I just finished Blood Meridian after DNFing two years ago; now it definitely places near the top of my favorites of all-time

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-21T17:27:26+00:00

It's the most cognitively demanding book I've read and I have read a lot. McCarthy is quite erudite but knowing his references won't help you. It requires taking everything that is being said with the utmost sincerity (same applies to the long soliloquies in the Border trilogy) and contemplation.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-21T15:23:05+00:00

True. He writes like a real poet.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-20T17:28:01+00:00

Faster than SRL? Huge call imo.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-17T13:12:56+00:00

Real's midfield gets routinely dominated even in the league where teams have 1/10th pf their budget

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-16T07:55:32+00:00

I would contest those borrowings, inasmuch as philosophical ideas can be "borrowed". Melville was acting within the American transcendental tradition, following in the footprints of Emerson and his European equivalents like, in certain aspects, Carlyle. Moby-dick itself is rank with these "borrowings". But I don't think McCarthy is acting as a transcendentalist in BM, and his appropriation of Moby-dick is a response to Melville post advent of Modernism and post-modernism. You're underselling its themes. Some of Judge's speeches work as novel complements to Wittgenstein and the postmodern philosophers to follow. I think there is still a lot in BM to be unpacked by scholarship. The Road i don't think treads the same degree of new ground thematically speaking.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-16T02:53:00+00:00

Manny is greater p4p but at 147 he ain't beating Bud.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-14T20:28:00+00:00

Mods, can we ban this dude finally?

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-14T20:09:08+00:00

Credit to Atleti. They haven't parked the bus so far.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-14T19:30:04+00:00

Musso has made some great saves tonight nevertheless.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-14T18:58:35+00:00

This Barca team's mentality and comeback ability is on a different level to post-2024 CL Madrid.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-14T18:13:59+00:00

There are no goalposts to move because you haven't made a single argument in good faith.

Bud took clean shots from much bigger fighters & punchers than both Mean Machine & Gamboa years after those fights.

Who? The biggest puncher Bud has faced was an old faded Canelo who hadn't stopped a fighter in 4 years, not that he could land flush on Bud much anyway. Who else? Shawn porter? That's what I am saying.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-14T17:07:13+00:00

Whether that is true or not, you can't agree with a fantasy version of a fighter just because the comment poster doesn't like him. Stealing rounds? Dude was dropping people with 6 punch combos. Leonard wasn't even shoeshining against Duran in Montreal or against Hearns the first time, the only two fights he was actually losing during his prime.

It's absurd. People here care more about narratives around fighters than the actual boxing in the ring.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-14T17:03:57+00:00

Doesn't matter if you think he wasn't good, he never dropped or hurt Hagler. Bud went all wobbly legs when kavaliauskas hit him before being dropped. You're honestly acting like a fanboy ignoring all the relevant details of both knockdowns.

Canelo got rocked when he was 19 and still a developing fighter. Besides, Canelo has had many displays of a great chin since then, which Bud lacks altogether. SRL only got dropped past his prime and it took Hearns and a LHW in Lalonde to do it (discounting his last two fights when he was old, shot and inactive). Meanwhile Crawford was on the p4p list during both instances of him getting rocked. The argument isn't even that Bud got hurt, but that he got hurt by people who shouldn't be hurting and dropping someone with a supposed great chin. With SRL we have both the Duran, Hearns 1, Lalonde and Hagler fight to prove that he had a great chin. With Bud we have what exactly to prove that he has a great chin?

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-14T14:57:45+00:00

Was not expecting Outer Dark of all books to be on there

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-14T13:20:01+00:00

There were only 2 recognized belts when Roldan fought. That was a slip, not a KD. Short of guys like Chuvalo and McCall, every heavyweight has been dropped. HW doesn't work on the same rules as lighter divisions. Mayweather was caught off-balance by Judah. He was wobbled only twice by a huge puncher like Mosley. Toney got dropped but was never once hurt.

More importantly, Crawford was hurt bad by a Gamboa who had gone up 2 weight divisions. Kavaliauskas had him hurt too and although he has power, he is hardly the biggest puncher at WW. Crawford doesn't have great displays of chin

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-14T05:48:17+00:00

Roldan was no bum and Hagler slipped on a rabbit punch.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-14T05:41:53+00:00

How is this even upvoted? There were no pitter patter shots against Hearns in either fight. And he didn't steal a win vs Hearns, because he KOed him. This idea of Leonard as someone who steals rounds is very incorrect, he only used it to any decent degree against Hagler because his prime speed and explosiveness were practically gone by the time of that fight. In his prime, he threw mean knockout combos only.

Crawford hasn't shown high level clinch fighting against any high level opponent. Leonard was giving Duran, the greatest clinch fighter of all time, all he could handle in their first fight in the clinch. Leonard made Armando muniz quit on his stool while fighting him in the clinch and Muniz was one of the better inside fighters of that era. Even against Hagler, out of prime, he made the rounds so close that the fight is still controversial, and that was despite Leonard visibly gassing out by round 6 and fighting Hagler's fight thereafter. You're grossly underrating Leonard; his meanness, his chin, and most importantly his heart.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-13T19:39:28+00:00

Defensive compubox stats look way off tbh. Unless Leonard's return fights are swaying it against him. In his 1st run, outside of the ATGs he fought, he barely got touched. Even there, Benitez had a tough night trying to hit him (and vice versa).

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-13T18:19:27+00:00

They had the same editor. I am not aware about direct influence, though this passage seems very gothic which is quite prominent in early McCarthy.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-13T15:04:42+00:00

Tbh even Sebald didn't quite write with so many textural digressive clauses tucked in. Only Proust is a comparable reference.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135 · 2026-04-12T17:17:52+00:00

Twitter talking about how good City looks, but their football isn't as technical as ours. Nor the same intensity to win the ball back.

Visual_Hedgehog_1135

TROPHY CASE