Rating: 
Summary: The Levels to Blood Meridian
Review: In this novel, Cormac McCarthy takes a definite stand on some pretty abstract thinking. McCarthy chose to set Blood Meridian at the time of the Mexican-American war. It's not a time that the vast majority of Americans are taught about, so the plot line is at least interesting to history buffs. While I appreciate not being spoon-fed the actual events in history (thus negating a possible bias of the author against any group of people), my lack of knowledge of that particular time period made following the trail of Glanton's gang back and forth very difficult. McCarthy makes other choices in his presentation of dialogue that made me lose some of the grasp of the work as a whole. For example, he throws in some Spanish here and there, some French, and a little German. Again, I appreciate how much closer to reality those bits of other languages bring Blood Meridian, but it was frustrating on the very basic level of simply not knowing those languages. In a nutshell, this book can be frustrating and hard to get through for readers who don't have as wide a knowledge base as McCarthy evidently had when he was writing it. McCarthy does a good job with making sure the reader stays focused on the thematic elements. The main character is never given a name, and there are a number of levels to each thematic element. It is very clear that McCarthy had a vision for this book - every detail is included for a reason. I don't think there is a portion of the book that doesn't hold up to that under intense scrutinization. However, it is incredibly easy to get caught up in the lyrical prose of the narration and stare at the same page for the next ten minutes. Not that that's a bad thing. Unfortunately for those weak of stomach, a lot of this same lyrical prose is written about slaughtering and scalping, generally lots of blood (go figure). Such beautiful language amidst such tragic acts can be more than a little unnerving at times. That works for rather than against the reality Blood Meridian is presenting, which is very harsh and unkind. I have heard a lot of people getting anxious over the kinds of moral judgments - or rather, the lack of them - they perceived McCarthy placing on his characters. I prefer this kind of story, though: the author is well enough aware of the kind of world he is placing his characters in, and he is letting them act out what happened. He doesn't judge his characters, and he doesn't give them any easy ways out. If you're looking for Good versus Evil, you'll find it here (well, at least the evil). But there are so many more shades of gray that are present, it just makes the characters that much more realistic. If what you're looking for is food for thought, this is one of the best contemporary American novels to give it to you. It might take a while to get used to the lack of quotation marks, but don't let it stop you. Blood Meridian is definitely worth your time.
Rating:
Summary: Challenging and Beautiful
Review: Without being forced to read this McCarthy work for a Literature class, I probably never would have. I've never been a fan of the classic American 'Western,' whether it be the print or film variety, and McCarthy's tale of America's Manifest Destiny push into the Mexican north in the 1850's would have definitely stayed on the shelf. This work was one of the most challenging tales I have ever read, yet the critical reader is rewarded for his/her efforts with a beautiful, gripping, packed tale that is worthy of praise the likes of Moby Dick and The Odyssey. McCarthy's tale follows the exploits of the orphaned Kid in something of his own Odyssey towards manhood through experience. The reader witnesses firsthand the violent, savage nature that ruled the Old West and McCarthy has no problem in presenting these scenarios in graphic, unforgiving detail. Initially I thought the violence was terribly interesting; this fresh presentation of such revolting gore was striking and unlike anything else I have read, but the violence would not end. This simple fact helped me to realize McCarthy's dark, realistic view of the world that is not all fair and just, or even happy. The author's other chief character, the Judge, a seven-foot tall hairless albino further exemplifies the juxtaposition of good and evil in the world around us. The Judge values life so that he might control it, he is gentle and caring yet vicious and violent at the same time. He leads the Kid's group into the desert as a Christ-like figure yet succumbs to relentless temptations of the devil as well. Though the Kid is our focus, McCarthy's inclusion of numerous dynamic personalities within the group makes it easy to invest our attention with these characters as well, creating more outlets for the reader to draw from and relate to. As the reader develops a bond or interest in the Kid, so does he/she develop an interest in these other characters and their stories and adventures, thus there is nary a lulling moment in the text as the action and development are far too compelling. Immediately I noticed how well McCarthy's prose style lent itself to the telling of the tale. His rustic exposition melds perfectly with the desolate landscapes that he paints for both the reader and his characters. It's very easy to get lost in the author's dynamic world, which makes it even more challenging to catch the thematic details that are woven into every word, details that McCarthy selects with the purposefulness of a poet. Yet when read aloud his lines read like crafted poetry as well, wonderful rhythmic verses that pull the reader further into the world of the Kid and Judge Holden. McCarthy's dense, loaded style can be a chore for the lazy reader, but the diligent eye will be delighted by the author's challenge, and rewarded, though thoroughly beaten, by the book's end. This book is beautiful in its writing, composition, and themes, yet it's challenging in these three aspects as well. The realism evident in McCarthy's work is striking, but definitely appreciated and refreshing in a world of muddled happy endings. Don't be scared off by the genre or challenging prose. Step up to the challenge and grab this book from the shelf-don't make the mistake I almost did; you'll be missing one of the more powerful works you have ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: Thought parallel
Review: McCarthy's yarn will not make you yawn! A revolving cluster of archaic verbs and arcane nouns blast the reader like bullets from a Gatling gun. Much of his language trundles the reader across the dead and blood-soaked terrain of the American Southwest, during the time when a benighted intolerance of people black and red went unchallenged. The Kid, who begins the tale, winds his way through one grotesque scene after another. Almost the entire story is shown through his eyes. Rarely does the narrative "tell" you what's transpiring before the protagonist, rather each sentence "shows" you the carnage in all its meticulous detail. The reader, who winces from the onslaught of grotesqueries, struggles for some form of judgment, mostly condemnatory, to right his/her own understanding of the horror. McCarthy holds no judgments. In many respects, Blood Meridian, albeit a well-crafted simulation of a 19th-century novel vis-à-vis Moby-Dick, stands as a totemic testament of the inhumanity the 20th century harvested.
Rating:
Summary: Unrelenting journey into the darker side of man
Review: BLOOD MERIDIAN is the story of "The Kid", born in Tennessee in 1833, who decamps from the home of his drunken widower father and heads south. Illiterate and, at 14, already containing within him a taste for mindless violence,The Kid begins a journey reminiscent of Dante's descent into hell. This journey begins with a flatboat ride on the Mississippi -shades of Huck Finn - shades of the Styx river where Phlegyas ferries souls into a swamp and forces them overboard into the fifth circle of hell of the WRATHFUL. On the flatboat The Kid is shot in the back and the front and survives. His journey takes him to New Orleans, Texas and Mexico. He is a soldier, then a bountyhunting marauder led by one Glanton. Wolves, dogs, bats inhabit the McCarthy landscape but the greatest horror of all, is man. There seems no limit to the savagery men are capable of and there are many scenes to attest to that: " The way narrowed through rocks and by and by they came to a bush that was hung with dead babies. They stopped side by side, reeling in the heat. These small victims, seven, eight of them, had holes punched in their underjaws and were hung so by their throats from the broken stubs of a mesquite to stare eyeless at the naked sky." (p57) The shock of this is helped by the contrast of the innocuous "by and by" with "dead babies". One has to read it over because it seems unbelievable. One major theme of BLOOD MERIDIAN may be that "moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favour of the weak" (p250) and that man's purpose on earth is eventually to have domain over every living thing on it - man as wrathful destroyer. Towering over the novel is the figure of "the judge" - God or Devil - who in the end is still towering over all, who is dancing, dancing, and who says he will never die. A Western, and not a horror story, but a Western like none I have ever read. BLOOD MERIDIAN is filled with powerful and vivid images -" far to the south beyond the black volcanic hills lay a lone albino ridge, sand or gypsum, like the black of some pale seabeast surfaced among the dark archipelego" (p259) Because of this, it may be helpful to describe its "mis en scene" with reference to the cinema. An iconic Western film that represents a mythical West is SHANE with its noble hero, simple but decent homesteaders and postcard setting. UNFORGIVEN by Clint Eastwood is an alternative and revisionist view of that West where savagery and cruelty and stupidity prevail among the people. EL TOPO adds to the savagery with surreal Biblical references. BLOOD MERIDIAN reminds one in part of EL TOPO out of UNFORGIVEN except that its savagery and power goes way beyond either. We are in the realm of imaginative literature of a high order. McCarthy's style is self consciously literary from the opening words " See the child." The Biblical poetic style is reinforced with an ironic reference on the opening page to the philosophy of poet William Wordsworth - the child is father of the man - where in Wordsworth the "natural" man was innocent and pure uncorrupted by urban development in the form of the Industrial Revolution. McCarthy turns this on its head where the "natural child" who could not read or write was like a savage beast. McCarthy's point might be that man NEEDS education, urban life, what we call "civilisation" to become truly human. What then are McCarthy's progenitors? The Bible. Swift. Dante. Neither uplifting nor enlightening, BLOOD MERIDIAN is an unrelenting descent into the darkest side of man. A fitting work to find its place in the 20th century, the century which gave full rein to the destructive possibilities of humans.
Rating:
Summary: Will Someone Please Explain the Epilogue?
Review: I loved this book but lost it at the epilogue, with the man drilling holes in the earth. Meaning, anyone?
Rating:
Summary: McCarthy's Best, Whatever That's Worth
Review: Reading through reviews of Blood Meridian, it seems apparent that McCarthy is one of those novelists that elicits strong opinions. Those that love McCarthy compare this work to the best of Melville and Faulkner, which is excessive, while those that revile him label him a hack who masks his lack of talent with violence and machismo, which is excessive as well. Prior to reading Blood Meridian, I would have fallen into the latter group, but the book has changed my mind on McCarthy, at least in part. I first picked up McCarthy in 1992, when someone gave me All the Pretty Horses, a book that I consider highly undeserving of the National Book Award. Thinking that perhaps I simply missed something, I read The Crossing, which reaffirmed my dislike for McCarthy. I then read an article by the critic Harold Bloom, which called Blood Meridian the greatest American novel by an author still living, and I decided to give McCarthy one last chance. Suffice it to say that I finally understand the hype surrounding McCarthy. Blood Meridian is not an easy read, owing to its language, but once the reader gets past that, it develops a good rhythm. The characters of The Kid and the Judge are almost mythical, and have to be experienced, and the violent setting of the novel is outstandingly presented. While the novel is not without its flaws, (a few events are repetitive and McCarthy supplies some unintentionally laughable moments when, unable to control himself, he becomes overly poetic) Blood Meridian is an epic, ambitious work that hits more than it misses. There are few good westerns being written today, and even fewer with literary merit, but Blood Meridian is exceptional. It is an outstanding novel that can be enjoyed even by those of us who have few kind words for McCarthy's body of work.
Rating:
Summary: Keep your eye on the Judge
Review: If not the best then one of the best books I've read in years. McCarthy's style takes some getting use to, but it's worth the effort. Set in the 1800's, the story follows The Kid as he travels through the American southwest. A drifter, he hooks up with a group of mercenaries out for Indian scalps. The scenes McCarthy depicts are horrorific and you realize there was no law or mercy on either side and no lasting allegiances. The person you need to keep your eye on is the Judge, he reminds me of the character Marlon Brando played in Apocalypse Now.
Rating:
Summary: War Ensemble, or: Death Comes Ripping
Review: Which contemporary novels are we compelled to venerate above all others? Which books give us hope for the future of the form, exhibit most forcefully the backbreaking labor of ambitious authors to shatter the mold of aesthetic ennui and knee-jerk postmodernism which makes a mockery of "literary fiction," novels whose fervency and zest give back threefold what the reader puts in? In periods of readerly crisis and exhaustion, I can always turn to Ballard's *Crash*(1973) and *The Drowned World*(1962), DeLillo's *Libra*(1988), Clive Barker's *Imajica*(1991), Gene Wolfe's *Book of the New Sun*(1980-83), selected passages from *Gravity's Rainbow*(1973), Gibson's *Virtual Light* trilogy(1993-99), and perhaps with the greatest pleasure of all, *Blood Meridian*(1985) by Cormac McCarthy. These are all books that remit huge returns on their investments, becoming a vicarious collaborator in our sufferings, harvesting the anguish of the 20th century. *Blood Meridian* clocks in at 337 pages, yet seems much longer, each chapter crammed with so much force and baroque ambition as to overwhelm the uninitiated reader, pummeling our sensibilities with its bloody license, its terror-networks of human splatter, its lines of lit glycerin, its miles of pain. Initially, Captain Glanton's regiment of scalp-hunters seem little more than bloodthirsty pilgrims of hate, an ignorance-cult borne of excess and syphilitic mind-rot. But more vitally, they are the war ensemble of Judge Holden's theology of martial gamesmanship, itself reducible to a few happy bylaws: 1. Men are born for games, and war is the game that swallows up stakes, rules, players, all. 2. There is no mystery to war, for war is god. 3. War is thus the truest form of divination. Most brutal case of Hobbesian one-upmanship you will ever read.... I'll try and resist the obvious and reflexive comparisons of Judge Holden to Ahab and Iago and MacBeth and the Miltonic Satan. The word McCarthy himself uses in Chap. XXII (pg. 309) is "mutant," hypothesizing a creature specially adapted to the primeval wastelands of the American Southwest, a nomadic barrister of martial law incarnate, a pure demigod risen from some antediluvian vomit-bowl, one whose Mars-haunted spirit has internalized the whiteness of the whale, and is prepared to externalize this principle by whitening the West into a boneyard calcified by Judgement. Clive Barker once remarked that he took it personally when something died, but the Judge takes this precept even further, convinced that nothing on this earth shall be permitted to die without his permission, without his blood-stamped ratification. His knowledge and his works are listed in the insanity provision of the criminal code, his running shadow itself half-way toward becoming an occult artifact. By the end of the novel, ageless and sleepless, he becomes less a mutant or demihuman than a pure principle or Intelligence, a roving nexus of judgement beyond origins or ends, Ares Unbound. In my own experiences as a reader, the Judge is one of the few authentic father-figures I'd be willing to follow into the desert, a posthuman prodigy whose martial consciousness is lodged in the atavistic as much as in the epistemological, a true avatar of post-millennial ethics that must be reckoned with by all 21st-century readers. As Harold Bloom noted, *Blood Meridian* is far more important to us today than it was in 1985 (or even the 19th-century where it is set), helping us to calculate the number of the beast in, for example, the ruins of war-torn Kosovo, as in any future site of genocidal bombast.... The Kid is a recurring figure in McCarthy's fiction, an orphan and drifter fallen into bad company, yet vouchsafing some blurred trace of empathy in the bloodthirsty maw of Glanton's paramilitaries. It is this shred of "humanity" which the Judge condemns as a betrayal to the regiment, a heroic disloyalty to the Hobbesian principle of universal conflict, in the end providing an apologia for the Kid's penultimate, er, shall we say liquidation? *Blood Meridian* is also a linguistic odyssey whose shadowy vocabulary recalls the work of certain SF fabulists who construct an alien language to reconnoiter their imagined worlds. (It is not surprising that McCarthy is such a revered figure in the vanguard of contemporary science-fiction; the novels of Jack Womack and William Gibson in particular simply wouldn't exist in their current form without his influence.) The difference is that most of McCarthy's "jargon" can be found in Merriam-Webster's, and the ambitious reader may want to prepare a glossary before embarking on this great novel; my own list includes: acacia, acequia, alcalde, almagre, aloe, anchorite, archimandrite, arroyo, artemisia, azotea, bagnio, baldric, bodega, boleta, bungstarter, bursar, cabildo, caisson, cartouche, chaparral, chattel, cholla, corbel, cordillera, coulee, crinoline, dorys, dragoon, egrets, enfilade, esker, fandango, farrier, felloes, filibuster, fulgurite, fusil, galena, guidon, gypsum, hackamore, holothurian, ilex, isomer, jacal, jakes, javelina, jornada, kiva, lazarous, lemniscate, littoral, malabarista, malpais, matraca, Monroe Doctrine, mortice, nopal, ocotillo, palmilla, paloverde, pannier, playa, plover, porphyry, presidio, pulque, pumice, purlieu, quirt, rebozo, remuda, revetment, sacristy, saguaro, sally-gate, scantling, scapular, scow, scree, scrog, selvage, slurry, solpuga, sotol, spall, specie, sutler, suttee, swale, switchback, tamales, tern, thrapple, tumbril, tyrolean, vedette, viga, vinegarroon, weskit, whang, wickiup, withers, yucca, and if you've read this far, it should be clear that I have no life to speak of...(!)
Rating:
Summary: "Tonsured to the bone. . . ."
Review: . . . which is how you might feel after reading this masterwork. One of the greatest novels of the 20th century, *Blood Meridian* is, on the one hand, about the, ahem, delightful mixing of cultures which occurred on the newly-formed Texas-Mexico border in the 1850's. On the other hand, the book is a gory fugue on the nature of Evil. . . . We follow the depraved "adventures" of the Kid, who is McCarthy's ironic homage to Huckleberry Finn . . . Huckleberry Finn in hell, that is. The Kid was almost born corrupted; before we ever meet the Judge, the Kid is fighting and killing his way across the dusty plains of Texas. McCarthy is careful not to let us build up sentimental attachments to his rather cipher-like character: whenever he does speak, it's usually muttered monotonously in words of one syllable. Only with greater exposure to Judge Holden does the Kid start gaining in moral authority. As for the Judge! -- one of the most memorable creations of American literature, he's a gargantuan conflation of several mythic literary figures: Iago, Milton's Satan, Ahab. He's seven feet tall and completely hairless. His pronouncements are masterpieces of the hollow philosophy of moral abnegation. He's like the most terrifying beast you could possibly dream up, smarter than you and infinitely skilled, tramping across the bloody, empty Southwest like some golem, seeking brains to savor. We read with grim fascination as he leads a savage band of bounty hunters into a vortex of moral nullity. This is frightening stuff. McCarthy writes in a fiery, sweeping style. Captivating. Brilliant. Not a single phrase, word, is wasted -- you sense the magnificent struggle it took to shape each of these paragraphs into a small work of art. A command of syntax and vocabulary that is matchless in today's dying literature. The tone is one of howling outrage: first, at how this country was "founded" (and, by extension, at the sickening pieties and hypocrisy with which we view our history), and finally, at the basic nature of man: bloodthirsty beasts whose supposed "morals" and "values" can be, given the right circumstances, burned away from us as easily as a thin puddle on a hot rock in Yuma. This is essentially a pessimistic novel -- no phony uplift here. *Blood Meridian* will not find its way to Oprah's Book Club, in other words. But perhaps consolation can be found in the unflinching art used to describe this world (which is our world). If you love great literature, you need to own this book. Its aesthetic rewards, believe me, more than compensate for the hell it describes.
Rating:
Summary: Best Book I've Read This Year
Review: In a nutshell, I am in awe of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian." His tale of the Kid, who is severely wounded early on in the tale and spends the rest of the novel in the hell of McCarthy's Southwest, is chilling and beautiful at the same time. McCarthy's writing is challenging, as he uses highly unusual words and phrases. And yet his voice is always appropriate and his descriptions are captivating. The key is to let yourself float along with the rhythm of the writing. You don't have to understand every word to get the gist of what he is saying, and the rhythm conveys sensations greater than the mere words could ever achieve. (In this limited sense, reading McCarthy is like reading Shakespeare.) McCarthy has created one of the most horrifying characters to roam the Old West in the Judge. An otherworldly monster, I believe the Judge is Satan walking the earth, leading a band of killers deeper and deeper into evil. The Judge isn't officially in charge of the Glanton Gang, but like Satan he keeps egging them on to greater depths of depravity. The Gang ranges from one bloodbath to another, enduring the miserable parched heat of Mexico, and yet the Judge never tires, never falters, and never gets so much as a scratch. Maybe he's a twisted version of Virgil from Dante's trilogy, guiding his charges into self-destruction rather than into Paradise. In any event, he's so evil it's haunting. Our witness to McCarthy's saga is the Kid, a character of limited vocabulary and blunt commentary. We ride with the Kid, endure his hardships, and agree with his refrain, "You're crazy," that he uses so often in his conversations with the Judge. The Kid is no hero, however, and by siding with the Kid we are made accomplices in his various crimes, as well. The conclusion of the novel is about as scary as it comes. "Blood Meridian" is a true delight, and I can't wait to read it again.
|
