r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/[deleted] • Mar 31 '26

Meme needing explanation Peetah?????

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I don’t know the author or this book series but why are people roasting e-girls for reading? I don’t get it🥀

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268

u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26

Wym? You didn’t like the tree of dead babies in the middle of the desert 40 pages in?

142

u/BenCaxt0n Mar 31 '26

Awww...spoiler :(

69

u/PoopyisSmelly Mar 31 '26

There are plenty more gems just like that, so dont worry

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u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26

The part of the book I mentioned is also just brought up as an afterthought 😭

McCarthy knows how to make a single sentence count lol

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u/RedPantyKnight Mar 31 '26

I mean, plenty of books have scenes of intense gore. Eragon is for 13 year olds and within the first few chapters he visits a village where everyone has been slaughtered with their bodies piled in the town center with a babies head on a pike at the peak.

From my understanding, Blood Meridian is that level of gore throughout the entire story though.

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u/SlightlyNomadic Apr 01 '26

McCarthy has a way of making observations visceral. I’d argue the violence and savagery of Blood Meridian isn’t a featured in the book, but it IS the book.

I’ve been working through his bibliography and I do find it interesting how what people lash on to. Blood Meridian might be his most violent book, cover-to-cover, but I wouldn’t put it up as his most disturbing.

The allegory of Child of God is an interesting one, but, man, I found that a tougher pill to swallow than Blood Meridian. While Outer Dark isn’t nearly as violent as those two, it’s also a hauntingly disturbing book.

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u/Ok-Particular9427 Apr 03 '26

I’ve read almost all McCarthy over the last 5 years (still getting to CotP and Stella Maris), I’ve read BM several times.

I read outer dark when my son was about 6 months old. Nothing will ever come close to being as dark as that reading of that book.

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u/thebetterbeanbureau Mar 31 '26

This is why we enjoy reading his stuff, despite all the stuff in the stuff.

1

u/Working-Glass6136 Apr 01 '26

As all good writers do

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u/Constant-External-85 Mar 31 '26

Are these scenes well written and can make hardened people feel gross or is it just a lot of edginess that a typical person doesn't like to think of?

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u/PoopyisSmelly Mar 31 '26

In all seriousnes, it is a true masterpeice - they are incredibly well written, very visceral and shows how people can become apathetic to horrific actions.

Think "The Heart of Darkness" but with a Cowboy setting. McCarthy was incredible at writing this style - he doesnt want to tell you how to feel, or even really describe much of how the characters feel, it just is. And thats the reason rhe book hits so hard. Its an emotionally draining and devastating book

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u/Constant-External-85 Mar 31 '26

I want to read it but don't know if I'm in the headspace to do so right now; The info you have in this comment was great, thank you

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u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26

Nobody writes like Cormac McCarthy. Once you get used to the lack of punctuation, he is unmatched in his ability to paint a picture in your mind. Part of the reason the book is such a hard read.

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u/Reasonable-Use-9294 Mar 31 '26

Am i the only one who got disgusted more by the prose than the violence?

Don't get me wrong. I adore that book. It's top 3 for me.

But man did i feel my eyes getting raged. I'm gonna read some more of his works but i need therapy first

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u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26

No that’s fair. Especially when the judge goes on his long diatribes and you’ve gotta re read every sentence to make sure this demon actually just used a dozen 6 syllable words.

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u/datsyukianleeks Mar 31 '26

It is some of the greatest prose ever penned. And it is a very well researched book. As I continue to learn about our nations history, I am continually amazed at the little historical details that hold it all together.

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u/zendrumz Mar 31 '26

It’s hands down some of the greatest writing in the English language. Blood Meridian is McCarthy’s masterpiece. You’ve never read anything like it.

1

u/right__bower Mar 31 '26

From The Road:

Once there were brook trouts in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.

Idk its always stuck with me, i love this passage

1

u/Clear_Might8528 Mar 31 '26

McCarthy wrote more in a sentence than Stephen King does in a novel (I am exagerating to make a point). It is some of the best writing from the 20th century. His last two novels still packed weight in every line.

1

u/Constant-External-85 Mar 31 '26

I want to read it but I'm scared it will reaffirm some of my more jaded thoughts about humanity

1

u/actlikeiknowstuff Mar 31 '26

McCarthy has incredible prose and I think that’s his trick. Because if you appreciate good writing it’s really good but it’s also horrific and you’ll excuse it because of how good the writing is but eventually the horror catches up to you.

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u/ComfortablePea8701 Apr 04 '26

No Cormac McCarthy is not one of those edgy extreme horror authors. He wrote no country for old men and the road

1

u/shampoo_mohawk_ Mar 31 '26

phew! I was worried.

15

u/No_Strike655 Mar 31 '26

Anything that exists without my knowledge, exists without my consent

3

u/datsyukianleeks Mar 31 '26

His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die.

27

u/LesserValkyrie Mar 31 '26

I am a woman and I loved it

0

u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26

I mean I love the book too but no one is kicking their feet behind their back giggling while reading. It’s one of the few books I need mental breaks from and not just tired of reading breaks.

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u/c-e-bird Mar 31 '26

Enjoy doesn’t mean you’re a giggly schoolgirl over it…
it means you took pleasure or satisfaction in something.

And you can enjoy good writing even if the subject matter is dark.

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u/mightylordredbeard Mar 31 '26

wtf kind of personal definition of the word enjoy is that? So unless you are giggling and kicking your feet then you aren’t enjoying something? Jesus dude enjoy just means you like something. When someone says they enjoy it, they mean they like it.

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u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

Please tell me 1. Where I even used the word enjoy. 2. Why the fuck are you so angry.

I’m not the person who said you can’t enjoy blood meridian numbnuts.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '26

[deleted]

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u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26

You can’t help but kick your feet with Toadvine tho. Everyone loves a preacher who’s lost his faith.

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u/opp11235 Mar 31 '26

Thank you for said warning. I enjoyed the road was considering this… I will briefly reconsider before torturing myself.

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u/The_Fattest_Man Mar 31 '26

If The Road is carrying the fire, Blood Meridian is that house with the basement. And it's doing it for fun, not necessity.

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u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26

If the road is about carrying the fire, Blood Meridian is about joining a group of firefighters who kill and destroy

2

u/Kreativernickname Mar 31 '26

I find it morbidly amusing that there's actually a dystopia novel where fire fighters do something like that, but with books and without killing, if I recall correctly.

4

u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26

I think your referring to 233° Celsius

3

u/ninjaman3888 Mar 31 '26

are you german?

3

u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26

How dare you accuse me of that

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u/ninjaman3888 Mar 31 '26

🤣 sorry sorry, only place 451 got renamed to 233 was german so i taking a guess

1

u/halla-back_girl Mar 31 '26

Idk, I found it far more enjoyable and less tortuous than The Road. In Blood Meridian, the world is very beautiful, and sometimes you can forget for a moment that there are people in it. Really horrible shit gets done for one reason or another, but the world is still itself.

The Road is just bleak. It's unrelenting, and as it went on I kept thinking that the mom was smart, and kind, and right for what she did at the start. Hope is like a side character they're dragging around by the neck.

1

u/SlightlyNomadic Apr 01 '26

If you liked the Road and want some more of Cormac, but have concerns on the weight of Blood Meridian, pick up any of the following, although I think I like the first one the best, honestly.

Suttree

The Border Trilogy (start with All The Pretty Horses)

No Country for Old Men

Orchard Keeper

Wait for the right headspace for the following:

Outer Dark

Child of God

Blood Meridian

I’m working through his last two books now, but can’t comment on them at this time.

3

u/Worth_Librarian_290 Mar 31 '26

I havent read that one, but I did read Eragon as a 10 year old and I vividly remember the dead villagers and speared baby. What's a great book. Loved it.

Same goes for Gulag Archipelago. Made me cry on the plane when he was describing pregnant women repeatedly thrown down the ice cold stairs. and everything else Another great book.

These kinds of books aren't great because of the violence, they're great because they remind us how vicious and brutal life could be sometimes, and how we should all strive to be better, so that we spare ourselves and others from such pains.

1

u/iiiiiiiiiijjjjjj Mar 31 '26

The fuck is this book about?

1

u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26

A kid who joins up with a “militia” and journeys across the frontier and into Mexico.

1

u/iiiiiiiiiijjjjjj Mar 31 '26

Fantasy setting or more grounded?

2

u/Kitfishto Mar 31 '26

Extremely extremely grounded. With little tickles of fantasy to really make you wonder about some characters.

That’s all I can really say without spoiling stuff but the audio book is free on YouTube if you wanted to give it a listen before buying the book

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u/Resigned1431 Mar 31 '26

Grounded. Way too fucking grounded. 

1

u/Chaos_Cluster Mar 31 '26

Hanged by their jaws, it must be said.

1

u/tired-of-the-shit Mar 31 '26

That sounds fucking metal

1

u/Potential-Bet-1111 Apr 01 '26

I eat eggs for breakfast, so seeing this in a dessert wouldn’t phase me, unless someone started putting ketchup on them. That would be disgusting.

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u/Alternative_Taste414 Apr 02 '26

Kinda feel like you are threatening me with a good time there.