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Blood Meridian : Or the Evening Redness in the West

Blood Meridian : Or the Evening Redness in the West

List Price: $14.00
Your Price: $10.50
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: "Cormac McCarthy...
Review: The Undisputed King of Literary Mule Carnage." - Harper

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: bloody good
Review: The prose is vivid, the characters chillingly alive, the themes provocative. The extreme violence has a purpose: McCarthy wants to show that bloodthirst is a part of being human, that violence speaks to our innermost hearts. Reading this book changed the way I think about how people act and the way history happened. A gorgeous and wonderful book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Describes the eternal darkness of the human heart
Review: The opening line goes with other great ones, e.g. Moby Dick. I read this first and then went back and read his earlier stuff and then came back to the trilogy. In my opinion he goes through some kind of hell in the Southeast to move to El Paso where he sees life in the most interesting way, that somehow dries up and vindicates his gothic soul to write this book that reminds us of primevil existence. Somehow in this hell he develops the trilogy. I've only read All the Pretty Horses and part of The Crossing, but it seems it all got started w/ BM which was some kind of incredible acknowledgement and embracing of the dark side of human nature. Thanks.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: one decent page out of every ten
Review: What a miserable book! A friend recommended I read it and I've come to the conclusion we have very similar tastes in literature. When I read a book I don't want to have to sit there and try to decipher the language - I want to enjoy myself. This book did everything but that - all it really did was annoy the hell out of me. I will admit McCarthy does do a good job of making you feel like you're out in the cruel Mexican desert, but the flat characters and lame ending made me think it was a waste of my money.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The real deal
Review: Think literature's dead? Nah, not with a book like this. Many previous reviewers have likened the Judge to Ahab, and I agree. He also compares to some of Shakespeare's greatest characters, specifically, Iago and King Lear.

Side note re this book versus the Border Trilogy: Those books are novels. This book is not so much a novel as a parable, albeit a parable with no moral.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Very dark, extremely cruel, tiresomely so.
Review: I much enjoyed "All the Pretty Horses" and "The Crossing" and in those there was the hint of the violence that is the centerpiece, the driving energy, in "Blood Meridian". The violence in the former two novels was, however, artfully forged. In the later the violence is wanton, crude, cruel and of mythical proportions. But maybe that was Mr. McCarthy's intent. Nonetheless the violence is overdone. Beyond the violence, and again this was seen in the other McCarthy works cited above though more artfully done, one gets tired of the endless parade of similes. In fact the similes become so tedious (though beautifully descriptive)they are predictable -- which isn't saying too much as the similes appear in every other paragraph. I don't know what role an editor plays in editing the work of an established author but "Blood Meridian" could have used a bit. As a positive Mr. McCarthy does have a well developed, poetic style of describing 'the country' that is, in my opinion, unsurpassed. If he would just tone down the over use of similes.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A drop of blood reflects the stars
Review: Between the event and the expression, an energy exists too powerful to be harnessed entirely, leaving expression emaciated. But this gap serves as the very setting of this novel of Blakean intensity. McCarthy reveals the true proportions of this ostensibly minute gap-- the proportions of epic.Roaming this infinite (and thereby surreal) terrain, is one of the most memorable characters in the history of literature -- the Judge. To pass over this book is to pass over one of the few truy mythic figures of our time. This book must be read.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: blood meridian and red death
Review: McCarthy's prose traverses the edge of an alien and cruel frontier. It is populated by beings who are beasts in the image of men, traveling lands of baked dust, bleached bones and remorseless homicidal lust. It is a surreal dream scape, iridescent and nightmarishly beautiful, that might have been wrought on a planet without the verdancy and development of our own-- where the arid and primitive panorama reflects the condition of the soul. Blood here is avatar and seal. But we know this is our planet and this is our history.

The language, imagery and nihilistic architecture of Blood Meridian evoke Conrad and Camus. --But--. Is there the same level of allegory and metaphor in this book? Compare it to Camus's survival in a plague-ridden city, Conrad's mission to the dark heart of Kurtz's jungle, Melville's search for the nemesis of Ahab. All of these books are of profound manifestations of spiritual affliction and internal conflict. All richly evoke the ambiguity and contrast of moral dilemma and hubris. I'm not sure the same compass and standard exist here. There is a brilliant exposition of landscape and conflict, objectively presented-- but I remain unmoved by the blind bloodshed, overwhelmed and uninvolved. The characters are specters of banal and simple violence. This could be a book which will live well past our age. It might be a book of our age. It is certainly a book worth reading for its stunning and original use of language and imagery-- but its company with the classics of modern literature might also have been prematurely bestowed.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An Violent Allegory for the Birth of the Modern World
Review: Much is made about the violence of this book, and with good reason. McCarthy draws an allegory to the birth of modern America (and, by extension, the modern world). And births are violent business. The grotesque savagery of this book is often too much to bear, but it is rarely sensational or unnecessary.

McCarthy's writing is the real star, though. He uses a neo-biblical style that never descends into pretention or foolishness. It captures the apocalyptic happenings perfectly.

And then there is the Judge. A cinematic Ahab, he is the black heart of the Enlightenment unleashed. He is unforgettable. Overall, a great achievement and a great book, for the right person.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Oh, really?
Review: I read the Border Trilogy. I absolutely adored All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing was damned good, Cities of the Plain, so-so. McCarthy's an utterly superb writer, no doubt whatsoever. Hey, in my view, the best. But this one, I don't get. The violence bothered me not at all, but the dragging pace was deadly. Perhaps it all becomes worthwhile after the first hundred pages; I never found out. (But then again, I question the sincerity of those who proclaim their undying love of Melville. It reminds me of a survey I read recently of celebrities' favorite novels, which was larded with lots of "War and Peace," "Finnegan's Wake," "Moby Dick," and, of course, the Bible.)


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