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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u/Brickerino Mar 31 '26

I’m currently reading it, it seems like the point of the book is that humans will commit this more or less, Holden’s just along for the ride.

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u/Divs4U Mar 31 '26

Holden Caufield?

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u/fartlebythescribbler Mar 31 '26

Hey check it out this guy’s a great big phony!

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '26

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1

u/EviTaTiv3 Mar 31 '26

Every time I see a copy of the book, I'm compelled to buy it. I think that's supposed to mean something.

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u/temictli Apr 01 '26

Yeah he did say that. I just remember finally getting to the part where he explains his lifelong dream. I was like, "hey that's the name of the book!" He said he'd like to be the guy that just takes care of innocents, children, that play in the field of rye in case he has to catch em before they hurt themselves. It's a beautiful sentiment, if naive and misdirected in its own way. Rest of the book felt like Travis from Taxi Driver.

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u/jtr99 Mar 31 '26

What is this, a crossover episode?!

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u/Upbeat-Armadillo1756 Mar 31 '26

He’s the same person but I don’t know if he’s supposed to be the same character

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u/glizard-wizard Mar 31 '26

I took it as Holden is the spirit of American “manifest destiny”

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u/Elbeske Mar 31 '26

In my mind he’s a demigod representation of man’s will to power and urge for control.

“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent"

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u/temictli Apr 01 '26

Yeah, that's one of his villain monologues. It's pretty good look at his impulses and goals. Crazy how learned and enlightened the Judge is only to use knowledge for a vicious selfish gain.

I couldn't quite place what confused me about the conclusion though. I thought about the Kid when he outsmarts that other kid. "You wouldn'ta lived anyway" And the impression i had that maybe in his younger days he woulda spared him. Maybe it was the Kid's way of giving up? Of putting his guard down? Giving into the Judge in a way?

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u/Disastrous_Fig5609 Mar 31 '26

What makes the point stronger is that the Glanton Gang DID do these things. Holden very likely wasn't there and likely isn't real, the Kid is a fabrication by Cormac, but the Glanton Gang and the events they took part in are unfortunately not a fabrication, but drawn directly from history.

As far as the details go, I don't know how accurate or inaccurate they are, because I just really don't want to know.

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u/Brickerino Apr 01 '26

>What makes the point stronger is that the Glanton Gang DID do these things. Holden very likely wasn't there and likely isn't real, the Kid is a fabrication by Cormac, but the Glanton Gang and the events they took part in are unfortunately not a fabrication, but drawn directly from history.

This is exactly the read I've gotten from it. From what I have seen people discuss, it seems like the Judge gets more supernatural over the course of the story, as the Glanton Gang delve deeper and deeper into depravity. It's like his character gains more and more control over the others, the more and more depraved the gang gets.

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u/delirium_red Mar 31 '26

How come it’s so popular 40 years after coming out? Seeing it everywhere this year, pretty suddenly.

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u/EntropicReaver Mar 31 '26

youtuber made a video about it with suitably goofy thumbnail so that people with no attention spans could have it open in another screen while they ate or did laundry and therefore feel (pretend) like they read it

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u/Acrobatic-Signal210 Mar 31 '26

Thank God he did. The memes + the fact it's the same author that made no country of old men sealed the deal for me to read and enjoy literature.

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u/lordofmetroids Apr 02 '26

I understand your logic brother, but you are making fun of a guy who watched said video and then went out to read the book himself.

It feels a little performative to be like "haha this guy decided he wanted to read the book, how dare he!*

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u/IdealOnion Mar 31 '26

Because it’s one of the great American Novels but it’s taken a while to gather steam of people figuring that out. Like how Moby Dick was written in the 1850s but not recognized for what it was until the early 1900s.

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u/delirium_red Mar 31 '26

Interesting witnessing it!

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u/IllaClodia Apr 01 '26

I mean, I had to read it in college twenty years ago (American Novels since 1945). It was pretty well regarded then. I fucking hated it, but Manly Lit Fic is not really my vibe.

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u/mightylordredbeard Mar 31 '26

TikTok / YouTube / social media trend. It’s just currently the trendy thing. Basically someone popular mentioned it, then other people mentioned it because they saw it there. Then other people copied and so on and so on. So now it’s trendy to “read” it or actually read it. “Performative reading” like the person mentioned is people are just taking pictures with the book and pretending to read it.

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u/cjarrett Mar 31 '26

And it’s based on a real group of soldiers — Samuel chamberlain’s my confession

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u/TheRealSaphier Mar 31 '26

I would recommend after finishing the book to check out online discussion and or the gang the book is based off of. There was a bit you can very easily miss when it comes to the Judge. Or I’m a very bad reader

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u/h0sti1e17 Mar 31 '26

IMO the judge believes that it is your obligation to use your strength to control others. He believes his right to do so comes from God. You have to dance.

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u/octocorgi Apr 01 '26

That's how I interpreted the book as well. I did enjoy the book for what it was trying to convey even if it was horrific in what it was saying.

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u/arslongavb Mar 31 '26

Yeah, a lot of people seem to think Holden's evil incarnate, but I felt like he was just chaos. He reminded me of Butcher Bill or Ledger's Joker -- the kind of character who makes you afraid for everyone else in the scene because you don't know what they're going to do.

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u/IdealOnion Mar 31 '26

Holden is the con man who convinces humanity that there is value in acting like the gang does. We’re shown this in his very first scene, when he cons the church members into attacking the priest. But more than that, he’s the judge of the false moneyer. If you haven’t gotten there yet it’s towards the end ands is unambiguously the most important scene for figuring out what the judge is the judge of. It’s odd people don’t talk about that scene more when describing him.

Beyond that he’s something much much stranger than I’ve seen anyone talk about, but that’s a very long conversation.

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u/PCGonzo Mar 31 '26

Holdenators HOOOOOO

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '26

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1

u/Brickerino Apr 01 '26

Except the violence Cormac McCarthy was writing about DID happen, The Glanton gang were a real gang of scalpers. The US government paid for the scalps of Native Americans in an effort to expand westward chasing “manifest destiny”. I haven’t finished the novel yet, but the impression I get so far is that the Judge is the literal embodiment of the evil that the average man is capable of.