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i started reading this book 8/29 and finished on 10/1 of this year, so far the fastest I've finished a book. I told myself I'd wait and let myself sit with the story before rushing to tumblr to write my thoughts but then i completely forgot to do that, lol.

I bought a used copy off of ebay immediately after seeing the movie. I loved Blood Meridian and this is another favorite of mine, I know lots of people aren't fond of McCarthy's writing style and grammar, but I think it has it's own charm. I will admit that I did start hitting myself in the head with this book once because the grammar was so terrible i didn't know what was even happening at one point bahaha

Going to be honest I mostly read for Anton. I love Anton. Wahoo! He's a bit different in the book and while I prefer him in the film, the book still has my heart.

The main thing I wanted to point out was his apparent hypocrisy (? maybe that's too intense of a word). Anton in the book is described as wearing "expensive ostrich-skin boots", and later when sitting down with Wells, tells him this.

"You think I'm like you. That it's just greed. But I'm not like you. I live a simple life."

Yeah i'm sure buddy.

I thought his back and forth with Moss over the phone was fun, the book version of this nondescript murderer actually has a little bit more humor. While the sheriff's thoughts at the beginning of each chapter did annoy me a little (i just wanted to stay immersed in the story lol), I did enjoy reading them, especially towards the end.

I assume in the book he's meant to be vaguely non-white, since he says in chapter 2 "I guess that passes for manners in your cracker view of things". He's also described as wearing foreign cologne, but there's no mention or implication from other characters that he's not white. Maybe he's white passing. In my mind he's still javier bardem lol.

i cannot describe the emptiness I felt when I finished this book. i started reading on July 15th and finished August 25th, reading (almost) everyday. It took me a total of 9 hours and 32 minutes to get through within that timespan.

i initially got this book because of a wendig00n video on it. I haven't watched the video, still haven't, don't plan on ever watching it. at the time I was a fan and now I don't care. I had it sitting on my shelf for a long time, and i'm glad I did. this book was difficult for me to get through because I didn't understand some of the things happening and i'm still getting back into literature, so I wasn't good at picking up on subtext.

immediate things I remember about this book:

the judge having "et in arcadia ego" engraved onto his gun, that really stood out to me for some reason. also, Tobin shushing the kid when he asks what judge Holden is the judge of. "he's got ears like a fox" is something I still think of.

toadvine and the kid being back to back with their guns drawn at the cantina shootout. I really liked their friendship, and I felt empty when toadvine died. they're all terrible people, but toadvine less so.

tobin's growing animosity toward the judge, hissing to the kid to just shoot him. shoot him now, you won't get another chance. i'm already due for a reread, maybe it's a sort of disillusionment. realizing what you've been doing this whole time is crazed.

one of the delaware's grabbing a pair of babies by the ankle and bashing their heads in, the particular use of the word "fontanelle" was the first time this book made me quesy.

on the note of number 4, this book was certainly graphic, but not in the way I expected. it's upsetting for sure and I don't want to discount that, but McCarthy doesn't go into super gorey details. still worth checking online for a content warning before going into it, i guess. I have a strong stomach(? sort of) so I didn't.

my favorite quote by far, and I feel a little bad because everyone else's is one of the insightful ones, is "Did you learn to whisper in a saw mill?". Very few things make me laugh out loud but that was one of them.

I will say I did have to go back and watch a video recapping the plot because certain parts I straight up did not understand. When the kid helps Brown with an arrow to the knee, and Tobin scolds him, I had no idea what that was about until I had it explained. This was the first book I didn't annotate (not for any particular reason, by the time I realized I hadn't, I felt like it was too late and just kept reading), so the notable moments are from my memory.

Glanton is such an interesting fellow. I wish I had more to say, but right now I don't. Onto the Judge.

I forgot what chapter, but when the Glanton Gang stumble upon a building with some people, a little Mexican boy, and an infected horse. That chapter. When the young boy dies the next day with his neck snapped, I assumed he had been sodomized and raped by the Judge, since the book directly mentions him being naked. Also with the little Mexican girl going missing (during some chapter I can't recall), and another young girl at the very last chapter being lost, I assume those two were the judge.

I am so clueless I didn't realize the Judge had murdered the kid (now man), and reading it over I'm pretty sure he violated the man too. I gasped when the man saw the judge staring at him across the bar too, lol. Another scene I liked was the Judge being likened to a hippo in the bathhouse many chapters prior, when he got into the water and dipped lower so only his eyes and top of his pale head were visible.

When the kid is in jail and visited by the Judge, who asks him to come closer, that was such a chilling scene. I still think about it. The judge trying to convince the kid that this is all his fault, maybe partially, if the kid had shot the judge earlier when he had his chance. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered, maybe it would make things worse. He won't ever die.

I don't know what the judge is, I am not sure if he's the devil. I don't think so, but I don't think he's a regular man either. I think he's violence, a recurring theme in the book. Violence follows the protagonist and is carried out by the Glanton Gang because it can be, because there is nobody to stop them.

I liked Tobin a lot. I was scared he'd die in the desert. Maybe he died at the Judge's tiny hands, who knows. I'm still hung up on the kid passing by Brown and Toadvine's hanging bodies. I suppose I'm glad the Judge didn't kill them in the desert, then. This is one of those books I'll have to revisit in a few years. I had a hard time picking up on the themes, NGL, and I still do. Maybe I'll go read some other reviews to see what other's thought.

I watched this on 08/21/2025z I initially set this as a 7/10, though after seeing it was tarantino's directorial debut, I put It at 8/10. I think it's great, though it wasn't what I expected. I don't know what I expected, tbf.

I watched this mostly because a friend of mine compared one of my favorite characters in manga (barem bridge, chainsaw man) to a character in this movie (Mr. blonde). I totally see it, lol.

My favorite scenes were the beginning and Mr. Pink going on about how he doesn't tip waittresses, and Mr. Blonde's entrance. I think it's great that once he's established, he sits above everyone else as a way to show how he considers himself above the rest of the criminals. Love the use of "show don't tell" going on there.

Mr. Blonde was great, I wish he lived longer, but then the movie would have probably taken a different turn. I really liked the scene of him dancing to music and torturing the police officer, it reminded of that scene in American Psycho. I wonder if AP was referencing this, lol.

Sherif even tells Carla-Jean how steers are killed with an air gun, and that they’re killed before they know what even hit them. Describing Anton’s modus operandi and he didn’t even know it.

Anton thinks rather highly of himself, more than his “call it” coin flip suggests. He’s not just an arbiter of fate, the rule doesn’t apply to him. He says he knows, with certainty, that the briefcase of money will be brought directly to him and placed at his feet. People are animals and it is okay to slaughter them as such if they might get in his way. He is fate, and he is above them.

And he is so far above them, that he is visibly bothered by Carla-Jean refusing to play along. His act of “kindness” is denied, almost an insult to his rule and his integrity. He tells her “not to worry about” not having the money, not even enough to keep herself afloat. He didn’t go there with the intention to give her a chance to save herself, he switched on a whim to show an act of “mercy”.

Carla-Jean would have died anyway, even if she called it correctly and Anton stuck to his word. She saw his face, she knew what happened, she could identify him in a lineup. I strongly believe that if Anton himself didn’t do her in, someone else would have.

Carla-Jean, Llewelyn, and Carson are the only ones who went up against Anton on screen and recognized him for the danger he was (since he was pointing a fucking gun at them lol), but the officer in the beginning turned his back on a criminal, the man exited his car for someone who clearly wasn’t a cop, and the store clerk would have lost his life if he didn’t call it correctly. Animals have the instinct to run away at the slightest hint of danger, the people in this country are either too polite or don’t have the discernment to recognize what’s going on.

Anton kills his employer for hiring other people to go after Llewelyn, regarding the decision as foolish and that he should’ve picked the one right tool. I’d wager he’s offended (?) at the idea that he wouldn’t be able to catch Llewelyn himself. That it’d need to be a multi-man job. Of course he can catch Llewelyn, he’ll do it and have Moss put the satchel of money at his feet.

Anton toys with his victims, he revels in Carson being startled by the phone ringing, he shuts the lights off at the inn so Llewelyn will have to sit in anticipation a while longer, he was a jackass to the store clerk, and he broke into Carla-Jean’s home and waited for her in her bedroom. He isn’t just delivering the cold uncertainty of mortality, he enjoys it and I think he enjoys killing people, so long as that rule of chance doesn’t apply to him.

I watched this movie on August 17 and it's automatically in my top 3. If I had watched more films, I would've put this top 1, but there are lots of movies, and I want to save that spot for now. Upon finishing, I went to order a copy of the book online. I'm already getting through reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, so seeing this movie already solidified McCarthy as my favorite storyteller.

From what I understand, the movie adaptation is pretty faithful to the book, but I will make a separate post for my thoughts once I finish the book. Anyway, into my thoughts:

I already know this would've been a movie that bored me to death if I watched this in highschool. I'm not old or anything but I'm glad I saw this as an adult that can appreciate the movie.

Murder aside, Anton is a fucking asshole LOL. I kept rewinding the scene of him talking to the store clerk—a genius scene. It's so funny, eating the cashews he hasn't paid for in this man's face while he verbally torments him. I understand the tonal shift and why Anton may have had to kill the clerk, but there's no way he couldn't just make up some bullshit about where he was coming in from. He went out of his way to toy with that poor guy. and he still didn't pay for the cashews or the gas.

I think the creepiest scene for me was when Anton caught up to Moss at the motel. Standing in front of his room door, making sure Moss can see his figure obstructing the hallway light, then leaving momentarily and turning that light off. Second creepiest scene was Anton asking where Moss worked, and the woman telling him she can't say and refusing to be intimidated by him. Anton is lucky to have survived that encounter.

I love Moss and Carla Jean; I wish she lived. Moss is an amazing protagonist, and I didn't understand he died at first, so I had to keep rewinding to see which dead body was his. Carla, who refuses to try to negotiate with Anton and also refuses to call heads or tails, while also being the one who's most vulnerable. Carla I love you forever.

I'm already due for a rewatch, and I watched this movie past midnight, so I'm not sure how much of the themes I understood. Carla gets a coin toss as a (slight) act of mercy, a 50/50 chance for her life. But I think she was right; he would've killed her anyway somehow. I just don't see how he'd break into her home, point a weapon at her, and then skedaddle on out of there if she had called it correctly. When she says she doesn't have any money, he tells her not to worry about it. I really don't think he was going to let her leave alive, or at the very least, he wouldn't have expected her to call it correctly. She had to die.

He didn't offer Carson a coin toss, even after he tried to negotiate with him. I find that interesting enough to write about, but I don't know why he didn't. Carson knows that he's going to die in that room and knows he can't strike a deal to get his way out of this; he should just accept it, Anton tells him as much. I do think it was a little funny how Anton perked up once Carson finally turned around on the stairs to see him following. I think he likes playing with his food, and the coin is just part of that in a way.

I know some people think the ending is disappointing, but I liked it. I was scared Anton would die in the end, lol. I like the parallel between Moss, who has to pay someone for their jacket, and that posse, who is mildly indifferent to whatever happened to him, versus Anton who is approached by kids who are concerned for him. One kid gives him the shirt off his back, and is hesitant to take any money for it. Moss has to cough up cash (I think it was 500$?), and Anton would've gotten it for free if he didn't insist on paying the kid and refusing further help.

I don't really know why he paid the kid, NGL. I assume it's part of his own moral code. I saw someone say it's because Anton views everything as transactional (they said more but you know what I'm getting at). I don't think that's wrong but there also isn't a lot of transactions between him and others. He doesn't pay for the cashews or the gas, but he let the clerk keep his life and gave him a lucky quarter. Technically a transaction, but Anton is a weird guy and I don't think he was meant to be fully understood.

I will say toward the end it was reaching 2 AM and I didn't understand the portion about the sheriff's two dreams. It felt more like I was just hearing words and not listening, so that's why I say I'm due for a rewatch soon.