I’m not the first person to read this book, nor do I have any super profound thoughts on it, but every page just hits like a freight train. The lack of internal monologue from any character just makes every single downright vile action seem so much more sudden, and it really drives home the fact that every character, action, and motivation’ exigence is evil. Each and every time you think a character is going to do anything remotely good, or even neutral, it’s like Cormac McCarthy is reading your mind and says “watch this shit”. The fact that the characters give no reasoning for their senseless violence is gut wrenching, and the only character that does provide reason is so goddamn cunning, for a split second I’m like “that makes perfect sense”. the judge isn’t just manipulating the characters, he even briefly charms reader, sometimes I felt like what the judge was saying was valid, even though I knew he’s indescribably horrible. What other books have characters that are so charismatic that they even influence the reader? There’s no character like the judge, but what comes close?
by Braindead_Gunslinger
3 Comments
It was a great laugh.
Patrick Bateman gives a very honest and relevant speech about what’s wrong with society, but then he >!nails his ex girlfriend to a wooden board and slices off her nipples, pulls her teeth out, and fucks her throat!<. The movie left out so many gory details.
Maybe in a different way but Alex Delarge description of violence had such a charming and whimsical undertone to it in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange that he almost made me pity him when the show was on the other foot later in the novel.
But Judge Holden is among the most terrifying villians I’ve ever read in fiction for exactly what you said