Eric Hultgren > Recent Status Updates

Finished Wise Blood… whacky book. Hazel notes tried to start the church without Christ but is seeking redemption and forgiveness even if he denies it. Enoch is searching for human connection and purpose. Not sure what happens to him after he puts on the gorilla costume. Hazel kills his twin false prophet and then blinds himself and becomes a self torturing catholic for lack of better word.

Hazel Motes sermon on church without Jesus and looking for a new Jesus.

Taking a break for James. Still feeling more sentimental than I’d like. I like the sense of failure and not the typical go west and find your fortune narrative though. Still a bit too domestic and sentimental

Feeling meh on this one. Sort of a middle class narrative that lacks any grittiness that I’ve been enjoying lately. Well written though. Seems to lack a plot or conflict I care about so far. Starting to feel like an old man in the 70s bemoaning modernity and looking to history for comfort.

218-219 them both on the idea of Mexico and the world not caring, sums up a lot of their trips to Mexico on self discovery

The blind musician on destiny and choices

This world was never made for him. He’d outlived it before he could walk. About Troy’s brother Johnny but applies to John Grady and Billy parham

Starting to feel more of an influential book than one that is timeless.

Whole chapter is chaos. The killing of the town madman, half Shakespeare speeches in dirt theaters, lynching speech, circus and failed Shakespeare play by the duke and king con men huck and Jim ride the raft with.

Southern mob lynching speech

Raft comes to represent freedom from society and family feuds, and slavery.

Up to here huck sees being moral as following society’s rules but notes how bad it feels and goes with that Side of himself

Huck starts to war with his conscience, first time seeing Jim’s excitement over freedom and plans for his family

First instance to see huck looking at Jim as a friend.

The simple sharing of hope…is a wonder

KRAUS is a master of frenetic pace here and in angel down

Don’t some have responsibilities too?
To hold their fathers accountable

There is no fathoming the fathoms. All you can do is map the minuscule, memorize it, us it to predict infinity

Don’t sons have responsibilities too?

This is my third trip down. It’s the only time I was ever down here that I got what I come after. But insure as hell wasn’t what I wanted.

On the corridor being the truth of men. Death is the truth.

But that going to dust is a blessing because it shows us what was real

Blind man on justice and everything going to dust

“He said that the light of the world was in men’s eyes only for the world itself moved in eternal darkness”

Like John Grady Billy is something out of the past. A coming of age story but coming into yourself and not in a world you fit in.

This ends the crazy priest in the broken church speech. This the second lesson Billy comes across in section 2. The first is the Indian who warns him from being a hermit loner and to find others. This priest is part wisdom and part madness.

Wow not how I saw the wolf journey ending. The hacendado makes a point that the boy thought he could come to Mexico and do whatever he wanted, and that was true. McCarthy gives emotional scenes but instead of inferiority he moves to descriptions of the mountains or scenery.

Feeling like it’s quirky and cute but maybe not more than that. I like the characters but just feels like the story isn’t going to any place special. Back cover called it with a “feel-good feel-sad warm dark and funny road trip story”

If the only good Indian is a dead one, then she’s going to be the worst Indian ever.

Part 1 ride into Mexico. Ranching is dead and old in Texas. No real aim to the wander but enjoy the ride. Part 2 find the ranch find the girl
Part 3 arrested

They have little agency or will in what happens to them or where they go. Ironic that they are falsely accused of horse stealing when the reverse happens to Mexicans as well.