Cormac McCarthy on Leo Tolstoy's Influence on Blood Meridian
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- čas přidán 6. 03. 2024
- Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace are considered two of the greatest novels ever. But, we will discuss War and Peace's influence on McCarthy's Blood Meridian. In Chapter Seven of Blood Meridian McCarthy explores the idea of free will vs determinism which is also a main theme of War and Peace. Written in McCarthy's early drafts of Blood Meridian in Chapter Seven are mentions of certain chapters of War and Peace that deal with free will vs determinism. And of course, in that chapter, McCarthy encodes multiple references to the way to escape the debate of free will vs fate! Today we will explore all of that and more!
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Would love to see you cover more classic older books, enough with the postmodernism for a while lol love the parallels you made between Tolstoy and McCarthy though very interesting
Would love to see an analysis on 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' so much to unpack about life, death and family in those ~50 pages
Holden is so interesting in the free/determined question. He’s the character with the greatest agency if you define that as the ability to carry out actions according to his goals and desires. He’s the least affected by happenstance and circumstance. He’s possibly untouched by aging and death. But he may be the _most_ bounded character if you think of the kind of internal freedom Ian mentions toward the middle of the video. The judge can’t be flexible to introspect or change his views one inch.
Blood meridian was the book I christened the new year with. Finished it in early February, it is as every bit profound as you and others make it out to be. I cannot wait to read it again and keep reading it for as long as I live.
Long time viewer first time commenter. Excited for more Tolstoy content, his influence is infinite.
Thanks for being here brotha!
I’d like to see you cover Frank Herbert and Dune. “Power over Spice is power over all”
Love your doing Tolstoy stuff. True genius.
War and piece is a beast but it's unlike anything else ever written. The Russian masterpiece...though Solzhinitsin's Gulag is a close second.
Just on yesterday's video I mentioned Tolstoy and you made a video about him today
Thanks for explaining these passages. "I'll go with the third option," said the Joker to the Thief.😅
I know the great men of history theory is true because Napoleon had an arch rival whom history barely remembers.
But this rival wrote him a letter from prison.
The letter roughly said: "Not only am I going to survive this, but I know you'll end up here in this exact place and read this secret letter. You think you're going to delete me? Nah."
True story. Lindy Biege covers it. One of my favorite channels.
The great men just aren't necessarily well known.
McCarthy was working on his Magnum Opus "War and More War" before he passed away. I found War and Peace an easy read compared to most classics.
I’ve read Resurrection by Tolstoy and enjoyed it a lot. I have yet to read War and Peace. Your videos on McCarthy are always spot on and I enjoy them a great deal. Keep up the great work! Out of all the McCarthy novels Child Of God is the one I like the least, the prose is still beautiful none the less. Is there a book from McCarthy you do not like?
Sam Harris book on free will is good.
You went full on John Fante in Ask The Dust with that third person rant
Are you familiar with the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman by any chance?
Tolstoy was inspaired by Shopenhauer❤
I think the aspect of feeling free is important to the integrity of a story, even when the story is deterministic in nature. Compare something like Oedipus Rex and Oldboy (spoilers).
Oedipus's fate was to kill his father and wed his mother. But within the Aristotlean unity of the play, fate plays no active part, all of that is past, so it at least feels free for him to arrive at the truth, and to bear that how he will.
In Oldboy, the antagonist manipulates Oh Dae-su into having intercourse with his own daughter. But his investigation is also all predetermined by the antagonist. He has no agency throughout most of the story. It's hard to invest in his struggle.
I don't know how much free will or determinism factor into my life, but I know that I'd be happier with the illusion of free will even in a totally deterministic universe.
open theism