Judge Holden | |
---|---|
Blood Meridian character | |
First appearance | Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West |
Created by | Cormac McCarthy |
In-universe information | |
Full name | Holden (full name unknown) |
Nickname | Judge Holden, The Judge |
Gender | Male |
Occupation | Scalphunter |
Affiliation | Glanton Gang |
Nationality | Unknown (Presumably American) |
Judge Holden is a purported historical person who partnered with John Joel Glanton as a professional scalp-hunter in Mexico and the American Southwest during the mid-19th century. [1] To date, the only source for Holden's existence is Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue, an autobiographical account of Chamberlain's life as a soldier during the Mexican–American War. Chamberlain described Holden as the most ruthless of the roving band of mercenaries led by Glanton, with whom Chamberlain had traveled briefly after the war: "[he] had a fleshy frame, [and] a dull tallow colored face destitute of hair and all expression"; [2] "a man of gigantic size"; "by far the best educated man in northern Mexico"; "in short another Admirable Crichton, and with all an arrant coward".
Chamberlain disliked Holden intensely: "I hated him at first sight, and he knew it," Chamberlain wrote. "Yet nothing could be more gentle and kind than his deportment towards me; he would often seek conversation with me." [3]
He was popularized as the main antagonist of Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian (1985), where he is described as "a massive, hairless, albino man who excels in shooting, languages, horsemanship, dancing, music, drawing, diplomacy, science and anything else he seems to put his mind to. Despite his almost infinite knowledge, which he can use to achieve anything he desires, Holden favours a life of murder and hate... He is also the chief proponent and philosopher of the Glanton gang’s lawless warfare." [4] Judge Holden has been described as "perhaps the most haunting character in all of American literature". [5]
In Samuel Chamberlain's autobiographical My Confession, he describes Holden:
The second in command, now left in charge of the camp, was a man of gigantic size who rejoiced in the name of Holden, called “Judge” Holden of Texas. Who or what he was no one knew but a cooler blooded villain never went unhung; he stood six feet six in his moccasins, had a large fleshy frame, a dull tallow colored face destitute of hair and all expression. But when a quarrel took place and blood shed, his hog-like eyes would gleam with a sullen ferocity worthy of the countenance of a fiend. His desires was blood and women, and terrible stories were circulated in camp of horrid crimes committed by him when bearing another name, in the Cherokee nation and Texas; and before we left Fronteras a little girl of ten years was found in the chapperal, foully violated and murdered. The mark of a huge hand on her little throat pointed him out as the ravisher as no other man had such a hand, but though all suspected, no one charged him with the crime.
Holden was by far the best educated man in northern Mexico; he conversed with all in their own language, spoke in several Indian lingos, at a fandango would take the Harp or the Guitar from the hands of the musicians and charm all with his wonderful performance and out-waltz any poblana of the ball. He was “plum center” with a rifle or revolver, a daring horseman, acquainted with the nature of all the strange plants and their botanical names, great in geology and mineralogy, in short another Admirable Crichton [sc., the 16th-century Scottish prodigy and polymath], and with all an arrant coward.
Not but that he possessed enough courage to fight Indians and Mexicans or anyone else where he had the advantage in strength, skill, and weapons. But where the combat would be equal, he would avoid it if possible. I hated him at first sight and he knew it, yet nothing could be more gentle and kind than his deportment towards me: He would often seek conversation with me and speak of Massachusetts and to my astonishment I found he knew more about Boston than I did. [6]
Some amateur historians have interpreted the name "Judge Holden" as a pseudonym, and hoped to establish his true identity. [7] Popular candidates include Charles Wilkins Webber, an educated man in the region who once used the pseudonym "Holden", and John Allen Veatch, a geologist who operated in the region and who led a scalp-hunting party into Mexico. [8]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(May 2022) |
A fictionalized Holden is a central character in Cormac McCarthy's 1985 Western novel Blood Meridian . In the novel, he and Glanton are the leaders of a pack of nomadic criminals who rob, rape, torture, and kill across the borderlands between the United States and Mexico. Throughout the novel, Holden brutally murders dozens of people, including children. Searching for additional evidence for Holden's existence has been a hobby for some Cormac McCarthy scholars.
As depicted in Blood Meridian, Holden is a mysterious figure, a cold-blooded killer, and, it is implied, a pedophile; [9] aside from the children he openly kills, he is seen enticing children with sweets, and a child often goes missing when he is in the vicinity. At one point in the novel, he is seen naked with a naked 12-year-old girl in his room. Holden displays knowledge of paleontology, archaeology, linguistics, law, draftsmanship, geology, chemistry, prestidigitation, and philosophy.
He is described as nearly 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m) tall and completely lacking body hair, including eyebrows and eyelashes. He is massive in frame, enormously strong, an excellent musician and dancer, a fine draftsman, exceptionally articulate and persuasive in several languages, and an unerring marksman. His skin is so pale as to have almost no pigment. This strange appearance, as well as his keen, extremely fast reflexes, strength, agility, apparent immunity to sleep and aging, and multifarious other abilities point to his being something other than a normal human. In the final pages of the novel, McCarthy makes more direct reference to the Judge as a supernatural entity, or even as a concept personified.
In 2002, Book magazine rated Holden as the 43rd greatest character in fiction since 1900. [10] He is regarded as one of the greatest characters of modern literature, likened to a "Captain Ahab of the desert." [11] Harold Bloom described him as "short of Moby Dick, the most monstrous apparition in all of American literature." [12] Holden has been characterized as "the most haunting character in American literature." [5]
In his essay "Gravers False and True: Blood Meridian as Gnostic Tragedy", literature professor Leo Daugherty argued that McCarthy's Holden is—or at least embodies—a gnostic archon (a kind of demon). [13] Harold Bloom, who declared Judge Holden to be "the most frightening figure in all of American literature", [14] even came to regard him as immortal. [15] However, unlike Daugherty, Bloom argues that Holden defies identification as being under any "system" such as Gnosticism, citing the passage in the book stating that there was no "system by which to divide [him] back into his origins". [16] Rather, Bloom "resort[s]" to literary comparison with William Shakespeare's Iago, a methodical dispenser of strife. [17]
In Greek mythology, Procrustes, also known as Prokoptas, Damastes or Polypemon, was a rogue smith and bandit from Attica who attacked people by stretching them or cutting off their legs, so as to force them to fit the size of an iron bed.
Underworld is a 1997 novel by American writer Don DeLillo. The novel is centered on the efforts of Nick Shay, a waste management executive who grew up in the Bronx, to trace the history of the baseball that won the New York Giants the pennant in 1951, and encompasses numerous subplots drawn from American history in the second half of the twentieth century. Described as both postmodernist and a reaction to postmodernism, it examines themes of nuclear proliferation, waste, and the contribution of individual lives to the course of history.
In literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document, monograph or section or chapter thereof. The epigraph may serve as a preface to the work; as a summary; as a counter-example; or as a link from the work to a wider literary canon, with the purpose of either inviting comparison or enlisting a conventional context.
Cormac McCarthy was an American writer who wrote twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories, spanning the Western, postapocalyptic, and southern gothic genres. His works often include graphic depictions of violence, and his writing style is characterised by a sparse use of punctuation and attribution. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists.
American Pastoral is a Philip Roth novel published in 1997 concerning Seymour "Swede" Levov, a successful Jewish American businessman and former high school star athlete from Newark, New Jersey. Levov's happy and conventional upper middle class life is ruined by the domestic social and political turmoil of the 1960s during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, which in the novel is described as a manifestation of the "indigenous American berserk". It is the first in Roth's American Trilogy, followed by I Married a Communist (1998) and The Human Stain (2000).
Osnaburg is a general term for coarse, plain-weave fabric. It also refers specifically to a historic fabric originally woven in flax but also in tow or jute, and from flax or tow warp with a mixed or jute weft.
John Joel Glanton was an early settler of Arkansas Territory. He was also a Texas Ranger and a soldier in the Mexican–American War and the leader of a notorious gang of scalp-hunters in Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States during the mid-19th century. Contemporary sources also describe him as a murderous outlaw and prominent participant in the Texas Revolution. He appears as a violent figure in the works of the prominent Western writers Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy.
Blood Meridian; or, The Evening Redness in the West is a 1985 epic historical novel by American author Cormac McCarthy, classified under the Western, or sometimes the anti-Western, genre. McCarthy's fifth book, it was published by Random House.
Child of God (1973) is the third novel by American author Cormac McCarthy. It depicts the life of a violent outcast and serial killer in 1960s Appalachian Tennessee.
Cities of the Plain is the final volume of American novelist Cormac McCarthy's "Border Trilogy", published in 1998. The title is a reference to Sodom and Gomorrah.
No Country for Old Men is a 2005 novel by American author Cormac McCarthy, who had originally written the story as a screenplay. The story occurs in the vicinity of the Mexico–United States border in 1980 and concerns an illegal drug deal gone awry in the Texas desert back country. Owing to the novel's origins as a screenplay, the novel has a simple writing style that differs from McCarthy's earlier novels. The book was adapted into a 2007 Coen brothers film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Samuel Emery Chamberlain was an American soldier, painter, and author who traveled throughout the American Southwest and Mexico during the mid-19th century.
Gnosticism in modern times includes a variety of contemporary religious movements, stemming from Gnostic ideas and systems from ancient Roman society. Gnosticism is an ancient name for a variety of religious ideas and systems, originating in Jewish-Christian milieux in the first and second century CE.
The Road is a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. The book details the grueling journey of a father and his young son over several months across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed industrial civilization and nearly all life. The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006. The book was adapted into a film of the same name in 2009, directed by John Hillcoat.
Anton Chigurh is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel No Country for Old Men. In the 2007 film adaptation of the same name, he is portrayed by Javier Bardem.
James Carlos Blake is an American writer of novels, novellas, short stories, and essays. His work has received extensive critical favor and several notable awards. He has been called “one of the greatest chroniclers of the mythical American outlaw life” as well as “one of the most original writers in America today and … certainly one of the bravest.” He is a recipient of the University of South Florida's Distinguished Humanities Alumnus Award and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.
Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Peter Josyph is a New York artist who works concurrently as an author, a painter, an actor-director, a filmmaker, and a photographer.
The Daybreakers is a 1960 novel set in the latter half of 19th-century America (1867), written by Louis L'Amour. It is the first novel that he wrote about a Welsh and English family surnamed Sackett. He later wrote five novels that take place before The Daybreakers. There are a total of seventeen novels in "The Sacketts" series.
A list of works by or about Cormac McCarthy, the American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. McCarthy published twelve novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and post-apocalyptic genres, as well as multiple short-stories, screenplays, plays, and an essay.