Great post. The Judge is such a fascinating character and the details McCarthy uses to describe him paint such a complex image. He's ruthless but also possesses finesse - the sketching, etc. I find his writing and your posts inspiring from a writing perspective. Thanks for sharing.
Suzerain: "You rule the land / but so do I" -Dylan
The artisan works at "hammering out... all through the night of his becoming some coinage for a dawn that would not be."
The night of his becoming. A dawn that would not be.
I wonder at that becoming. The Kid never sees him whole. He is enshadowed by the Judge. He himself is becoming by producing something that will pass. That, too, seems to speak of McCarthy.
But do the markets of men ever open if the dawn does not come?
Has the Judge also eradicated the artisan's work from the world of men?
Will the artisan never finish his becoming? Does the Judge not only judge but keep his work, and keep him in the dark, half formed?
I wonder, too, of the Judge as War. I think of the ISIS destroying cultural architecture and artifacts, the contents of museums... The Judge is in the field, destroying things before they ever get to a museum.
War, also like the Judge, brings all the skills of humankind to its destructive endeavors. Draftsman, chemist, surveyor, record-keeper—all of these contribute to the eradication.
Ultimately, I think the answer is: he is the judge of the Kid. In the outhouse, the Judge delivers his judgement and then executes the sentence.
But this other thing he does: the cataloguing and "expunging" is certainly a kind of judging also. But let me spin a connecting web between the two...
The Kid has no memory. He makes no artifacts. He writes no words. He is mankind with memory expunged. He has a taste for mindless violence. Reasonless war is what he gravitates to.
The Kid is what the Judge is working to create: a facsimile of mankind that will wage war on the original.
But the Kid is flawed. By mercy, I think. An unwillingness to be the bringer of destruction. His mercy is not virtuous, and it does not always get the upper hand. But it stubbornly persists. And the Judge has none. And the Kid can tell. Which is why he says, "You ain't nothin'."
The Judge is bent on the extermination of mankind. He kills them wherever he finds them. Adults, he sorts into those he kills and those he claims as his own—the warmakers, who he aids and forms and arms. Children are not warmakers, so he always kills them.
Ah! This may be why the Judge does not kill the Kid until he is the Man. As still a child, the Kid is special to the Judge: the one child who may become war, like the Judge—a child with no memory and no artifice.
In the Kid's dream, the counterfeiter may be the Kid himself. Becoming. In the darkness. And now, overshadowed by the Judge. The Judge wants something from him, something he can loose on the world of mankind. But until he gets it, (or unless), the darkness will not lift.
The Kid at the end becomes the Man, but it is still night, and the Judge will not let him see the day...
Thanks. That’s an awesome take. It’s fun to compare to Philip K Dick historicity in Man in the High Castle. The book being about forged American (Disney, Civil War) artefacts that the Japanese are collecting.
"He’s had two novels published in the pass 90 days.
He still seeks favor with the Judge of Representation."
Clearly.
Finishing up The Passenger, and came upon the passage where Western recounts a dream of his sister's: 'Here's a dream. This man was a forger of antiquities. He traveled in documentation . . . An old world figure. A dark suit . . . Perhaps you can imagine him.' (326)
Thanks to the episode above I very much can!
The whole lengthy passage provokes and prods in the best sort of way as it coils around the ideas you present above re History, counterfeit ('history about money', and writing.
Great post. The Judge is such a fascinating character and the details McCarthy uses to describe him paint such a complex image. He's ruthless but also possesses finesse - the sketching, etc. I find his writing and your posts inspiring from a writing perspective. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you!
Suzerain: "You rule the land / but so do I" -Dylan
The artisan works at "hammering out... all through the night of his becoming some coinage for a dawn that would not be."
The night of his becoming. A dawn that would not be.
I wonder at that becoming. The Kid never sees him whole. He is enshadowed by the Judge. He himself is becoming by producing something that will pass. That, too, seems to speak of McCarthy.
But do the markets of men ever open if the dawn does not come?
Has the Judge also eradicated the artisan's work from the world of men?
Will the artisan never finish his becoming? Does the Judge not only judge but keep his work, and keep him in the dark, half formed?
I wonder, too, of the Judge as War. I think of the ISIS destroying cultural architecture and artifacts, the contents of museums... The Judge is in the field, destroying things before they ever get to a museum.
War, also like the Judge, brings all the skills of humankind to its destructive endeavors. Draftsman, chemist, surveyor, record-keeper—all of these contribute to the eradication.
Fascinating!
What's he the judge of?
Ultimately, I think the answer is: he is the judge of the Kid. In the outhouse, the Judge delivers his judgement and then executes the sentence.
But this other thing he does: the cataloguing and "expunging" is certainly a kind of judging also. But let me spin a connecting web between the two...
The Kid has no memory. He makes no artifacts. He writes no words. He is mankind with memory expunged. He has a taste for mindless violence. Reasonless war is what he gravitates to.
The Kid is what the Judge is working to create: a facsimile of mankind that will wage war on the original.
But the Kid is flawed. By mercy, I think. An unwillingness to be the bringer of destruction. His mercy is not virtuous, and it does not always get the upper hand. But it stubbornly persists. And the Judge has none. And the Kid can tell. Which is why he says, "You ain't nothin'."
The Judge is bent on the extermination of mankind. He kills them wherever he finds them. Adults, he sorts into those he kills and those he claims as his own—the warmakers, who he aids and forms and arms. Children are not warmakers, so he always kills them.
Ah! This may be why the Judge does not kill the Kid until he is the Man. As still a child, the Kid is special to the Judge: the one child who may become war, like the Judge—a child with no memory and no artifice.
In the Kid's dream, the counterfeiter may be the Kid himself. Becoming. In the darkness. And now, overshadowed by the Judge. The Judge wants something from him, something he can loose on the world of mankind. But until he gets it, (or unless), the darkness will not lift.
The Kid at the end becomes the Man, but it is still night, and the Judge will not let him see the day...
Thanks. That’s an awesome take. It’s fun to compare to Philip K Dick historicity in Man in the High Castle. The book being about forged American (Disney, Civil War) artefacts that the Japanese are collecting.
"He’s had two novels published in the pass 90 days.
He still seeks favor with the Judge of Representation."
Clearly.
Finishing up The Passenger, and came upon the passage where Western recounts a dream of his sister's: 'Here's a dream. This man was a forger of antiquities. He traveled in documentation . . . An old world figure. A dark suit . . . Perhaps you can imagine him.' (326)
Thanks to the episode above I very much can!
The whole lengthy passage provokes and prods in the best sort of way as it coils around the ideas you present above re History, counterfeit ('history about money', and writing.
I really appreciate this. (I'd put a big question make in my book next to that dream passage.)