Blog for 04-15-10 Chapter 8

I didn't get off work till 9:00 last night so I'm doing this now.

"sociedaed de guerra. Contra los barbaros." You are a society of war. You are against the barbarians (apache).

Interesting way to put that. The group of men are described as a society rather than just a group, and I normally associate society with a town or city, not a group of 15 or so men.

The bartender "passes his hand before his face twice and kissed the ends of his fingers and looked up." This sounds like a ritual against evil spirits and my assumption is strengthened later when we find out that he did this in response to the man being stabbed. The old man that is talking to them sounds crazy, or maybe he's just drunk. That seems more likely, but he starts ranting about the blood of Gomez and the blood of thousands of people.

The imagery of McCarthy is again exhibited in this chapter:

"The shadow of an eagle that had set forth from those high and craggy fastnesses crossed the line of riders below and they looked up to mark it where it rode in that brittle blue and faultless void."

and

"About that fire were men whose eyes gave back the light like coals socketed hot in their skulls and men whose eyes did no, but the black man's eyes stood as corridors for the ferrying through of naked and unrectified night from what of it lay behind to what was yet to come.

The second quote is especially good, comparing the eyes of the men to burning coals and the black's eyes sounds like some time machine, a connection of the past torments that White Johnson put Black Johnson through to the present. It is clear that Blackie is angry, and is ready to take advantage of the white's drunken stupor, but he does it in a way that he cannot be at fault by the other men. He baits white to insult him before he kills him. Cool....

What does "chucked up" mean? I know that in our society, it means to vomit, but I don't think that Glanton vomited a horse.... Does it mean that he just made the horse move?