I'm something of an aspiring writer, and I felt it my obligation to read some of the classics as it were, and Blood Meridian was on my to-read list and I devoured it in sporadic moments over the course of a week every night before bed.
Objectively I can say that MacCarthy was and still is a genius in the craft, and I understand why it is a difficult read for some people. But this post isn't about his prose style, more about the character of the Judge, the moral of the story, and how it affected me last night.
I dreamed last night I was at the lake house, or the best dreamlike approximation of it, that my family would go to every year as a kid. And in the dream suddenly gunshots rang out and I saw the Judge, and he looked just like the most famous artist painting of him, wielding his Colt revolvers and chasing me, shooting at me and laughing at me. I saw him sporadically in the dream, but every time I saw him I knew he just shot someone I cared about. I woke up feeling this sense of just utter dread, like a demon infiltrated my mind. I didn't wake in a cold sweat, but in a way that was like I had just been warned. I'm not bullshitting this happened and I decided to post here for the first time to see if anyone else had such a visceral reaction.
I have no doubt in my mind now that the Judge is ultimately the main character of Blood Meridian, he's the most successful character in the story, and not just because he's supposedly the Devil, or a Gnostic allusion, but because he's right ultimately; in a nihilistic world if you cast aside all your morals, you will be the terror in the night to men that see the world in a lighter, even perhaps more naive, view.
10/10 book, common McCarthy W.
by zackgardner