I've been reading through Blood Meridian by Cormac Mccarthy. This book is not for the faint hearted and sensitive people. The violence is beyond anything I've read, nobody is safe, women, elderly, children, infants. And nearly all of the characters involved are terrible people, but not as terrifying and monstrous as Judge Holton. I had a nightmare about this character one night, that's how scary the Judge is.
The romanticised and popular ideas of the wild west we see in pop culture is falsified by how brutal, barbaric and evil the frontier really is in this book, and it's the kind of book I would have endless discussions with. Recommended to those with a heart of Iron.
by Scurvythepirate64
38 Comments
i started it some days ago but ive been finding it so hard to complete, i am getting the plot but most of the words, i don’t get the meaning of and it’s taking sm time, i am on chapter 4, does it get any better or any suggestions so i can complete it? i don’t like leaving books midway
edit 1: thanks for so many comments, i have decided to not give up and complete the book either way, even if it takes time, i will let y’all know once i am done, thanks
I studied this at university wherein it became my favourite book of all time (yet anyway). There’s a beauty in in how disgusting and brutal it is, if that makes any sense?
How do you deal with all the Spanish dialogue? In All the Pretty Horses I found myself constantly translating it, even if it was somewhat unnecessary.
There’s a lot more in Blood Meridian and I’m torn between accepting that I won’t understand it (maybe that was the intention) and translating on the fly.
An incredible read. The prose is probably the most beautiful I’ve ever read.
After reading Blood Meridian I decided to read all of McCarthy’s work and just take my time with it.
It’s one of those books I keep recommending to people but nobody finishes it because of the content.
I’m like, “But it’s fucking beautiful; don’t you know how much you’re missing out?!”
Great post. Second readthrough myself recently. This is a book that needs several.
Welp, I’m sold. Adding this to my list of books to acquire.
The most terrifying thing about the book is that it is based on true events.
Blood Meridian is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read, if not the best. The word choice, the beautiful descriptions, the clues, Holden’s speeches about war, morality and man’s role, just something that stands above other works of fiction. An incredible masterpiece. Some phrases, scenes and Judge Holden are ingrained into my brain forever. It’s also a good book to reread as well.
If someone is hesitating, just go ahead and read it, but be advised, it’s VERY violent, it’s a challenging read but one of the most rewarding reading experiences.
Fantastic story. The ending still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
…Or the reddening of the sky at dusk.
Love that book. The descriptive writing of a decaying horse carcass is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.
I couldn’t finish it. McCarthy is a brilliant writer, but I got weary of them going from place to place committing nonstop atrocities. Not because I’m faint hearted or sensitive but because it got monotonous to me.
Will it be too difficult for me, late teens – beginner to classics, to get into?
Fascinating book, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking it represents the “real frontier”. That’s like saying Columbine represents “real high school”. It’s a study in good and evil, and how far people can go from normal humanity and still exist.
No character development at all. Just events happening. Lots of people died and lots of people killed. In the end I did not care about any of them. I found it empty and boring.
“The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.
The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man’s mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others.”
How the fuck did he come up with that?
I was reading The Road when the pandemic hit. This did not help my psychological state.
“The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.
The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man’s mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others.”
~ the judge
Yale has a pretty good lecture series on [Blood Meridian for free online.](https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-291/lecture-17)
Unpopular opinion…I was not ovewhelmed. The style and vocabulary are indeed distinctive, if not unique. The Judge as a mythical being was interesting. But the book consists of:
An opening chapter or so, to introduce the kid.
The definitely weird ending between the kid and the Judge.
And in between was ~250 pages of a repetitive loop with minor variations.
– Gang rides into a community, gets drunk, creates horrible rape and destruction.
– The gang leaves town and camps.
– The Judge does/says something enigmatic and weird.
– Somebody spits.
– They ride on.
After a while itwas tiresome. It would have been much better as a novella or long short story with half the loop iterations.
Couldn’t stand it. My friends love it, I find the writing style to be overly dramatic. You can write heavy duty gut wrenching drama without nasal gazing prose.
Just started this week. It’s interesting so far.
I really hate his writing style but I’m trying to look past it for the content and story.
Use a fucking quotation mark for God sake.
It’s not brilliant in the slightest.
People always go off about how “Brilliant” BM is but no-one ever provides an actual example. They just about about the Judge and some of the prose.
Blood Meridian is one of the most overrated books of the 20th century.
I loved the cadence of it too, each chapter started low and mellow, rose to a near crescendo, then ebbed back down to the end of the chapter, only to rise again in the next chapter.
I like to call it “A rolling wave of literary bloodshed”
This is for anyone who is reading Blood Meridian and straight up confused by the praise.When I first read it, I was big on logging everything on Goodreads. I immediatedly gave it a 1/5 stars. Hated it. That same day, I couldn’t stop thinking about it and deciced it must be a 5/5. Hours later I flip-flopped and decided I was right to begin with. After all, I had no fun reading it. But God damn, why can’t I stop thinking about this book? Every waking thought it goes from a 1/5 to 5/5. I am beyond frustrated, but I can’t lie… no book has made me think about it more than Blood Meridian.
This post again? At least once a week
It’s fantastic 👏
Overrated
I struggle to describe Blood Meridian anytime it’s mentioned. It’s phenomenal on so many levels. All I can ever land on is that it is a work of art.
Probably the best final paragraph I’ve ever read
>The romanticised and popular ideas of the wild west we see in pop culture is falsified by how brutal, barbaric and evil the frontier really is in this book, and it’s the kind of book I would have endless discussions with.
Please remember that this book’s portrayal of the frontier is no more realistic than, say, the movie Tombstone. Both are based on true stories that highlight a really interesting or notorious event and take liberties with limited sources (big chunks of the single account Mccarthy based Blood Meridian on can’t be verified, including the very existence of the Judge). Neither represent “the truth” of an entire historical era or place.
Not trying to yuck your yum or criticize the book in *any* way, just trying to make sure you’re contextualizing it properly.
I’ve nearly read all of Stephen King’s work, and he’s my favorite author. With that said, I’ve never been as terrified of a character than The Judge.
“The romanticised and popular ideas of the wild west we see in pop culture is falsified by how brutal, barbaric and evil the frontier **really is in this book**…”
You are aware the book is ***FICTIONAL***, right?
Do you know what the word ***FICTIONAL*** means?
Apparently not.
It means McCarthy made **ALL THAT SHIT UP.**
Every letter, every word, every phrase, every sentence, every paragraph is a **LIE.**
It’s no more an accurate description of life in the Old West than Seth McFarlane’s “A Million Ways To Die In The West.”
Yet you, for God knows what reason, are declaring it as **GOSPEL TRUTH, THE ONLY ACCURATE DEPICTION OF THE OLD WEST.**
With of course ZERO evidence to back up this claim.
I got about 50 pages in and thought, “why the **FUCK** am i reading this shit,” and started reading something else.
ANYTHING ELSE.
It’s torture porn, nothing more, nothing less, the literary equivalent of Eli Roth’s ‘Hostel’ movies. No deeper than that.
Cormac McCarthy is THE single most pessimistic author I have ever read.
Also, The Counselor SUCKED. What a fucking waste of Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Rosie Perez, whats her face and whats his face.
The ONLY cool thing in it was the cheetahs.
Had the pleasure of reading it earlier this year. One of my favorite novels of all time, hands down. Highly recommend.
>The romanticised and popular ideas of the wild west we see in pop culture is falsified by how brutal, barbaric and evil the frontier really is in this book
You do realize that this book is no more accurate than the other portrayals?
You’re just reading a different extreme, unrealistic version of the Old West.
If you want to get an accurate feeling of the Old West, you should read some history books.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I read The Road, liked it, so read Blood Meridian. But it was a bunch of babble to me, so I have never touched another McCarthy book since.
What did I miss in Blood Meridian? It wasn’t much of a story to me. A mess of characters with no names, people died but the rambling goes on and on.
This was (and still is) my first McCarthy book, which ironically I began just a few months before his passing. I’ve had it on my shelf for a long time along with The Border Trilogy, and made the somewhat dubious decision to not only start with Blood Meridian but… bring it on a vacation and attempt to read it on the beach! It is definitely NOT a beach read. I mean, I knew its dark reputation, but was still unprepared for it.
The density of the prose as well as the unflinching realism of the violence inherent in the idea of ‘Manifest Destiny’ and the expansion of the Western frontier, all made this a very difficult read for me, even though I loved his prose. I found it worked better if I could set aside a long enough chunk of time that my mind began to adjust itself to move with the cadence and rhythms of his writing. And yes, the lack of punctuation was sometimes an obstacle for me also, but it almost felt like the book was carving out new neural pathways. That the longer I could spend with it in a single sitting, the more I could inhabit the world he was animating on the page. As others have said, there are entire passages that just beg to be reread immediately. And I would occasionally do that, but also wanted to *finish* the book.
I am guilty of reading more than one novel at a time, usually picking things that are pretty different from each other. I have to confess that it took me months to finish Blood Meridian. (And Philip Roth once said something like, “If it takes you more than a couple weeks to finish a novel, you aren’t really reading it..” A statement that kind of smacks of boomer privilege, we don’t all have the leisure time we would like to devote to literature — but I also see what he’s saying. A book like Blood Meridian benefits from immersion and surrendering yourself to its unique spell. I plan to reread it… someday but definitely not this year and probably only after I’ve digested a handful of his other books.
Damn, it’s a masterpiece. Has anyone figured out what the Judge does to the Kid at the end? It’s like the Judge has to do away with any innocence left in the world.