosuare
    @ramonalejandrosuare Місяць тому +195

    The Road is basically the final dream in No Country For Old Men put to a more literal and extensive narrative - the father carries the flame and passes it on to his son.

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +30

      Damn man, a solid interpretation I never quite pinned together.

    • @ramonalejandrosuare
      @ramonalejandrosuare Місяць тому +20

      Neither did I until I saw your video. But it makes sense in light of your analysis. In this way, The Road is the thematic sequel to NCFOM just as much as NCFOM is a thematic sequel to Blood Meridian. It's a progression that runs from the frontier West (BM) to the civilized West (NCFOM) to a world where there is no frontier or civilization (Road). I'm now convinced that The Road isn't an apocalyptic story, not in a literal sense. It's an attempt to strip down and distill McCarthy's philosophy about human frailty to a barebones setting without the past or present to weight it down. Just a father and son trying to make sense of the evil in a world full of nothing but evil. @@epochphilosophy

    • @VerMirror
      @VerMirror Місяць тому +9

      Yes. Exactly.
      Do you carry the fire?

    • @ThePaintballer1994
      @ThePaintballer1994 Місяць тому +1

      Oh shit… OH. SHIT.

    • @Find-Your-Bliss-
      @Find-Your-Bliss- Місяць тому +1

      Very astute reflection!

  • @AmericanCastlesBookClub.
    @AmericanCastlesBookClub. Місяць тому +368

    Blood Meridian is one of those books that should be impossible. I've read it and reread it and still can't find the bottom. Thrilled to hear your perspective on it.

    • @AmericanCastlesBookClub.
      @AmericanCastlesBookClub. Місяць тому +20

      This was beautiful!

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +39

      Impossible is a great way to describe it. Just a masterpiece in every way. Will stick with you through the years too.
      Perhaps when this video ages I can make a specific video on it.

    • @SpoopySquid
      @SpoopySquid Місяць тому +13

      I bought _Blood Meridian_ recently after watching Wendigoon's video on it and am busy working my way through. "Impossible" feels like a very apt description. It's unlike any other book I've read

    • @geordiejones5618
      @geordiejones5618 Місяць тому +14

      My third try reading it was just incredible. The first two I made it to the famous sequence where the company gets massacred and felt like I was missing a lot, but that was in high school. Years later I impulsively brought it on vacation and I devoured it. Read it all in about five days and then right back to the beginning to start over. Easily my favorite reading experience of my life. Suttree and Outer Dark are excellent reads too. His prose style is my favorite, and I will argue to death that he is the greatest American writer, bar none.

    • @Iksvomid
      @Iksvomid Місяць тому +6

      Blood Meridian is kind of like the book of "started at the bottom and ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh we still here".

  • @ReynaSingh
    @ReynaSingh Місяць тому +106

    McCarthy is very skilled at forcing us to confront the depravity that resides at the core of humanity. But he does so without preaching. His writing is subtle enough to lead the reader to their own conclusion, but still it is a conclusion that McCarthy points us toward

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +7

      Absolutely wonderful description around the best part of McCarthy.

    • @ahobimo732
      @ahobimo732 Місяць тому +7

      Our capacity for violence and cruelty is just the reflection of our capacity for suffering.
      We are blood that flows from dust to dust.

    • @PopularDemand1000
      @PopularDemand1000 Місяць тому +2

      But is this the right conclusion? It seemed to be for McCarthy. Will that conclusion alleviate anyone’s suffering?

    • @Nefylym
      @Nefylym 17 днів тому +1

      @@PopularDemand1000 I think Cormac's whole point and indeed his exsitence was born of suffering to bear suffering and to then one day end in suffering. The guy lived on beans and coffee in a shack, deferring certain riches out of seeming spite of them. He strikes me as a man whom the world had betrayed and he wanted no further part of it. I can relate to that a lot.

  • @WisecrackEDU
    @WisecrackEDU Місяць тому +134

    The world needed this video. Thanks for making it.

  • @shane505
    @shane505 Місяць тому +17

    Suttree is such an overlooked masterpiece.

  • @johnhammer2982
    @johnhammer2982 Місяць тому +25

    I've read a lot of books, but "Blood Meridian" is in a class all its own. Nothing else like it. Amazing and haunting.

  • @gunsgalore7571
    @gunsgalore7571 25 днів тому +12

    I've always found McCarthy to be something of a pessimistic optimist. What do I mean by that? Pessimistic because he always looks at the worst side of humanity. But optimistic because he doesn't let it make him lose his faith. Now, I've only read three of his works (No Country for Old Men, The Road, and All the Pretty Horses). After reading all of them, I was always a little shaken. But I've always recognized his fundamental message: Right is still right, and wrong is still wrong. No matter how much you try to delude yourself.

    • @Nefylym
      @Nefylym 17 днів тому +3

      Well said: the right and the just can make this world blossom, but the wrong and the criminal will make it wither. It's up to us as the gardner of our plot to tend that land and carry the fire.

    • @oneoflokis
      @oneoflokis 12 годин тому

      He must be fundamentally a religious writer then... Maybe that was his problem! 😏

  • @TempehLiberation
    @TempehLiberation Місяць тому +11

    “You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday dont count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it's made out of. Nothin else. You might think you could run away and change your name and I dont know what all. Start over. And then one mornin you wake up and look at the ceiling and guess who's layin there?”
    ― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

  • @Gary-zq3pz
    @Gary-zq3pz Місяць тому +91

    The Road is one of those movies you only watch once. You don't forget it.

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +15

      Pretty much my main takeaway when I first watched it.

    • @gregbors8364
      @gregbors8364 Місяць тому +4

      Same with the book.

    • @1331423
      @1331423 Місяць тому +3

      ​@@gregbors8364 i dunno. I've read it three times with years inbetween and it crushes me in a different way each time

    • @TeChNoWC7
      @TeChNoWC7 Місяць тому +1

      I’ve watched it like 5 or 6 times lol

    • @LD-qj2te
      @LD-qj2te Місяць тому +3

      I read the book and it almost killed me . Much of the dialogue is similar to language between me and my son . This combined with the movie depressed me too much

  • @ShadowedAgony
    @ShadowedAgony Місяць тому +25

    You're a real one for using Richard Poe's audiobook version. The perfect book awaiting it's perfect orator.

  • @rainereece5640
    @rainereece5640 Місяць тому +32

    Right from page 1 of a Cormac novel, you immediately sense how the air is thin, the ground uneven & emotions - all dehydrated & packed away till The End. As a closet poet , he's like a mentor to me. A scary one tho 😮
    Thank you for great video!

    • @Acarrdi
      @Acarrdi Місяць тому

      Do you use & in your poetry?

    • @rainereece5640
      @rainereece5640 Місяць тому +1

      No, I just bow down to his acute diction, his flow & his unnerving ability to stare down reality😅 !

    • @Jordan_Clark
      @Jordan_Clark День тому

      Hello, would you like to speak about writing. I'm a writer and do write poetry, I'm keen to find people who write so as to further myself. My name is Jordan, I'm from Scotland, writing allows for my sufferance of life's myriad of tests.

  • @user-xj5ft4sj6v
    @user-xj5ft4sj6v Місяць тому +57

    Hobbes was writing in the 17th century not the 15th. He published Leviathan in 1651. I am mentioning it because as you said the historical context is key, and he was writing following the aftermath of the internecine conflicts that plagued the 17th century such as the English Civil War.

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +6

      Yup, that is correct. Totally misspoke on the century he resided in!

    • @user-xj5ft4sj6v
      @user-xj5ft4sj6v Місяць тому +10

      No worries. I only pointed out because it makes your arguments even more pertinent. The massacres described in Blood Meridian can be compared to what was happening in Europe at the time Hobbes was writing. I really enjoyed your analysis.

  • @basementmadetapes
    @basementmadetapes Місяць тому +7

    Great video man. His work is so immense and dense, and nothing if not daunting. He’s my favourite author too. And was once upon a time when I was gonna untangle his theology from his texts for an honours project at uni but life didn’t allow for it. But here u are doing something similar. Respect

  • @Cuckold_Cockles
    @Cuckold_Cockles Місяць тому +7

    You are a brilliant and insightful translator of thought. Referencing and relating popular and unpopular ideas and ideologies and those who have conceived their own throughout history. Glad to see channels like yours existent on UA-cam. The relations you've found in present day media is spectacular and exactly what the intellectual youth of today will adhere to. Thank you sir

  • @drunkvador
    @drunkvador Місяць тому +31

    Once I hit the part of the book where the judge makes gunpowder from raw materials and the surprise and ambush the natives that are following them. They are all out of powder and resigned to death and he is like a god in that moment. Directing them to find the materials and orchestrating the synthesis of black powder while standing naked on top of a mountain, lightning in the backround. What a scene
    I can’t wait for the unfilmable movie I think they should cast me as the kid

    • @Lenn869
      @Lenn869 Місяць тому +5

      i want to be the first one to tell you that the scene is a reference to the beginning of Paradise Lost

    • @Nefylym
      @Nefylym 17 днів тому

      @@Lenn869 Certainly has a Promethean quality to it!

  • @scottewing2031
    @scottewing2031 Місяць тому +3

    Great watch.
    Well assembled and thought out.

  • @HIMMBelljuvo
    @HIMMBelljuvo Місяць тому +43

    Damn. That Tommy Lee Jones performance gave me the chills. I forgot how good that movie was. Need to watch it again

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +5

      An incredible scene that has stuck with me through the years.

    • @mj2495
      @mj2495 Місяць тому +4

      It seems the gods themselves cast Tommy Lee Jones for the role of Sheriff Bell. Perfection in his recollection of his mysterious and ominous dream.

    • @buckyhate7695
      @buckyhate7695 Місяць тому +1

      Watch The Sunset Limited - another McCarthy gem.Both Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel Jackson are brilliant in it.

    • @Nefylym
      @Nefylym 17 днів тому +1

      @@buckyhate7695 Thank you for that, I am only now realizing how many movies have been made out of his books.

  • @Will_Scobie
    @Will_Scobie Місяць тому +1

    this was excellent, thank you :)

  • @HEWhitney1
    @HEWhitney1 Місяць тому +15

    Being a western geologist and grandson of a Nevada mining engineer and great-grandson of a Montana Forester I know exactly what McCarthy is saying. He is describing the lives of generations of men exploring and exploiting the land.
    It describes a myriad of activities. The most obvious to me is the Discovery and exploitation of petroleum. First you have the exploration crews who drill the holes by striking their steel against The Rock to create fire from the Earth. They are followed by production crews who collect the petroleum which in a real sense are bones. Finally there are the people that do not make the holes or gather the bones or even look for the bones they are there to build the houses and stores, open the schools and whore houses all in service to the ones who make the holes and collect the bones. Drilling for oil, digging for coal, gold, silver, lead and copper. Drilling holes for water in the desert
    And in my case literally drilling holes for pollution and then collecting those bones of long dead industrial practices so that those who don't seek or collect can build expensive condominiums for the non-seekers to thrive on top of the graves of industry past. And the drillers and The seekers of Bones and collectors of Bones have all moved on to the ends of the Earth until they themselves are bones.

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +3

      Yup. Violence qua violence. I see The Judge as an almost religious like character to the power and all consuming force of industry and modernity.

    • @HEWhitney1
      @HEWhitney1 Місяць тому +1

      @@epochphilosophyLed Zeppelin's The Immigrant Song and Pink Floyd's Welcome to the Machine both deal with the dark underbelly of Western expansion. Also Smedley Butler's book War is a Racket. It's in our DNA, so we don't see it, like the air we breath.
      Your channel is off the hook. Just found it . I've got a lot to catch up on.

    • @Nefylym
      @Nefylym 17 днів тому

      @@HEWhitney1 Learning so much here, thanks fellas!

  • @neilteago3533
    @neilteago3533 Місяць тому +1

    Great vid. Well done. Respect 🙌

  • @OzDoll
    @OzDoll Місяць тому +2

    McCarthy is probably the epitome of American literature, one of the few that held no punches back to tell the tale, as he wanted, uncompromised. You did it justice with your video, fantastic :) you got a new fan.

  • @gregbors8364
    @gregbors8364 Місяць тому +22

    “Blood Meridian” is now being made into a movie by the director of “The Road”

    • @dianal.clausen8118
      @dianal.clausen8118 Місяць тому +18

      I won't go see the movie, if it ever comes out. Blood Meridian lives in my being and I refuse to allow anyone else's vision touch where I he characters live in my mind's eye.

    • @uniquechannelnames
      @uniquechannelnames Місяць тому +3

      Same here. I find it unfilmable and so much would be lost by the impossibility of adapting so many things. Also the violence is so gut-wrenching (as it's supposed to be) and horrid and in your face that any Hollywood adaptation could never do it any part of the book justice

    • @erichaynes5826
      @erichaynes5826 Місяць тому +6

      Many people have tried to make it. I’ll believe it when i see it. Denis Villeneuve or the Cohen brothers could make this movie

    • @olih27
      @olih27 23 дні тому

      ​@@erichaynes5826Not sure I want anyone to make the movie, but Denis is the only filmmaker I'd trust to try

  • @azulceleste7202
    @azulceleste7202 Місяць тому +8

    Thank you for this great video on my favourite writer.
    Despite a vague feeling of superficiality that you address, I think you make some great points and are able to point to an actual existing thread that does unite McCarthy's novels. And that is saying a lot.
    Watching your video I meditated about how The Road argues that, fallen the Leviathan, the violent state of nature will reconquer the world. And yet, this time he envisions the power of the human spirit to keep fighting against the " absolute truth of the world". Carrying the fire despite the absurdity of it all (is it too obvious that The Road is my favourite novel?).
    McCarthy, what a writer.

  • @StrangePhoton
    @StrangePhoton День тому

    I don't normally subscribe to a channel without even finishing a single video... but you just made me do it while only halfway through.
    Thanks for that, and for your perspective!

  • @MarkNeilandPhoto
    @MarkNeilandPhoto Місяць тому +1

    Keep up the good work...

  • @thevoiceofthelost
    @thevoiceofthelost 14 днів тому +2

    Blood Meridian is the anthropocentric counterpart to Lovecraft's Cosmic horror. It makes our heart of darkness, our wars, our petty wickedness and conflicts just as horrifying as an uncaring cosmos inhabitated by any manner of twisted unknown entities could be.
    "The wraith of God lies sleeping. It was here for a million years before men were, and only men have the power to wake it.."
    I'm pleasantly surprised to see you cover McCarthy.

  • @patternsofdisorder1695
    @patternsofdisorder1695 Місяць тому +3

    Great video, very nicely put together and touching on one of the absolute core themes of McCarthy. Suttree may be one of the most organic, interconnected works of storytelling ever put to paper. I think Outer Dark deserves a mention as an abstract blueprint for the themes explored in Blood Meridian, as well as a wonderfully dark fairy tale that’s perfectly compose.
    If I may, I’d recommend “Cormac McCarthy: An American Apocalypse” as a very recent study. The author also explores the McCarthyean theme of violence to a level I have not read elsewhere, but apart from philosophy and mysticism, also connects it to the work of myth, McCarthy’s interest in science (particularly entropy), the weight of Christianity (and its failure) in his work, and relates it all through McCarthy’s idea of the novel. I think you might dig it.

  • @calixtomuni9780
    @calixtomuni9780 Місяць тому +1

    Great stuff.

  • @OrdnanceLab
    @OrdnanceLab Місяць тому +1

    Great video.

  • @shahbazilyas576
    @shahbazilyas576 Місяць тому +2

    Great breakdown

  • @Justpassingby204
    @Justpassingby204 Місяць тому +3

    reading blood meridian right now, this arrived on my feed at the right time

  • @KenrickBlock
    @KenrickBlock Місяць тому

    This is amazing

  • @aymenboussouar1880
    @aymenboussouar1880 Місяць тому

    Well done

  • @cheri238
    @cheri238 Місяць тому +1

    Professor Harold Bloom, Trinity Dwight College Yale University.
    What an inspiration, all his books and lectures of "How to Read and Why."
    Cormac McCarthy is one of my favorite writers. None is greater than " Blood Merridian."
    Thankfully, Edgar Allen Poe, who knew suffering as a child of being abandoned throughout his life, the losses of those he had loved and alcoholism, became after being betrayed and his suspicious death became one of America's greatest writers. He inspired and created a new genre of writers in America.
    He did not get the acclaim he desired while he was alive.
    Unfortunately, this is true in all creative arts.
    Thank you for this.

  • @sryxafraidofmonstersx
    @sryxafraidofmonstersx Місяць тому

    good video interesting points👍

  • @buckyhate7695
    @buckyhate7695 Місяць тому +2

    I became aware of McCarthy via The Sunset Limited. I saw the HBO film (also starring Tommy Lee Jones), then read he play. I don't necessarily have a "favorite author", but McCarthy is right at the top of the list.
    Excellent video, Sir. Well done

  • @aaronjclarke1973
    @aaronjclarke1973 Місяць тому

    Thanks 🙏 for your analysis of McCarthy’s work. I’ve only read “The Road” however it’s a story I haven’t forgotten even after 10 plus years since reading it.

  • @ZebWorlund
    @ZebWorlund Місяць тому +2

    Seeing the Disco Elysium and NORCO posters was all I needed to subscribe and watch the whole video!

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому

      Hell ya. Thanks man. Two amazing works of art.

  • @PunishedGayMelGibson
    @PunishedGayMelGibson 20 днів тому +1

    This is a good video. Got me rock solid

  • @rustyxof
    @rustyxof Місяць тому +1

    Thank you

  • @user-qf1xm4ix7e
    @user-qf1xm4ix7e Місяць тому +3

    Blood meridian really messed with my head with its ceaseless, sleepless evil. I remember the part where they raided that innocent village and there were depictions of baby murder, rape, and scalping(of course), not even in a climactic way, just out of the pure corruption of their wills.

    • @pickleneck526
      @pickleneck526 Місяць тому +1

      The violence in Blood Meridian feels so unpersonal. The men in this story feel like machines bound by the landscape, carrying out atrocities to some larger will. This deterministic worldview is somehow much more unsettling than the violence itself.

  • @MerhabaMuhtesem
    @MerhabaMuhtesem Місяць тому

    It was great, I want more 👍🙂👏

  • @lmb888
    @lmb888 29 днів тому

    Good stuff

  • @s0urp0wer5
    @s0urp0wer5 21 день тому

    When i hear "Unfilmable" im now intrigued. Got it on my shelf rifht now 😮

  • @jerichozeplin
    @jerichozeplin 23 дні тому

    I like the proper use of the word “sublime” near the end there, good stuff.

  • @karankaushikk
    @karankaushikk Місяць тому +6

    Can you do a video on Thomas Ligotti?

  • @PrisonMike-_-
    @PrisonMike-_- Місяць тому +1

    A couple of things: 1. Bobby was not a Vietnam veteran. There’s the extensive conversation he has with Sheddan about Sheddan’s experiences in Vietnam and is now fascinated by the gruesome violence.
    2. Personally I have never heard a single person speak of Suttree as his magnum opus. Blood Meridian at this time in history is certainly considered his magnum opus, as the ocean of dude bro lit guys are drawing the public’s attention back to the more demonstrative excitements of the novel and in essence underpin and disregard the exceptionally post modern view the novel proposes.
    That’s all. I’ll come off my high horse. Loved your video!!

  • @DreIsGoneFission
    @DreIsGoneFission 17 днів тому

    I cannot wait to read blood meridian. And I think this was a great video! I just want to say (in the most positive way that I can convey in the comments section of an internet video, which is usually one of the most negative and brutal places), that I interpreted “the Road” very differently. To me, its most powerful message was about the rest of what is just as inherent and unavoidable about human nature as all of the other things you covered. To me, it was a story about a man and his son.

  • @ThomasKent963
    @ThomasKent963 Місяць тому

    Whoah! Mind blown Dude! Mind blown! Most excellent!

  • @kommandobosssnikrot9283
    @kommandobosssnikrot9283 Місяць тому +2

    I like to think McCarthys books are a more refined, modern, and more expanded version of the message of heart of darkness. My shabby attempt at a takeaway is that everyone believes that the time they live in is the most epic, the most important age to end all ages one of heros and villans. But the world is like a coin flipping between ages of light and dark heros and villains are born then tomarrow the villians are revered and heros cast down spawning new heros and villans that will be cast down and revered in turn, the fate of those around them governed by that same coin, simply by chance.

  • @andie599
    @andie599 Місяць тому +2

    I have put off reading blood meridian for years, but I think I’m gonna pick it up today after watching this video.

  • @patrickedwards7107
    @patrickedwards7107 Місяць тому

    The road is a book that deeply impacted me I came away different after the closing lines.

  • @cordellwynne
    @cordellwynne 23 дні тому

    Wow. Great insights here. Blood Meridian is relentlessly harrowing. I just experienced it in audio book form but now feel compelled to revisit it in hard copy. McCarthy's powers of description demand repeated scrutiny.

  • @gideonman1925
    @gideonman1925 Місяць тому +1

    I love this book the way I love a tough teacher. I think the view of history is the most important thing for us to learn from it at this time - all the grand narratives are futile, myth making. Small bands acting in absurd self interest really make history happen, and the rest of us make up the narratives afterwards. “No order except the threads you put there” Think of the epilogue with the man on the plain being followed by the crowd-those interested in bones, and even those that aren’t. It’s why he made the choice to be absolutely inscrutable for most of the book I think. No myths, save for the one conspicuous at the beginning about a wild landscape to try men’s hearts

  • @easton462
    @easton462 7 днів тому

    I read the epilogue of blood meridian regularly. Nice to see someone else who appreciates it so much as well.

  • @user-sm5kb1ss6j
    @user-sm5kb1ss6j Місяць тому +2

    It’s not dark. It’s conservatism. “You have to carry the fire”.

  • @mj2495
    @mj2495 29 днів тому +10

    I will have to read Hobbs again. It's been a long time since I read Leviathan, and all I can recall at this late date is he was not an advocate for liberal democracy, but a monarchist. And that implied to me a man living in great fear.

  • @davidas5049
    @davidas5049 Місяць тому +13

    Disco elysium poster in the background... i see, a man of culture ;) :D

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +5

      One of the greatest works of art ever made!

  • @michaellicchi4771
    @michaellicchi4771 Місяць тому +2

    The carrying of the Torch or Fire appears in every McCarthy novel….not just The Road. Sheriff Bell’s dream about his dad, etc….but it only got a few seconds of mention at the end of your video 🤷🏻‍♂️

    • @shoopoop21
      @shoopoop21 Місяць тому

      He's a huge lib, so he doesn't believe in traditions, or in the receiving of any passed torches. They might have icky ideology cooties on them.

  • @tobydobbs8668
    @tobydobbs8668 Місяць тому +5

    Im going to buy Blood Meridian today !!

    • @goombah226
      @goombah226 Місяць тому +2

      You won't regret it. The first time I read it, I couldn't put it down. I'm ordering The Passenger today. I think it was McCarthy's last novel.

  • @rosswalkman9652
    @rosswalkman9652 Місяць тому

    Have you watched the ,
    Movie “threads”? Pretty good description on nuclear war and the life after.

  • @Anabsurdsuggestion
    @Anabsurdsuggestion Місяць тому

    Thank you. That is all.

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому

      My absolute pleasure. Thank you for being here.

  • @deanodog3667
    @deanodog3667 Місяць тому +1

    What we resist persists !!

  • @randomunknown6179
    @randomunknown6179 Місяць тому +2

    Can we get a list of the music used?

  • @Time_Is_Left
    @Time_Is_Left Місяць тому +8

    I don’t think we can escape trauma, but we can stop passing it down. And we have never been in as good a place to do that as we are today.
    McCarthy’ work is part of that step forward, opening up new lanes to better understand ourselves and each other

    • @auggiemarsh8682
      @auggiemarsh8682 Місяць тому

      Not easy, not easy at all, the breaking of generational patterns, one of the greatest challenges we face in the pursuit of living a life free of angst, nihilistic thinking, existential exhaustion, and especially free of the special self competing for attention

    • @Time_Is_Left
      @Time_Is_Left Місяць тому

      @@auggiemarsh8682 Didn’t say it was easy. If it were easy, it wouldn’t still be happening at the scale that it does

  • @mjolninja9358
    @mjolninja9358 Місяць тому

    Epoch’s back!

  • @billygrady7575
    @billygrady7575 Місяць тому +2

    Watched this on the Cormac Reddit and enjoyed it. Everything needs more Suttree though.

    • @basementmadetapes
      @basementmadetapes Місяць тому +1

      Suttree is second only to Blood Meridian among his works. It is genius and haunted and a lyrical rival to BM. This book is catching up on the obnoxious amount of times I’ve read BM. It’s gorgeous

  • @justinratcliffe947
    @justinratcliffe947 12 днів тому

    Cormac McCarthy. The one author who could make people even much more scarier and much more hellishly terrifying villains than non human villains in fiction like ghosts, goblins, vampires, werewolves, zombies, demons, aliens, A.I., mutants, killer animals and other non human antagonists. He also showed just how much country life can be every bit as scary and dangerous as city life.

  • @MichaelK.-xl2qk
    @MichaelK.-xl2qk Місяць тому +2

    Thanks for broadening my horizons. I never have heard of McCarthy, and only vaguely of No Country which I never watched. Actually your treatment and narrative were worth the time and I learned something valuable. If you want my opinion, McCarthy shows philosophy its limitations. None of the problems he illustrates can be squared away with some tidy rational answers, no thoughts can contend against the emptiness. It points loudly to the spiritual lack that is the inheritance of our society. And our society is predicated upon the Enlightement's embrace of new utopian forms of existence, capitalism and socialism. But McCarthy exposes the lies that reek to the heavens in all of our optimistic hypocrisy. At the end of the day, Cain is still murdering his brother with a rock.

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +1

      Happy to introduce you. I think that’s also a very solid interpretation of his outlook. I think you’ll enjoy his stuff greatly!

  • @jackgraham5342
    @jackgraham5342 Місяць тому +1

    I studied Hobbes for Philosophy he is a perfect complementary text to McCarthy's brutality

  • @batteryacid2701
    @batteryacid2701 Місяць тому +5

    Man Im too high for this

  • @the_Googie
    @the_Googie Місяць тому

    Anyone know the song that starts at 22:50? Awesome video btw... i subscribed

  • @charalize23
    @charalize23 Місяць тому

    What's the name of the song you play at the end of the video?

  • @slave_to_cinema
    @slave_to_cinema Місяць тому

    Great video, but i dont think Bobby in the Passenger was in Vietnam. His friend was. Just wanted to point that out. Thanks for a great listen.

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +1

      I believe you are correct. Not sure how that one slipped past the cracks. I initially thought he and his friend both were.
      But appreciate the praise, always friend.

  • @liamshope2838
    @liamshope2838 Місяць тому +6

    Great Video! Definitely do Melville next!!

  • @courtnayzeitler8564
    @courtnayzeitler8564 Місяць тому

    I loved his last 2 books, the Passenger and Stella Maris.

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому

      I adored The Passenger. Yet to read Stella Maris.

    • @courtnayzeitler8564
      @courtnayzeitler8564 Місяць тому

      @@epochphilosophy I recommend the audio version, since it’s just a series of conversations between Alice and her psychiatrist in the hospital. Very well produced.

    • @courtnayzeitler8564
      @courtnayzeitler8564 Місяць тому

      @@epochphilosophy and the last 2 chapters of the Passenger were transcendent. I still wonder about the plane in the water though.

  • @stoinkberg9511
    @stoinkberg9511 Місяць тому +1

    Nice norco poster havent met anyone that has played it

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому

      I have a whole video on Norco my friend. Love that game. (And the devs!)

  • @discopeful
    @discopeful Місяць тому +1

    Would it be possible to do a video on Jeff VanderMeer in similar fashion?

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому +1

      Anything is possible! I have not read him though. What of his would you suggest?

    • @AveryMMartin
      @AveryMMartin Місяць тому

      @@epochphilosophystart with annihilation then do the next two in that series, or if they don’t continue to intrigue, do the Ambergris series. The Borne trilogy is next, but he and his wife have published plenty of good weird short stories as well one of two anthologies

  • @randstrickfaden4148
    @randstrickfaden4148 28 днів тому

    There are artists who I fully acknowledge as being exceptional if not great, but still they’re not ones I particularly enjoy, their work that is. McCarthy is one of these for me. With that said, I will say you do probably the best explanation of McCarthy one can do in your video here-congrats are in order! The one thing I would take issue with you on is in describing his work as post-modern. His style at times is like a lot of post-modern authors’ writing, but the subject matter and all of the content he introduces are all historic, compatible with the period, and related to the aforementioned, coherent. Vague at times, yes, but not so much as to shift contexts. Therefore, I would have to say his work is definitely modern.

  • @mj2495
    @mj2495 Місяць тому

    His written words painted images for the mind's eye. Beautiful and laden with the terrible.

  • @miki09l
    @miki09l Місяць тому

    wonderful :D

  • @donkey3235
    @donkey3235 Місяць тому +19

    I find his stories, horrible as they are, are not saying us as people are evil, but that the world we exist in exploits the unstable catalyst for violence inside of us

  • @JD-td8kl
    @JD-td8kl Місяць тому +1

    Well, I just finished reading The Crossing and Child of God. Pleasant surprise. Keen to move onto Cities of the Plain after I read some other bits and bobs.
    After having finished The Crossing, I think McCarthy is the supreme author of Freud's Death Drive.

  • @brycesuderow3576
    @brycesuderow3576 28 днів тому

    The comments you are making about blood moraine and remind me a lot of what Joseph Conrad wrote in heart of darkness. Do you think there’s any similarities there?

  • @Superluckyhappytime
    @Superluckyhappytime Місяць тому

    Western wasn’t a Vietnam vet in The Passenger, Oiler and Red were. There’s quite a few pages that explicitly state that clearly.

  • @boortiwadenwickel5514
    @boortiwadenwickel5514 Місяць тому

    Thank you for this great video.

  • @theemptyatom
    @theemptyatom Місяць тому

    Who reading that section of Blood Meridian about the "ritual". Thanks.

  • @joesowerbutts948
    @joesowerbutts948 Місяць тому +1

    A man seeks his own destiny and no other, said the judge. Will or nill. Any man who could discover his own fate and elect therefore some opposite course could only come at last to that selfsame reckoning at the same appointed time, for each man's destiny is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well. This desert upon which so many have been broken is vast and calls for largeness of heart but it is also ultimately empty. It is hard, it is barren. Its very nature is stone
    ...The world goes on. We have dancing nightly and this night is no exception. The straight and the winding way are one and now that you are here what do the years count since last we two met together? Men's memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not.

  • @V1lk4y
    @V1lk4y Місяць тому +3

    Not mentioning sunset limited

  • @cicerogsuphoesdown7723
    @cicerogsuphoesdown7723 Місяць тому +3

    What if like posthumous self recordings of Cormac came out Brando style. And it’s just notes for his research for blood meridian. And the public sits rapt with attention like ‘oh man oh man maybe we’ll get insights into his process’.
    And the recording crackles to life and it’s just like:
    “Cormac McCarthy july 7th 1975. *clears throat* I’m gay. I’m so gay. God I’m so gay. Ahhhhhh I’m so gay. *screams of pain* I’m gay. EVERY LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATED DUDE WHO LOVES MY WRITING IS REALLY GAYYYYYY AHHH”
    wouldn’t that be so crazy you guys?

    • @epochphilosophy
      @epochphilosophy  Місяць тому

      I’m not sure what’s going on here lmfaoo but go off

    • @Mantistoboggan4684
      @Mantistoboggan4684 Місяць тому

      This is one of the funniest comments I've ever read, lol

  • @TheKingWhoWins
    @TheKingWhoWins Місяць тому +4

    Always an interesting time with these videos.

  • @clumsydad7158
    @clumsydad7158 Місяць тому +2

    i think it is part of the eternal return; each generation is born, humans with instincts and biological propensities, driving us in a determined style along the lines of thinking Robert Sapolsky and associated research. education and a curation of healthy and diverse cultures are the only defense, yet our ignorance to see and properly understand dooms us currently to the repetition. yet even in knowing it's hard to prevent that which likely must happen - competition, coordination, cohesion, divisions; the cycles continue as we barely yet know ourselves.

  • @billdavis2590
    @billdavis2590 Місяць тому

    Dude you kinda look like Hobbs in the face. You keep flipping back and forth with his picture and it’s striking

  • @vincemelson9655
    @vincemelson9655 Місяць тому

    I was reading blood meridian, and at times it was hilarious and yes really violent. But I did not necessarily see why it would force people to put the book down. Then I got to a place where the violence was kicked up to such a high level that the bleakness was too much to continue reading haven't picked the book up since

  • @thomasmilavec3754
    @thomasmilavec3754 Місяць тому

    Kierkegaard in lyric form

  • @frankatkinson6031
    @frankatkinson6031 Місяць тому +1

    You have invented another lack within me, now I must venture down the road, into the world that is McCarthy’s and unfortunately our own

  • @sahilhossain8204
    @sahilhossain8204 Місяць тому

    Lore of The Dark Philosophy of Cormac McCarthy momentum 100

  • @optioncoachjohn
    @optioncoachjohn 27 днів тому

    Terrintino may be the only person that could make Blood Meridian.