The level of depravity is so unmeasured and true that reminding myself that this is based on history makes my stomach turn.
McCarthy manages to describe such beauty and utter slaughter with the same level of vividness that it makes one feel guilty appreciating the genius of the prose.
Interested to hear others’ thoughts on the book…
by sil3ntsir3n
32 Comments
i gave the book 5 stars cuz i thought it was really good. “genius” is a bit much though. it wasn’t any better than most of what i read. i just enjoyed it a lot. which is why i gave it the rating. do i think it holds up against classic lit like dostoevsky, steinbeck, and hawthorne etc? not at all. but, it was good for what it was.
Baby. Tree.
Great book but very dark
I loved it. It was definitely hard to get through and I put it down for a few months when I was about 2/3 of the way through it. But that last chunk of the book was everything, imo. All of the tension that’s been building with the judge comes to a head. There’s so much that gets communicated without explicitly stating it in words. Genius, classic, deeply haunting. And a great middle finger to phony, romanticized American history.
My man got hung upside down from a tree, then they lit a fire under his head, and boiled his brains out of his skull. AND he deserved it! I have to reread it, because the spectacle of it is so overwhelming, I doubt I understood what I actually read.
I came in to this book knowing nothing about it. No fanfare.
It’s as dense as the texts I was assigned back in my University Philosophy classes and like those, if you blink you’ll miss something.
I loved it. Absolutely stunning. As thick as molasses. Deserves more than one read for sure.
Particularly beautiful prose. It’s as if each sentence was delicately considered and crafted with precise purpose. Wonderful.
Blood Meridian is on my shelf. I wonder how it will compare to American Psycho. The most evil book I’ve read so far
Isn’t it very loosely based on history? I was under the impression that it’s not a 1:1 telling of actual events. As far as I know, the Glanton gang definitely got up to some heinous shit but a lot of the events were McCarthy’s imagination. I could be totally wrong though.
It was the first McCarthy book I’ve ever read and oh boy it was like a fever dream of depravity. I really have to re-read it again.
He sure made a evil book, making me read all that scenery.
I disliked this book intensely. It was filthy, disgusting, and evil. There was not a single character that I found interesting. The prose was verbal masturbation. Try reading a book by Elmore Leonard to see how writing should be done. I recommend Cuba Libre or Djibouti.
It’s a rough, rough ride that only McCarthy’s prose could ever make bearable. I loved it, but I’m not sure I could give it a second read.
As an aside, I remember seeing a very rough Australian movie and thinking to myself “man, this is the Aussie ‘Blood Meridian,'” and go figure, the guy who directed it has been tapped to direct the ‘Blood Meridian’ movie adaptation, which I’m honestly not sure I’ll be able to stomach. Can’t wait to see who plays Judge Holden, though.
It’s one of the Great American Novels for a reason. It’s a book that stays with you long after you finish it. It was my first McCarthy novel and I’m now almost done with the second Border Trilogy novel and I can confidently say I am addicted to his prose. Truly one of the greatest American authors.
The Judge, to me, might be the most compelling villain of all time. There’s evil, then there’s EVIL. McCarthy does a fabulous job of writing him as well, perfectly toeing the line between mystique and revelation.
I didn’t think it was that bad; The Road had a way more profound impact on me. I did come in hot from 120 Days of Sodom, which… ahem… desensitized me somewhat.
I read the book as an allegory on human determinism, or that’s how I’d describe it, using historical context to frame something more profound that McCarthy intended to describe. The most jarring scene was actual very early in the book, but that’s mostly because McCarthy, the madman that he is, thinks punctuation is for losers, making the scene much more intense at a first read-through. I think I read it through in little less than a month, on a first reading.
It is truly a work. It’s the sort of thing most authors wouldn’t dare write and publish lest someone think something is wrong with them. McCarthy is just built different.
I’m currently 100 pages in, and it’s a wild ride. I definitely feel like it’s a long tough haul. Not in a bad way. Obviously McCarthy’s writing is beautiful and poetic, but holy shit.
‘That which exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.’
The Judge is the best representation of a uniquely terrifying human trait.
Truly a horrific view of the violence level achievable in humans with even a small degree of authority.
Its the casual disregard for human life that gets you. Sometimes its driven by the extreme survival situation they find themselves in, and in those instances you can kind of understand. But then it extends into every facet of the gang’s existence, and you start wondering who you’re supposed to be identifying with.
Eventually you get desensitized to it, just like the protagonist
If you ever wanted to know the depths of depravity that humans can do…
Overdone and ridiculous. The violence was so over the top that it was hard not to image every character being someone from Looney Tunes.
I liked some of the Judge’s quotes, and that’s it. Hated everything else about the book, from the story to the characters to the writing.
Wow, OP. I already wanted to read Blood Meridian but reading your review of it is making my bookmark wet.
Agreed, this book is fucking cursed lol. I’d already thought his writing was the bleakest shit I’d ever read after The Road, but Blood Meridian made it look like a walk in the park.
Yes, it is awash in evil. But not for evil’s sake. It’s mean to remind us of the Nature of Man and serves as a cautionary tale to never forget it.
Cormac McCarthy is one of my favorite authors because I love his use of language. I usually read books on a Kindle, but his books require real pages. His subjects deal with such darkness yet his words are magnificent. One reading is never enough.
My favorite book. It’s goddamn biblical
Read it as a child with no context or awareness of Cormac McCarthy and was deeply enthralled.
I was heavily abused as a child, which I think is why I identified with the kid, and even with the judge. I wished I had written it. It’s the kind of book that constantly had me pausing — reeling from the imagery.
There’s some kind of fucked up catharsis in something seemingly so nihilistic and beautiful — or at least that’s how it’s always been for me.
_If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind, would he not have done so by now? Wolves cull themselves, man. What other creature could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet? The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the moon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day. He loves games? Let him play for stakes. This you see here, these ruins wondered at by tribes of savages, do you not think that this will be again? Aye. And again. With other people, with other sons._
Wildly powerful book, important commentary on the nature of human beings.
Suttree by him is less outright evil, but equally intense and even more beautifully written
Tempted to read, but is it horrific?
It’s the only book I’ve ever finished and instantly reread, pure brilliance.
“A man’s at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he don’t want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there.”
I wouldn’t say it’s an evil book rather it shines light on the evil or potential for evil in our selves.