Status Updates From Angel Down

“And that’s it. Bagger vomits up what feels like a jellyfish with a gasoline kick.” 🙄

This is what happens when people read Blood Meridian *because* it’s the most violent book in the canon or whatever.

People who think this is a gripping war novel are after violence. Not that it’s the threat of relationships and personal dreams dying that makes war narratives so engrossing.

Why love Helm’s Deep? Battle of the Bastards? It’s not the violence. It’s what the violence defends.

“…Bagger’s scaling the ramp of a trench exit, out of dank sewage funk into a troposphere of hot ash that burns a cigarette cherry into his every bronchial.”

Every sentence! Clear and brilliant, then verbose and try-hard. Chekhov’s Advice: to make the reader feel something, restrain your prose. This has turned up every sentence to 11. But you end up not needing 3 of 5 sentences to get what’s going on.

Incredible writing