Rating: 
Summary: Great writing prevails.
Review: I will start briefly by treating the two most common criticisms of this book: 1) Excessive violence, and 2) Excessive "verbiage" for lack of a better word. First, the book does have enormous violence within...if you can't get over that, you're not going to like it, but you'll never be able to read Dante's Inferno either so I feel sorry for you. Its just words on a page, people. Second, what can you say about the "wordy" argument (more specifically, too many archaic or unusual words); it reminds me of a scene in Amadeus where someone criticizes Mozart as having written "too many notes." Modern life tends to want to streamline and compress everything down to "the essentials," but this is literature, not a tech. manual, and if you think that's a legitimate criticism, you need to go watch TV and forget reading.Blood Meridian has the trappings of the western genre, but certainly has little in common with your typical western a la Louis L'Amour. It is to a western what Moby Dick is to a sea-adventure story. The challenge of the book is trying to understand the philosophy behind it. Many will find it nihilistic; while I can't rule out that possibility, I suspect that there is a very subtle philosophy driving it. Gnosticism is one candidate, as one analyist of this book has pointed out. The book's bizarre and beautiful epilogue may indicate this, with the solitary traveler "striking the fire out of the earth that God put there" while the bulk of humanity lurches confused behind him. Another is "historicism" by which I mean that McCarthy is simply trying to point out certain very deep and signicant facts about human beings that will forever be beyond reform. McCarthy seems to lead the reader in this direction, with one of the prologues pointing out that evidence has been found of scalping tens of thousands of years ago, as well as the historical veracity of the book, based mostly on true events. In the end, it is the character of the Judge that sets the book apart. He is War Incarnate, a caricature of human rationality without any real feeling, capable of acts of tenderness and great intellect while at the same time capable of producing enormous brutality, murder and depravity. He is a holy man of sorts, with war as his religion. ("If war isn't holy, man is nothing but antic clay.") There was a real-life Judge Holden who shared many characteristics with the literary one, but this Holden exists mainly on a metaphysical level. He attempts to categorize and systematize everything around him so he may then "erase it from the memory of man." He speaks all languages, is an expert in many scientific fields, is a convincing naturalist ("...books lie, but God can be found...in rocks and plants...in the bones of things.") The Kid, the "lens" of the story, becomes a sort-of hero by staying outside the Judge's reach through his ambivalence, something that the Judge (and no philosophy, religion, political system) can survive against. So the Judge, after a lifetime of trying to convert him, simply snuffs him out in the outhouse at the end of the book. Violence is a part of us, and the modern world's attempt at erasing it will fail. The Judge will live forever, unfortunately, because we can only be what we are, flawed creatures born out of a flawed earth. At best, we can be like the man in the epilogue, doing our best to "strike the fire out of the earth" that God placed there, forever searching for strands of goodness while having to cope with our flawed nature. Poets and writers the calibre of McCarthy are out front, showing us glimpses of truth if only we'll listen.
Rating:
Summary: The Sanctity of Blood
Review: I've read all of Cormac McCarthy's earlier books set in Tennessee, such as "The Orchard Keeper" and "The Outer Dark" and I've read his "Border Trilogy" which contained the wonderful, "All the Pretty Horses." Nothing, however, that this wonderful author has written can prepare the reader for the sheer brutality and the sheer lyricism of "Blood Meridian." The Old West portrayed in "Blood Meridian" is not the Old West of Zane Grey or even of Larry McMurtry. Images of the most horrific abound in "Blood Meridian," (charred human bones, blood-soaked scalps, a tree hung with the bodies of dead infants), all rendered in McCarthy's gorgeously lyrical writing. As far as I'm concerned, "Blood Meridian" is McCarthy's best book, by far. It doesn't have the "feel good" qualities sometimes found in "All the Pretty Horses" but I didn't expect it to. "Blood Meridian" is the book in which McCarthy makes crystal clear the one theme that runs through all of his writing: the undeniable presence of evil in the world. The fact that he writes about this evil in language so lyrical and so elaborately beautiful only intensifies the horror of it all. We feel as though we have left the real world behind and entered into some surreal place from which no escape is possible. "Blood Meridian," which takes place in 1847, is loosely based on actual events and is the story of a fourteen boy, known only as "the Kid." Drifting through the American Southwest, the Kid joins a disparate and bloodthirsty band of Indian-hunters-for-hire led by a mysterious and learned man called, Judge Holden. It is after the Kid joins Judge Holden and his band that McCarthy really hits his stride. Juxtaposed next to descriptions of the most horrific and grotesque are images of the most sublime beauty. Consider this description of a group of Indians, "...wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery...one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a blood stained weddingveil." That's prose most authors would kill for. McCarthy, unlike most writers who portray horror, concentrates not on the horrific images themselves, but on his characters' reactions to them. I'm not at all surprised at this, for McCarthy is not a horror writer; he is a writer of literature of the very highest order. Although many people would have expected McCarthy to keep his emphasis on the Kid, he chooses to concentrate on the character of Judge Holden instead. Anyone who has read this book knows it was a good choice for the Judge is the dominant personality in "Blood Meridian" and all the other characters in this book are defined only in relation to the Judge. It is also the Judge who exemplifies McCarthy's major themes and it is he (the Judge) who becomes a metaphorical and spiritual father to all of McCarthy's later characters. This is not a typical "Western novel," not even a very, very good "Western novel." In this book, the line between the victims the perpetrators of evil is subtlely drawn...if it is drawn at all. McCarthy seems to be telling us that all men are villains, all men are perpetrators, all men are bloodthirsty...if only the reward is high enough. And for some, evil, itself is its own reward. I am giving nothing away by saying that the ending of this book is a sophisticated and stylistic masterpiece involving both the Judge and the Kid. The last image we have of the Judge is one that epitomizes the sheer lunacy of the man. In a saloon where a trained bear dances on the stage, we see the Judge, "...naked, dancing...He says that he will never die." In a beautiful and enigmatic epilogue, however, McCarthy skillfully denies the Judge the last word in the novel. This is a sophisticated and complex book, far more complex that it would appear on the surface or even after one reading. It is filled with the Faulknerian prose that has become a McCarthy trademark (though McCarthy employed it less in "The Border Trilogy"). These convoluted sentences, (in my opinion, far better than anything Faulkner ever wrote), can be difficult, since they contain within them the seed of all of McCarthy's writing. This brilliant novel is more than just a book; it is an experience. It is an experience of horror, of beauty, of the insanity of man. Set in a time when man attempted to sanctify himself in the blood of other men, this is, without a doubt the rawest exposition of horror I have ever read, yet, at the same time, it is probably the most beautiful book I have ever read as well. It is something that simply defies description. Read it for yourself and see.
Rating: 
Summary: Shocking and eloquent
Review: Some excellent reviews have already been written here on Amazon, so I will make mine brief. "Blood Meridian" is not an easy read in any sense: scenes of shocking brutality are interspersed with weighty philosophical ponderings and unbeatable scenery-setting. McCarthy is, for my money, one of the very best American writers ever and there is no better showcase than "Blood Meridian." How an author can maintain such unblemished perfection for over three-hundred pages is a mystery. The problem, however, is that three-hundred pages is a little too much of a good thing--the plot (what little there is) is simply too thin to sustain even such exceptional writing. Massacre after massacre, drunken binge after drunken binge -- at times, everything seems to blend together. Violence is violence is violence and while some scenes are more horrific than others, McCarthy's commentary regarding the heinous acts men are capable of committing is made early on. Still, the unforgettable, tightly-written ending is ample payoff. Whatever else may be said for the novel, it will certainly make one look at the world in a different light.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth the necessary effort!
Review: wow. I read this book over a year ago and still get a shudder and a particular feeling down my spine when I think about it. McCarthy is a magnificent writer--but expect to be confused sometimes. I'm still not quite certain about one of the characters (the Judge), and I'm a little confused about some of what happened. McCarthy has such a unique voice, and you shouldn't miss hearing it. Be patient, allow yourself to be immersed in the story and the writing. Be prepared to read incredibly beautiful passages, and incredibly horrifying ones, as well. I've read all his books and loved them (with one exception), but this one is my absolute favorite. Telling you about it makes me want to go read it again--I think I will...
Rating:
Summary: Not a cliche anywhere.
Review: Feeling like a challenging and mind boggling novel - or an Odyssey is more like it? Try Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN -- Or the Evening Redness in the West. Finished it yesterday a in shutter. Nothing like it. Deliberately archaic language, among other conceits. Gigantic myths come to life. One protagonist, perhaps the God of War, certainly a "warlord," named Judge Holden, seems singular in American literature - our Iago, and kin to Milton's Satan: you cannot resist him. He is immortal.
Harold Bloom says this book is the heir (and fulfills the promise to American Literature) of Melville and Faulkner and Lowry.
It is also feels like King Lear & Dante and many other unforgettable works.
It seems to me, moreover, especially IMPORTANT now (written in 1985) because the setting is a parched desert & mountain land of chaos, starvation, ignorance, anarchy, tribal & racial hatred, and literally unspeakable & unholy violence - exactly like Afghanistan today, but this is America on the Texas-Mexico border in 1850, and based on facts & real characters: a gang run amuck. But this ain't no "western," pardner!
Finally, as a "visual performance" the book's imagery is among the most vivid I can recall, and certainly the most economical: as in the sharpest poetry. Not a cliche anywhere.
A book so terrific, and so apocalyptic, it may make much other fiction one reads seem like pulp junk for some time to come. The risk of exposure to the best!
Rating:
Summary: Journey to the Heart of Darkness or Apocalypse Then
Review: Cormac McCarthy skillfully uses the power of word to weave an intricate and terrifying piece of poetry called Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West. The title provides telling clues to the subject of the book, which is based on a true story of the Glanton Gang. It is a bloody epoch of horror associated with the trials and tribulations of the Glanton Gang who rode south of the border to peddle scalps for profit and glory. A nameless orphan or the Kid as he is known throughout Blood Meridian is released from a Mexican jail only to find himself a member of a gang hunting Apaches for bounty. There is no glory to be found in his travels with the gang. One bloody mishap layers upon another, each told with McCarthy's unfailing lyricism, until the reader slowly realizes there is no escape from this heart of darkness. The kid may well have fared better in the Mexican jail. The glorified myth of the manifest destiny of the nation is skillfully torn asunder by McCarthy. There is no immaculate history. By the vision of the Blood Meridian it was a gang of social lepers doing their best to earn a little gold and silver without once considering morality or the value of life. Words of warning are necessary for those considering reading this book. It is not for the soft hearted or those with weak stomachs. An example of a scene typical of the book, after purchasing two puppies from a child one member of the gang casually tosses them from a bridge into the stream below while another shoots them. Truthfully despite the McCarthy's beautiful and lyrical writing and the scope and magnitude of story, I considered carefully if it deserved the five stars, because of the extreme violence of the book. How does one tell a story of violence without including it?
Rating:
Summary: There (to Hell), and back again?
Review: A friend of mine who was getting his degree in literature a few years back kept rcommending this book that he had read in class, but I repeatedly disregarded his recommendation because of my aversion to stories about the "Wild West". Finally, he brought the book over, and when I saw that it wasn't a spaghetti western, I reconsidered, and was forever changed. I must say that I have never encountered a story that has impacted me (both good and bad) in such a profound way. Some of the scenes and events painted with such color and imagery are way off the scale, and will shock even the most seasoned horror fiction fans - the scariest thing of all is it is based on a real events. Extremely dark. Cormack McCarthy's writing style (in this book only) is a little hard to get use to (very little punctuation, for example) but the descriptions paint vivid, brutal, powerful images that might haunt you for a lifetime. The characters, the lonely, desolate scenery, the amazingly chaotic adventures, the hideous cruelty, murder, and destruction left me very disturbed, yet I never wanted the book to end! After I finished, I read all of his other books and loved them all (especially "Outer Dark", "Child of God", and "The Orchard Keeper", all of which are wonderful, if not demented, stories that capture the the darker side of the imagination and leave you stranded in desolate, yet strangely beautiful corners of the mind. Cormac McCarthy is an amazing and gifted talent, although not for the squeamish! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Rating:
Summary: A great take on a land less traveled
Review: This was a great romp through the old west in a way you wouldn't think. The old west wasn't Bonanza according to 'Blood Meridian'. McCarthy's writing style can be tiresome at times (just who does he think he is anyway, Faulkner?) but the characters are well developed and the setting is fantastic - and I HATE western stories and movies. This is a must read, even if the rumor is true that McCarthy didn't do an iota of research into seeing if his vision of the old west was really true.
Rating:
Summary: Greatest Story
Review: I have never written a review in my life but I have to say this is, without a doubt, the greatest book I have ever read. That's it.
Rating:
Summary: An American Classic
Review: I recently saw Harold Bloom, the famous literary scholar from Yale, on a television show where he stated that Blood Meridian was the greatest work of any contemporary American author. I agree. I can't think of anything I've read that even comes close to this novel. First, you have the prose style, which is so controlled and crafted and at the same time flows so naturally that it must have taken years to develop. It reminded me of a missing book from the bible: hypnotic, enigmatic, ancient and at the same time, familiar. I kept thinking of the ocean when I was reading it because of the vastness of the landscape he describes. It seems as if the characters are on a journey, but they're not, unless they're circling further and further down into hell. I think the familiarity of the novel comes from it's relation to violence from a Christian standpoint. There's no doubt that McCarthy intends to have us react to this book from a moral perspective and yet at the same time be fascinated with it's violence. The setting, the wild wicked west, is a part of the American psyche that still takes forms today in our action films and tv shows that feed our hunger for blood and murder. By taking us back to our roots, stripping away the restraints of our Judeo-Christian values, MCCarthy steeps the story of death and evil in biblical prose and washes it with blood so that we see our dark selves reflected in all our ugliness. I compare this work to the works of the great Russian novelists ,Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, who always went for the big questions, What is life?, Who is God?, What is morality? and the American Moby Dick which encapsulated a universe. When you read books like these a lot of what appears on the bestseller lists seems so meaningless. This is a book you simply stand in awe of if you're a writer or ever thought of being one.
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