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Summary: An American Masterpiece
Review: If the phrase "ring of truth" has any meaning, then it must be applied to this book. None of us alive today remember the 1840s and 1850s, nor are there any journals extant that can give us day to day details of life in the American West during that era. McCarthy manages to put us there in this astonishing book. Although I am well aware that this book was first published in 1985, I felt during the course of reading this book that I was reading the firsthand account of someone who was there. The dialogue, the descriptions, the accounts of the action, all read like a recently discovered journal of a reporter who was there. Then I step back and remind myself that this is work of fiction, the creation of a contemporary American novelist.It is possibly the most brutally violent novel I have ever read. In a lifetime of reading, I can't recall ever experiencing any literary work in which the brutality is so relentless. It is every bit as violent, and as stark, as King Lear. This book demythologizes the American West. It is the antidote to Zane Grey and Louis Lamour. It has several antecedents; two that come to mind right away are Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn"--a much darker book than often recognized--and John Ford's film "The Searchers." Others often mentioned are the "Southern" writers, especially Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, and Tennessee Williams. None of that does this book justice, however, for, despite his influences, McCarthy is an original. This is a terrifying book that scared the hell out of me. There are no likeable characters--none. The "kid"--that is all he is ever called, until the very end, when he is called "the man"--can elicit some sympathy because of his history of abandonment and abuse, but at the core he is a mean little bastard. I would not want to run into any of these characters under any circumstances. But the most terrifying character, and McCarthy's most memorable and astonishing literary creation, is Judge Holden. Judge Holden deserves special mention. I don't believe that such a character ever existed, or ever could exist. He is an archetype, the archetype of pure evil. In less skilled hands he could be dismissed as an incarnation of the devil, or of an evil god, like Moloch. Here he appears as a preternaturally gifted archetype of evil. Yet, like all genuine archetypes, he has that "ring of truth." I am not crazy about McCarthy's literary style, which at times approaches pretentiousness, but at others, and especially near the end, has a power rarely matched except by the greatest novelists. The book's ending must rank as one of the most shattering in American literature. This book is transformative. If you read it, it won't leave you. It will haunt you. You will never look at American history, or the west, or at certain aspects of life, the same way again.
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Summary: The "real" west ?
Review: No one really knows what the west was like...
but this really looks like the best description of those rugged times: the prose is great, too.
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Summary: The child the father of the man.
Review: A book that plunges you into a world horrific to the core. But echos of truth permeate the bloody landscape. There are images that stay with you forever - the killing of the puppies, the Judge bathing in the town bath, (of course) the Comanche attack, the removal of the arrow. Many more. A pessimistic view of human nature, or the "human condition", but not necessarily an inaccurate one. Who knows what dwells in the soul of man? The first sentence, "See the child." should rank with the first in Moby Dick as one of the best remembered in literature. Is what we see in the child in the pages that follow a valid reflection of human nature? Could a band of such revolting criminals have ever roamed the face of the earth? Is violence/evil within us, part of our nature? McCarthy studies the young boy and says of him - "All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man."
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Summary: I can't get it out of my head
Review: I was really awed by McCarthy's descriptive style when I read Blood Meridian. But I remained unconvinced of the claims to greatness I had heard from so many others. Too often, I thought, these characters are just trudging across the Southwestern desert; no matter how beautifully one describes that desert, it starts to get old. But a week after reading this book, I still found myself thinking about the judge. The judge is one of those characters and/or ideas that you come across in a book that you just can't stop thinking about. His thoughts on the truth, and the savagery that those thoughts engender, are unforgettable now; they're burned into my thoughts. I'm not willing to go out on a limb, as Harold Bloom does in the Introducation, and put Blood Meridian up there with the very best of Faulkner and Melville, but it is certainly well worth reading two or three times.
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Summary: A Dead-on Stare into the Heart of Evil
Review: Unless you are a particularly squeamish reader, do not be deterred by the truly horrible violence in this masterpiece of American letters. 'Blood Meridian' is must-reading for anyone interested in tracking down the best writing in these days of literary famine. This brave and ambitious novel stares evil itself dead in the face and does not look away. Cormac McCarthy has staked his claim as a legitimate heir to masters such as Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, the former of whose work he has often been criticized of imitating. Yet even a novice Faulkner reader such as myself can discern that his novels had neither the scope or the brutality of McCarthy's work. As for building his style upon a Faulknerian foundation, McCarthy himself has unashamedly observed that the ugly fact is that books are built out of books. He is right, of course. It is the deep moral theme of this western novel that distinguishes 'Blood Meridian'. In his examination of the plauge of violence which characterized America's western expansion, McCarthy marries historical events with majestic prose poetry to create an apocalyptic epic with terror and beauty. The novel becomes nothing short of a treatise on the nature of evil. In the character of the Judge, McCarthy has created one of the most chilling and unforgettable figures in the history of literature. As he rides undaunted through the barren landscapes, he is by turns erudite and vicious, lyrical and downright mean. The final scene in which he confronts the Kid and the immediate aftermath of this meeting is probably the most profoundly terrifying and riveting conclusion I have ever come across in a novel. It's not light-hearted, it's not fun, but 'Blood Meridian' is an awesome display of creative writing at its most potent and its most sublime.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful
Review: Depressing, depressing and then there was a bit that was depressing. But damn it is good writing and storytelling.
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Summary: Either they're chasing the Indians, or the Indians...
Review: Other reviews "analyze" this book in terms of Manifest Destiny, etc... but what's the point? Obviously McCarthy came across Samuel Chamberlain's "Confessions", and decided to expand part of it into a novel. The prose style - not for everyone. The story itself - unforgettable.
To the extent that Westerns concern themselves with the Nature of Man, McCarthy's conclusions aren't particularly optimistic. On the other hand, if "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" worked for you, give this book a try. In McCarthy's nightmare world, redemption is gained not just through violence, but through survival. "Blood Meridian" is like a hallucination - after it's over, you doubt yourself... A one-of-a-kind novel.
Rating: 
Summary: technically brilliant but...
Review: This is the first McCarthy novel I read, and, on completion, I found myself both impressed and disgusted. As a crafter of English prose, McCarthy is stunning; the imagery, the dialogue and the symbolism are dazzlingly effective. I was irresistably reminded of Melville at his best...and yet.. There is a moral vacuum at the heart of this novel, which excludes it from greatness. We know that man can be vile, but vileness isn't everything. The characters commit acts of unspeakable cruelty without the least sense of conscience or remorse: none of them care about the murdered children, which makes it impossible to care about any of them. If it is a study of how human beings become less than human, we need to see the original humanity. The judge may keep us awake at night, but ultimately, he is a cartoon figure, a Freddie Krueger for post-grads (and heavily "influenced" by Jodorovsky). He's certainly no Ahab. McCarthy is a powerful, talented and disturbing writer but if you want a mythic western, with moral and symbolic depth I suggest you look to John Ford.
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Summary: Tell It to the Judge
Review: I picked up a copy of Blood Meridian on a whim and sat down in the bookstore to read a few pages. From the first appearance of Judge Holden I was hooked. There are images in this book that will stay with you for the rest of your life. McCarthy has used the American West as a launching pad into the mythopoetic, archetypal realm. While based loosely on real events, the book takes place in that dream space that is always present between history and the present; a space of which the exploration goes back at least to the epic of Gilgamesh. Out of this realm, emerges Judge Holden, the living, breathing embodiment of our Nietzschean/Darwinian naturalism. This book is a must read if you are interested in Western literature at all.
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Summary: Blood Meridian -- Exquisite and Horrific
Review: Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is both exquisite and horrific. Though not for the weak-minded or faint-hearted, this book is pure poetry. McCarthy's writing style is unmatched, flowing seamlessly from Faulknerian sparsity to intricately detailed descriptions reminiscent of Hemingway. Set in a literal blood meridian, the plot focuses on a young man's journey through a metaphorical blood meridian from childhood to adulthood. The real story, however, is the development of the ambiguous Judge. Is he God? Is he Satan? Is he simply Other? It doesn't matter -- at over 300 pages, Blood Meridian seems over too quickly.
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