re: Blood Meridian- Would Hollywood ever make it?

This is the excerpt from Samuel Chamberlain's autobiography which as far as I know is the only historical mention of Judge Holden. Chamberlain was himself a member of the Glanton Gang.




"The second in command, now left in charge of the camp, was a man of gigantic size called "Judge" Holden of Texas. Who or what he was no one knew but a cooler blooded villain never went unhung; he stood six feet six in his moccasins, had a large fleshy frame, a dull tallow colored face destitute of hair and all expression. His desires was blood and women, and terrible stories were circulated in camp of horrid crimes committed by him when bearing another name, in the Cherokee nation and Texas; and before we left Fronteras a little girl of ten years was found in the chapperal, foully violated and murdered. The mark of a huge hand on her little throat pointed him out as the ravisher as no other man had such a hand, but though all suspected, no one charged him with the crime.

Holden was by far the best educated man in northern Mexico; he conversed with all in their own language, spoke in several Indian lingos, at a fandango would take the Harp or the Guitar from the hands of the musicians and charm all with his wonderful performance and out-waltz any poblana of the ball. He was “plum center” with a rifle or revolver, a daring horseman, acquainted with the nature of all the strange plants and their botanical names, great in geology and mineralogy, in short another Admirable Crichton, and with all an arrant coward.

Not but that he possessed enough courage to fight Indians and Mexicans or anyone else where he had the advantage in strength, skill, and weapons. But where the combat would be equal, he would avoid it if possible. I hated him at first sight and he knew it, yet nothing could be more gentle and kind than his deportment towards me: He would often seek conversation with me and speak of Massachusetts and to my astonishment I found he knew more about Boston than I did. [sic]"[5]

He could probably make it work.

quote:

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It’s not nearly that simple. The ending is part of the reason it has such a reputation. Certainly one interpretation is Judge raping and killing the kid.

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It's a popular interpretation.

***SPOILER***

The Kid opens the door to the outhouse to find the Judge standing naked, smiling. Judge takes the Kid "in his arms against his immense and terrible flesh."

And that's pretty much it. We never see, nor hear, of the Kid again. All we know is that whatever fate he meets in that outhouse is so dark, so troubling, that when men come along later and witness the scene, they are stunned into silence and quickly leave.


The Judge is not necessarily portrayed as a sexual predator in the rest of the book, although children are raped and in every town the gang visits. Could be anyone in the gang doing it, really.

One interpretation that I found interesting (although I don't agree with it) is that The Judge and The Kid are one and the same. The Judge being the Kid's evil side, and the ending being the Evil has taken him over forever.

There's some congruence issues with this theory, which are too long to get into, but it's an interesting thought.

Is Judge the devil himself? There's a lot of the story that supports this interpretation, but I believe McCarthy denied this.

They made "Child Of God", which included necrophilia and multiple murders, so why not?

My choice? Nathan Jones

I mean, they did The Road so anything is possible

That’s one McCarthy book I haven’t read, but I really want to get to it. I’ve
heard that it’s intense. I think he’s an
exceptional American author. Very unique.

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Read the book and then listen to the audio version. It'll make so much more sense to you that way.

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I started listening to the audio book and was completely lost. Had to read a couple of chapters to get the style it was written in and could understand the audio version better

Paul Dano as The Kid

Tom Hanks(bald) as The Judge (If he can take a break from being a Hollywood pussy)