His famous “Legion of Horribles” quote below. I often think of “death hilarious”:
“A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained weddingveil and some in headgear of cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horse’s ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse’s whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen’s faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.
As fantastical as this passage may sound, most of the details McCarthy provides are historically accurate, and based on a particular event: The Great Raid of 1840 [1]. A thousand Comanche warriors conducted an extremely deep raid into Southeast Texas, where they sacked the port of Linnville. An exceptionally large amount of trade goods were present in the port that day, including clothes bound for various settlements across the Texas frontier. The bits about umbrellas, stovepipe hats, and even the wedding veil come directly from eyewitnesses to the raid. The bit about a Comanche warrior wearing the armor of a conquistador is also real [2]. The Comanche were known for being exceptionally flamboyant, prizing extravagant clothing dyed in vibrant colors. It must have had quite a psychological effect on their enemies.
Loved Empire of the Summer Moon. Totally different kind of book, far more accessible than The Comanche Empire with more narrative and a fascinating storyline.
The Comanche Empire is more of a history textbook.
IIRC, I found The Comanche Empire by looking at the bibliography of Empire of the Summer Moon.
I've used this sentence as an example with my children, showing how with language you can demonstrate pace or frenzy. A battle charge is absolute chaos. There's no time for sentence structure, it's all wild glances from one thing to another.
“A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained weddingveil and some in headgear of cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horse’s ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse’s whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen’s faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.
Oh my god, said the sergeant.”