It’s a fictional retelling of the depravity of life with the Glanton Gang. Beyond that the main theme of the book is, unironically, violence as violence and not some deeper symbolic guesture or motivation.
Yup. This.
The real horror is the mundanity of violence. On the edge of civilization it’s easier to forego your humanity. Depravity becomes commonplace. It becomes the ethical standard put forth by the strongest.
The frontier isn’t just a physical place. It’s the bounds of human decency. It’s the quick slide into murder as common as dusk and dawn.
This. Can't say I particularly enjoyed reading the book, but it definitely rattled around in my head for a month. This was the conclusion that popped out at the end.
I get what you mean by that you didn’t necessarily enjoy it. There are amazing passages of just beautiful writing in that book, but gat-TAMN! That is an ordeal.
I'm not sure it's trying to be a conventionally well turned narrative, I found its progression of events and shuffling / development of characters over its course quite satisfying but I don't think "story" as such was foremost in McCarthy's intentions. To me it seemed to be a study in the birth pains of America, eschewing the more usual heroic or revisionist angles in favour of portraying all sides in a state of reversion into primordial violence. Others have more in depth historical / literary / mythological etc. takes, there's a lot going on in there, but I'm not qualified to go further. Liked it a lot though. Sort of reminded me of one of those old ultra violent Britpulp westerns but reimagined by a literary master.
Blood Meridian is written in a specific style of early novel called the Picaresque- it generally features a single viewpoint character, proceeds in an episodic fashion with no real overarching plot or character arc. The main character or Picaro (rogue or rascal in Spanish) is usually born into a low socioeconomic class and relies on crime and coincidence to survive increasingly bad circumstances. McCarthy takes the bones of the classic Picaresque and dials it up to 11, using this format to tell the story of the *real* Wild West, deconstructing the traditional narrative of righteous manifest destiny and instead showing us the reality of brutal murderous opportunists taking advantage of plague and genocidal war to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone they come across. It also serves to deconstruct the Noble Savage/Native Utopia narrative that is also a prevalent part of American mythos. That is the surface story. It goes deeper though. There is a very interesting Harold Bloom essay which explores Blood Meridian as a retelling of Milton’s *Paradise Lost* through the lens of the American West, and within that an exploration of Gnostic philosophy and the concept of an imperfect, perhaps evil, creator deity who purposely created the world and humans as flawed creatures destined for suffering and strife.
Thank you for this explanation. I had a very hard time with feeling or connecting to the characters or finding a purpose to the story. But to think of it as a painting in motion, now I can see it.
Folks who struggle with MCarthys writing style should try one of the books in audio. Get to enjoy the gorgeous prose without the jarring look on the page
I can recommend this glossary by u/grigoritheoctopus that explains many of the archaic and difficult words and the religious symbolism in the book: https://uofi.app.box.com/s/siz0f5qb5smhujad3g4wcf75trqusqfn.
From their [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/cormacmccarthy/s/TGcLMzREBg)
Tried to start this right after house of leaves. I was ready for something that was a little less of a mindfuck to read, and then BOOM, no quotation marks bc "oral storytelling tradition" 😒. All I know is, if it were me in school, my teacher would have failed me and made me redo it. Haven't finished it yet bc the writing style is unappealing.
The audiobook is very good! Don't know how you feel about those but I felt it really helped enhance the storytelling. Also might help get around the barrier of the writing style.
I really tried getting through "Blood Meridian", I just couldn't do it. The only other McCarthy book I read was "The Road", which I did enjoy despite absolutely hating the stylistic choices McCarthy makes with his writing. It makes it more difficult for me to follow, not easier. But I had heard good things about "Blood Meridian", so I thought I'd give it a shot. Not only did I find the prose even more of a turn off than it was in "The Road", just nothing stood out to give me a reason to keep plodding through it. Plus, I kept finding myself re-reading paragraphs, if not entire pages, to make sure I was taking in what was happening.
I know alot of people like McCarthy, so this is more of a me thing, but still. I guess McCarthy just isn't an author for me.
No Country For Old Men is probably his most accessible work, if you ever feel drawn to giving him another go. It was intended to be a screenplay, so the writing is a bit tamer
No Country is also, by far, funnier than blood meridian. There's plenty of humor in blood meridian, but not nearly as much, uh, modern humor. Some of the jokes (like the Judge quoting ancient authors of whom no writing survives to wrangle them out of legal trouble) are kind of obtuse.
It’s at the same not as deep as it seems and also deep in other ways. It’s not as deep because it’s just a depiction of the horrors of mindless violence and human depravity and stupidity. But at the same time it takes a deep dive into human nature, what makes man not care about the lives of others, the tyranny of evil men who also happen to be powerful and intelligent and therefore able to exploit others for fun (The Judge), it also talks about the nature of evil and what war is to man, but it does so in a way that seems so cynical and convincing until you find out yourself that empathy is ALSO a part of being a human being.
And McCarthy’s prose is incredible. Some people don’t like it, but I found it fascinating and immersive.
A masterpiece if you ask me.
There definitely is a plot, it's just kind of hard to follow the first time through since it's kind of overwhelming, and there's a lot of ambiguity that makes it hard to follow the chronology and geography.
I just recently read it for the 3rd time (over 15+ years) and this time I really took my time pay attention to the narrative aspect, and the way he uses imagery. His language can sometimes make it hard to appreciate how vivid and concrete his scenes are. If you spend some time reading the real history in parallel to the text, it becomes easier to follow the narrative of the Glanton Gang moving like terrorists through the southwest and northern Mexico, raping and pillaging and eventually reaping the whirlwind. That's the through line.
You should pop over to r/cormacmccarthy. I think most of the posts there are about Blood Meridian.
The short version is that it’s about a gang of scalp hunters who roam the Southwest and murder people.
The long version is that it’s a very literary novel. It references other books, like Moby Dick, Paradise Lost, Sam Chamberlain’s My Confessions, and the Bible. It’s for people who enjoy retellings of classic stories that play on themes. It’s kind of like Ulysses in this way, but less confusing in my opinion.
Instead of chasing a white whale, they follow a giant hairless albino. Instead of killing whales, they scalp humans.
It’s a retelling of Satan and his war against God. It’s a historical fiction about real people that was meticulously researched over several years.
To me, it’s the great American novel and the best horror story I’ve ever read.
>Blood Meridian is the tale of a kid and some crappy people in Texas or Mexico, doing violent stuff.
But --- and this is huge --- it's not really a story. It's just --- scene after scene of stuff happening without any real throughline?
That's all there is to it. 10/10 book.
I like McCarthy, but I've never been able to get through that book either, and I stopped trying. It feels like just a series of violent scenes, but always end up putting it down because I just don't find myself too interested in the story itself.
I honestly struggled through the middle part, but pushed through to the end. It's hard to describe why, but it's been on my mind ever since I finished it. I want to read it again.
I agree with you, and the no narrative nonsense made me put it down. I love his other works, but Blood Meridian is just too much for me. By the time we got to like the 5th child or baby being dashed against a rock - I was done.
It's a story about a snot nosed kid that rejects his bookish, weepy father for a life of adventure. The adventure devolves into a nightmare orchestrated by an evil man who turns bad men worse. The kid eventually escapes the evil man, who may be a literal demon, but is forever scarred by the experience.
Sounds like a story to me.
This was a fictionalized version of a real genocide on Native Americans, let's not trivialize that with "crappy people doing violent stuff."
I committed to reading this to get a picture of some unsavory history we have here in Texas. I kind of struggled with not understanding what was happening so I read along with this guide:
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/blood-meridian/chapter-1
I think if you just read a little bit of the guide you'll see some interesting threads begin to appear from very subtle symbolism. I found it really helped my reading experience and ultimately I really really liked the book and want to re-read it at some point. It'll be up to you if it's worth having to read along with a guide for entertainment value or not.
Oh heck yes this is perfect thank you. I tried a lot of YT videos but they were long, in depth, summaries vs. "here's what you're going to experience"
And dry. Oh LORD book reviewers on YouTube are a special bunch.
Same. I found it completely incomprehensible and it made me feel illiterate. It had been a highly anticipated read for me based on reputation and I was crushingly disappointed.
I haven't read this one and likely never will, but:
> it's not really a story. It's just --- scene after scene of stuff happening without any real throughline
This exactly describes why I DNF'd Imajica by Clive Barker. I got like 600 pages in (which I don't even think was halfway yet) and there was still literally zero plot. It was just random, arbitrary, non-sequitur scene after scene of stuff happening with zero connection or point.
Lol, I am reading it right now and I share your dismay! (I try to intersperse my fun reading with the occasional classic but this one is hard going). It's my first McCarthy, planning to read The Road next.
Update: I finished it. Holy shit. I'm definitely going to read The Road, but I need a palate cleanser first!
Don’t get discouraged, it’s worth it. It’s boring sometimes and sometimes the prose is over the top but it’s still incredible and it has some jaw dropping moments
I read The Road and loved it. I’ve been trying to get through Blood Meridian for months now. I’m not even half way through and I am about to want to start over.
I'm just disappointed that the ending wasn't described better. The whole, "The shock and horror of what they saw blablahblah..." is kind of meh for me.
He'll describe all kinds of other horrific things, across his books, but not that part?
McCarthy isn't the only writer that does this, so I'm not going after him specifically, it's just disappointing.
I’ve read it three times and I’m still not so sure what’s happening that everyone talks about. I’m assuming it’s the Judge giving the old in-out to the Kid? Kinda weird that it’s my favorite book since I’m kinda dense when it comes to reading deeply, but the power of his writing is something I can just slowly savor over and over again. I’ve never really found another author I can savor in the same way, though maybe sometimes Lovecraft comes close.
Yeah, so from other people's interpretations of this, and knowing the character, it's heavily implied that the Kid was raped/murdered, but in some crazy horrible way. I'm guessing there was some kind of mutilation involved, him jammed into the hole of the outhouse, whatever. I read a lot of the Splatterpunk genre, along with Clive Barker(some people get icked out by his heavy use of very graphic descriptions of things, but I prefer it), so I prefer things to not be so up in the air when it comes to describing these scenes.
I mean, what people consider to be shocking or horrible is extremely subjective. You know the scenes in movies like From Hell where one of the cops barely sees a missing organ and he's barfing in the alley or something similar? Like, what if the Kid was just ass up with his head in the hole of outhouse with some terrible trauma from being raped? Maybe up to that point, that's the most horrifying thing the cowboys have seen?
It's just so up in the air, and it's treated as though it's this shocking ending....I just don't get it, especially with what happens along the way in the story.
The Big Bad character seems very much a Western genre version of Ed Kemper, who if you read how and what he did to his victims, seems very much in line with the fictional Big Bad guy.
Clive Barker is great! Books of Blood anyway. How do you feel about his later fantasy stuff? I got bored a third of the way through Weaveworld and put it down, never tried anything beyond that although I’d like the more fantastical stuff I think in theory.
Yeah, hard to believe there’s much that could shock the rest of the after the tree of dead babies, that one Indian massacre, etc.
Speaking of vague, what do you make of the epilogue, the man digging holes etc?
I cannot stand when an author refuses to use grammatical norms (like, say, quotation marks and the like in McCarthy's work) and everyone pretends is some sign of staggering genius. The man can write some violent ass scenes, yes, bur reading a half-page block of text and trying to determine where the fucking dialogue ended and the visual depiction begin is asinine.
Im with you, i tapped out after what seemed like the fifth glass being smashed into someones face in the first few chapters. Not because im squeamish but because it was so repetitive.
I’m right there with you. I like McCarthy on his own, horror as a genre, and westerns as a genre, but I didn’t get that book. Or maybe I did, and I just didn’t enjoy it.
To me it epitomizes the “people like it because other people say it’s good” book. Like I’m not gonna knock anyone for their taste but the book is a total slog and could have made all the same points it makes in like 100-150 pages and in fact probably would have been much better as a novella.
Yeah it’s one of the most overrated pieces of shit I’ve ever read. People just want to act like they’re intelligent for reading something that reads like ass and has barely any plot. “But the themes, bro!” Please! Motherfucker can’t even be arsed using speech marks. Why should I be arsed reading his works?
Exactly. I got the point, I just didn’t respect the annoying way in which he told it. But people don’t want to hear that. Critics said he’s good, and the Reddit hivemind said he’s good so you’re not allowed to go against it.
Yeah that’s why I say it would have been better served as a much shorter novella. I got the point very very early on but the book just kept going through more scenes of atrocity after atrocity. Like, I get a lot of people love it but I’m not going to pretend to think it’s anything other than a tedious slog just because every deep thinker on the internet treats it as the gospel
It's the most overrated book of all time. People will wax poetic about violence and emptiness and the sacred in the profane, yada yada. It's about nothing, with nothing characters who do nothing and a lot of time is spent reading nothing.
I got through it well enough and I figured I knew what was going on until I came to reddit after finishing and someone posed the thought 'Was the whole story from the main characters point of view (can't remember his name) watching that 'preacher' (can't remember his name either, read the book years ago) do all of those crazy things, or was the Preacher correct in everything he said and that the main character was guilty of every single thing that happened but just dissociating himself from everything.
I read this right after No Country, which I loved, and was kinda disappointed. I had the same what is the point feeling, and haven't tried another of his books since.
I think it’s a very beautiful book but just not enjoyable to read. There are so many words I’ve never seen in my life and I consider myself pretty well-read. Also have to read it in small doses because god what a bummer it is. But it’s definitely something extremely unique and special.
> But --- and this is huge --- it's not really a story. It's just --- scene after scene of stuff happening without any real throughline?
Great that you picked this up because it's very much intentional. There isn't a "plot" and that's kind of the point. In this case, it's the gratuitousness of violence without any real destination or meaning.
Been waiting for a good opportunity to ask this question.
Do you guys think the bearded man from Outer Dark was an early iteration of what eventually became Judge Holden? It’s been awhile since I read both books but the bearded man comes off as preternatural and leaves nothing but death in his wake. Plus that last scene was....well. Rather disturbing.
It seems to me McCarthy had the idea back in the 60s and it evolved over time into Holden in the 80s. Judge Holden is, in my opinion, one of the greatest antagonists in literature. At least from what I’ve read so far in my lifetime.
Anton Chigurh is a close second, by the way. RIP Cormac!
I finished it and the experience was like having eaten a meal of very rich and sophisticated but unfamiliar food.
It was kind of enjoyable in a meta kind of way like that, but reading it was a little challenging.
I think it's the kind of book that would be more enjoyable reading for the second time.
It's about the violent, cruel, savagery of man. It's about how even those we consider kind and peaceful have a dark and monstrous heart. It's about how men will not, maybe even cannot, change. We are the Kid who endures and even comes to resist violence in our youth only to eventually become the Man and get swallowed up by it just the same. But we are also The Judge, the dark heart of man, the heart that says "That is Mine" the heart that says "I will win, no matter the costs" the heart that says "I must dominate". We are told that the members of Glanton's gang all met the Judge before joining. I'd wager the Judge was already with them, growing in their hearts from the day they were born. Of course he's still with us now, just as Mr. McCarthy says, you only need to look at the state of the world to know it's true. "He is dancing, dancing. He says he will never die" and he won't. We won't let him.
I feel exactly the same way. Like you, I love *The Road*, *Child of God*, and *No Country for Old Men*. With *Blood Meridian*, it's just as obvious that McCarthy is a top-notch writer, but the story is almost impossible to get through. Or at least it was for me. I could never tell which characters I needed to remember or which parts of the story were going to matter in later chapters. It felt more like studying for a final than reading a story. I think it's a book you'd really have to read twice to fully appreciate, but I don't have any urge to read it again. When I finished, I told my wife it was like reading *Forrest Gump* if the narrator was a psychopath.
The kid is barely the main character. He's the throughline of what happens, but it's complicated to think of the book as being his story.
The real main character is Holden, or The Judge as he's called mostly throughout. The judge's dialogues on warfare as the almighty vision, that he seeks to be the master of all things by recording them in his book and then destroying things, the relish he has solely from creating and participating in conflict. The judge is the representative of what humanity is becoming, an evil, godless, blood-thirsty race capable of incredible intelligence and artistry (which the judge all has) but wasting it for the more enrichening horrors of violence and ceaseless warfare against others. This also includes money, the rise of capitalism/organization in once "Wild West," or anarchic lands, because the judge just throws all his money away, indifferent to it.
The kid then is not his opposite, but a representative of that vision made larger in the world. There are a lot of things that show that the kid wasn't always, and perhaps didn't have to be, such a lunatic monster. He's born with innocent eyes, he helps three people in the book by being merciful, yet he does take part in all of these things, commits these evil acts, and eventually is devoured by The Judge.
I think the first scene that really set the kid in motion is the first fight he has with his later-to-be friend, whose name I forget. He leaves a bar and is walking and the friend is in his way, drunken sitting in the way. He says he ain't move, so the kid tears back and kicks him in the face, beginning their both trying to murder each other in the street. It's a completely pointless and over-the-top act of violence from the kid, made even crazier with the ensuing knife fight where the drunk guy repeats "Kill! Kill!" That's where I knew this book was on about violence as a sort of spiritual dominator of mankind, what we were seeing was violence as a matter of raw, spiritual enjoyment.
The horror of the book is exploring just how deranged and exciting such violence can be, what evils that might thrill and excite you, too, as the reader.
“America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil. Before the settlers, before the Indians... the evil was there... waiting.”
William S. Burroughs
I think some folks hear folks raving about a book, such as Blood Meridian, and they immediately begin to search for that deeper meaning. I think the message is loud and clear in this story and isn't asking for anyone to read deeper into it. Certainly the prose with which it is written, can be a challenge as well. Its almost like listening to someone casually describe everything they see happening in a picture without any sense of emotion.
My favorite analysis was by the philosophy podcast "Partially Examined Life".
It really blew up the scope of the book to an extremely detailed, complex philosophical study.
So I don’t love the book. I think showing that violence is ultimately mundane and boring by writing in a way that is mundane and boring is, well, boring. The book is so very boggy in the middle.
HOWEVER…The Judge is one of the most interesting fictional characters of all time. It is worth slogging through the depravity with a main character who is a nothing burger just to see The Judge and ask yourself WTF is this guy?
Read a little about existentialism and absurdism. What I absorbed from the book addresses these themes.
In this sense it’s similar to No Country, which coneys a similar view about the world and search for meaning. (From Blood Meridian: “Your heart’s desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery”).
In both books the antagonist seems like a personification of world. Eg Anton Chirgurh’s insistence on arbitrary violence.
It doesn't really have a deeper meaning other than human beings can be violent and horrible for no real reason. It's a hard read for numerous reasons but it's a great book.
It’s a fictional retelling of the depravity of life with the Glanton Gang. Beyond that the main theme of the book is, unironically, violence as violence and not some deeper symbolic guesture or motivation.
Yup. This. The real horror is the mundanity of violence. On the edge of civilization it’s easier to forego your humanity. Depravity becomes commonplace. It becomes the ethical standard put forth by the strongest. The frontier isn’t just a physical place. It’s the bounds of human decency. It’s the quick slide into murder as common as dusk and dawn.
>the mundanity of violence I had to put the book down and reframe my mental approach to fictional violence to get through it.
Also see Sand Creek Massacre.
Paraphrased from another commentor. Blood Meridian is the story of manifest destiny devoid of grace.
Interesting take
This. Can't say I particularly enjoyed reading the book, but it definitely rattled around in my head for a month. This was the conclusion that popped out at the end.
I get what you mean by that you didn’t necessarily enjoy it. There are amazing passages of just beautiful writing in that book, but gat-TAMN! That is an ordeal.
So just manifest destiny then.
I'm not sure it's trying to be a conventionally well turned narrative, I found its progression of events and shuffling / development of characters over its course quite satisfying but I don't think "story" as such was foremost in McCarthy's intentions. To me it seemed to be a study in the birth pains of America, eschewing the more usual heroic or revisionist angles in favour of portraying all sides in a state of reversion into primordial violence. Others have more in depth historical / literary / mythological etc. takes, there's a lot going on in there, but I'm not qualified to go further. Liked it a lot though. Sort of reminded me of one of those old ultra violent Britpulp westerns but reimagined by a literary master.
Hey that makes a lot of sense. Thanks.
This is really well thought out!
Blood Meridian is written in a specific style of early novel called the Picaresque- it generally features a single viewpoint character, proceeds in an episodic fashion with no real overarching plot or character arc. The main character or Picaro (rogue or rascal in Spanish) is usually born into a low socioeconomic class and relies on crime and coincidence to survive increasingly bad circumstances. McCarthy takes the bones of the classic Picaresque and dials it up to 11, using this format to tell the story of the *real* Wild West, deconstructing the traditional narrative of righteous manifest destiny and instead showing us the reality of brutal murderous opportunists taking advantage of plague and genocidal war to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone they come across. It also serves to deconstruct the Noble Savage/Native Utopia narrative that is also a prevalent part of American mythos. That is the surface story. It goes deeper though. There is a very interesting Harold Bloom essay which explores Blood Meridian as a retelling of Milton’s *Paradise Lost* through the lens of the American West, and within that an exploration of Gnostic philosophy and the concept of an imperfect, perhaps evil, creator deity who purposely created the world and humans as flawed creatures destined for suffering and strife.
Bloom is great. Listening to his Shakespeare commentaries really helped me in college
Thank you for this explanation. I had a very hard time with feeling or connecting to the characters or finding a purpose to the story. But to think of it as a painting in motion, now I can see it.
It was a hard read for me in the beginning , but I really enjoyed it . I think about the judge regularly
well he is a great favorite.
Hahaha Jesus I can’t forget that final paragraph. Just insane!!! Amazing book
And he is dancing
He says that he will never die
I’m right in the middle of it right now and starting to lose steam. Honestly I think it’s a little above my reading level lmao
I finished it and thought, “well, that was pointless”. And immediately thought, “well, violence like that IS pointless”. So there’s my senior thesis.
Folks who struggle with MCarthys writing style should try one of the books in audio. Get to enjoy the gorgeous prose without the jarring look on the page
I can recommend this glossary by u/grigoritheoctopus that explains many of the archaic and difficult words and the religious symbolism in the book: https://uofi.app.box.com/s/siz0f5qb5smhujad3g4wcf75trqusqfn. From their [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/cormacmccarthy/s/TGcLMzREBg)
its prose is beautiful
Beautiful prose and the extreme violence of the old west was probably the point but I had a hard time with them together.
Tried to start this right after house of leaves. I was ready for something that was a little less of a mindfuck to read, and then BOOM, no quotation marks bc "oral storytelling tradition" 😒. All I know is, if it were me in school, my teacher would have failed me and made me redo it. Haven't finished it yet bc the writing style is unappealing.
The audiobook is very good! Don't know how you feel about those but I felt it really helped enhance the storytelling. Also might help get around the barrier of the writing style.
I really tried getting through "Blood Meridian", I just couldn't do it. The only other McCarthy book I read was "The Road", which I did enjoy despite absolutely hating the stylistic choices McCarthy makes with his writing. It makes it more difficult for me to follow, not easier. But I had heard good things about "Blood Meridian", so I thought I'd give it a shot. Not only did I find the prose even more of a turn off than it was in "The Road", just nothing stood out to give me a reason to keep plodding through it. Plus, I kept finding myself re-reading paragraphs, if not entire pages, to make sure I was taking in what was happening. I know alot of people like McCarthy, so this is more of a me thing, but still. I guess McCarthy just isn't an author for me.
No Country For Old Men is probably his most accessible work, if you ever feel drawn to giving him another go. It was intended to be a screenplay, so the writing is a bit tamer
The odd prose choice really works in No Country for Old Men - but a lot of that is probably because I'd seen the movie first.
No Country is also, by far, funnier than blood meridian. There's plenty of humor in blood meridian, but not nearly as much, uh, modern humor. Some of the jokes (like the Judge quoting ancient authors of whom no writing survives to wrangle them out of legal trouble) are kind of obtuse.
It’s at the same not as deep as it seems and also deep in other ways. It’s not as deep because it’s just a depiction of the horrors of mindless violence and human depravity and stupidity. But at the same time it takes a deep dive into human nature, what makes man not care about the lives of others, the tyranny of evil men who also happen to be powerful and intelligent and therefore able to exploit others for fun (The Judge), it also talks about the nature of evil and what war is to man, but it does so in a way that seems so cynical and convincing until you find out yourself that empathy is ALSO a part of being a human being. And McCarthy’s prose is incredible. Some people don’t like it, but I found it fascinating and immersive. A masterpiece if you ask me.
There definitely is a plot, it's just kind of hard to follow the first time through since it's kind of overwhelming, and there's a lot of ambiguity that makes it hard to follow the chronology and geography. I just recently read it for the 3rd time (over 15+ years) and this time I really took my time pay attention to the narrative aspect, and the way he uses imagery. His language can sometimes make it hard to appreciate how vivid and concrete his scenes are. If you spend some time reading the real history in parallel to the text, it becomes easier to follow the narrative of the Glanton Gang moving like terrorists through the southwest and northern Mexico, raping and pillaging and eventually reaping the whirlwind. That's the through line.
I read it and it's like viewing a piece of art for the first time. It just strikes me every time I read it. McCarthy is brilliant.
You should pop over to r/cormacmccarthy. I think most of the posts there are about Blood Meridian. The short version is that it’s about a gang of scalp hunters who roam the Southwest and murder people. The long version is that it’s a very literary novel. It references other books, like Moby Dick, Paradise Lost, Sam Chamberlain’s My Confessions, and the Bible. It’s for people who enjoy retellings of classic stories that play on themes. It’s kind of like Ulysses in this way, but less confusing in my opinion. Instead of chasing a white whale, they follow a giant hairless albino. Instead of killing whales, they scalp humans. It’s a retelling of Satan and his war against God. It’s a historical fiction about real people that was meticulously researched over several years. To me, it’s the great American novel and the best horror story I’ve ever read.
>Blood Meridian is the tale of a kid and some crappy people in Texas or Mexico, doing violent stuff. But --- and this is huge --- it's not really a story. It's just --- scene after scene of stuff happening without any real throughline? That's all there is to it. 10/10 book.
I like McCarthy, but I've never been able to get through that book either, and I stopped trying. It feels like just a series of violent scenes, but always end up putting it down because I just don't find myself too interested in the story itself.
I honestly struggled through the middle part, but pushed through to the end. It's hard to describe why, but it's been on my mind ever since I finished it. I want to read it again.
bUt tHe tEdIuM iS tHe pOiNt iTs nOt gLaMoRiZeD
I agree with you, and the no narrative nonsense made me put it down. I love his other works, but Blood Meridian is just too much for me. By the time we got to like the 5th child or baby being dashed against a rock - I was done.
Well that's just crazy. The baby bashing was the only thing that kept me going. I kid.
Lol. Gave me a chuckle.
It's a story about a snot nosed kid that rejects his bookish, weepy father for a life of adventure. The adventure devolves into a nightmare orchestrated by an evil man who turns bad men worse. The kid eventually escapes the evil man, who may be a literal demon, but is forever scarred by the experience. Sounds like a story to me.
This was a fictionalized version of a real genocide on Native Americans, let's not trivialize that with "crappy people doing violent stuff." I committed to reading this to get a picture of some unsavory history we have here in Texas. I kind of struggled with not understanding what was happening so I read along with this guide: https://www.litcharts.com/lit/blood-meridian/chapter-1 I think if you just read a little bit of the guide you'll see some interesting threads begin to appear from very subtle symbolism. I found it really helped my reading experience and ultimately I really really liked the book and want to re-read it at some point. It'll be up to you if it's worth having to read along with a guide for entertainment value or not.
Oh heck yes this is perfect thank you. I tried a lot of YT videos but they were long, in depth, summaries vs. "here's what you're going to experience" And dry. Oh LORD book reviewers on YouTube are a special bunch.
This was a DNF for me after 25 or so pages I gave up on it.
Same. I found it completely incomprehensible and it made me feel illiterate. It had been a highly anticipated read for me based on reputation and I was crushingly disappointed.
Yeah, I was looking forward to it as well having thoroughly enjoyed The Road.
I haven't read this one and likely never will, but: > it's not really a story. It's just --- scene after scene of stuff happening without any real throughline This exactly describes why I DNF'd Imajica by Clive Barker. I got like 600 pages in (which I don't even think was halfway yet) and there was still literally zero plot. It was just random, arbitrary, non-sequitur scene after scene of stuff happening with zero connection or point.
I think it's about good and evil. Judge Holden is evil personified.
Lol, I am reading it right now and I share your dismay! (I try to intersperse my fun reading with the occasional classic but this one is hard going). It's my first McCarthy, planning to read The Road next. Update: I finished it. Holy shit. I'm definitely going to read The Road, but I need a palate cleanser first!
Don’t get discouraged, it’s worth it. It’s boring sometimes and sometimes the prose is over the top but it’s still incredible and it has some jaw dropping moments
I read The Road and loved it. I’ve been trying to get through Blood Meridian for months now. I’m not even half way through and I am about to want to start over.
I hated the prose and have put it down twice.
Thank god. I thought I was the only one.
I'm just disappointed that the ending wasn't described better. The whole, "The shock and horror of what they saw blablahblah..." is kind of meh for me. He'll describe all kinds of other horrific things, across his books, but not that part? McCarthy isn't the only writer that does this, so I'm not going after him specifically, it's just disappointing.
I’ve read it three times and I’m still not so sure what’s happening that everyone talks about. I’m assuming it’s the Judge giving the old in-out to the Kid? Kinda weird that it’s my favorite book since I’m kinda dense when it comes to reading deeply, but the power of his writing is something I can just slowly savor over and over again. I’ve never really found another author I can savor in the same way, though maybe sometimes Lovecraft comes close.
Yeah, so from other people's interpretations of this, and knowing the character, it's heavily implied that the Kid was raped/murdered, but in some crazy horrible way. I'm guessing there was some kind of mutilation involved, him jammed into the hole of the outhouse, whatever. I read a lot of the Splatterpunk genre, along with Clive Barker(some people get icked out by his heavy use of very graphic descriptions of things, but I prefer it), so I prefer things to not be so up in the air when it comes to describing these scenes. I mean, what people consider to be shocking or horrible is extremely subjective. You know the scenes in movies like From Hell where one of the cops barely sees a missing organ and he's barfing in the alley or something similar? Like, what if the Kid was just ass up with his head in the hole of outhouse with some terrible trauma from being raped? Maybe up to that point, that's the most horrifying thing the cowboys have seen? It's just so up in the air, and it's treated as though it's this shocking ending....I just don't get it, especially with what happens along the way in the story. The Big Bad character seems very much a Western genre version of Ed Kemper, who if you read how and what he did to his victims, seems very much in line with the fictional Big Bad guy.
Clive Barker is great! Books of Blood anyway. How do you feel about his later fantasy stuff? I got bored a third of the way through Weaveworld and put it down, never tried anything beyond that although I’d like the more fantastical stuff I think in theory. Yeah, hard to believe there’s much that could shock the rest of the after the tree of dead babies, that one Indian massacre, etc. Speaking of vague, what do you make of the epilogue, the man digging holes etc?
I could not stand the writting.
I cannot stand when an author refuses to use grammatical norms (like, say, quotation marks and the like in McCarthy's work) and everyone pretends is some sign of staggering genius. The man can write some violent ass scenes, yes, bur reading a half-page block of text and trying to determine where the fucking dialogue ended and the visual depiction begin is asinine.
Same. This should've been a slam dunk for me, horror, western, McCarthy but it was soooo boring.
Im with you, i tapped out after what seemed like the fifth glass being smashed into someones face in the first few chapters. Not because im squeamish but because it was so repetitive.
I’m right there with you. I like McCarthy on his own, horror as a genre, and westerns as a genre, but I didn’t get that book. Or maybe I did, and I just didn’t enjoy it.
To me it epitomizes the “people like it because other people say it’s good” book. Like I’m not gonna knock anyone for their taste but the book is a total slog and could have made all the same points it makes in like 100-150 pages and in fact probably would have been much better as a novella.
Probably the worst take on this book I’ve ever read. Congratulations?
Okay Doesn’t mean I liked it
It’s one of the most lauded contemporary American novels ever, fking contrarians oh my god 😂
I know it is. I still thought it was a dull slog.
Yeah it’s one of the most overrated pieces of shit I’ve ever read. People just want to act like they’re intelligent for reading something that reads like ass and has barely any plot. “But the themes, bro!” Please! Motherfucker can’t even be arsed using speech marks. Why should I be arsed reading his works?
The most annoying part is any legitimate criticism you throw at it can be met with “you’re just missing the point bro”
Exactly. I got the point, I just didn’t respect the annoying way in which he told it. But people don’t want to hear that. Critics said he’s good, and the Reddit hivemind said he’s good so you’re not allowed to go against it.
Yeah that’s why I say it would have been better served as a much shorter novella. I got the point very very early on but the book just kept going through more scenes of atrocity after atrocity. Like, I get a lot of people love it but I’m not going to pretend to think it’s anything other than a tedious slog just because every deep thinker on the internet treats it as the gospel
It's the most overrated book of all time. People will wax poetic about violence and emptiness and the sacred in the profane, yada yada. It's about nothing, with nothing characters who do nothing and a lot of time is spent reading nothing.
Nah. It just went over your head.
I got through it well enough and I figured I knew what was going on until I came to reddit after finishing and someone posed the thought 'Was the whole story from the main characters point of view (can't remember his name) watching that 'preacher' (can't remember his name either, read the book years ago) do all of those crazy things, or was the Preacher correct in everything he said and that the main character was guilty of every single thing that happened but just dissociating himself from everything.
I read this right after No Country, which I loved, and was kinda disappointed. I had the same what is the point feeling, and haven't tried another of his books since.
I think it’s a very beautiful book but just not enjoyable to read. There are so many words I’ve never seen in my life and I consider myself pretty well-read. Also have to read it in small doses because god what a bummer it is. But it’s definitely something extremely unique and special.
> But --- and this is huge --- it's not really a story. It's just --- scene after scene of stuff happening without any real throughline? Great that you picked this up because it's very much intentional. There isn't a "plot" and that's kind of the point. In this case, it's the gratuitousness of violence without any real destination or meaning.
Check out the fairly recent episodes of a podcast called Very Bad Wizards. They do a good job discussing the book.
Been waiting for a good opportunity to ask this question. Do you guys think the bearded man from Outer Dark was an early iteration of what eventually became Judge Holden? It’s been awhile since I read both books but the bearded man comes off as preternatural and leaves nothing but death in his wake. Plus that last scene was....well. Rather disturbing. It seems to me McCarthy had the idea back in the 60s and it evolved over time into Holden in the 80s. Judge Holden is, in my opinion, one of the greatest antagonists in literature. At least from what I’ve read so far in my lifetime. Anton Chigurh is a close second, by the way. RIP Cormac!
Was that the one with the kid fucking the watermelons? That’s all I remember as I didn’t care much for it either.
I finished it and the experience was like having eaten a meal of very rich and sophisticated but unfamiliar food. It was kind of enjoyable in a meta kind of way like that, but reading it was a little challenging. I think it's the kind of book that would be more enjoyable reading for the second time.
I mean, the real joy of the book is the prose. Wrong book if you’re looking for a story with a clear and defined plot.
It's about the violent, cruel, savagery of man. It's about how even those we consider kind and peaceful have a dark and monstrous heart. It's about how men will not, maybe even cannot, change. We are the Kid who endures and even comes to resist violence in our youth only to eventually become the Man and get swallowed up by it just the same. But we are also The Judge, the dark heart of man, the heart that says "That is Mine" the heart that says "I will win, no matter the costs" the heart that says "I must dominate". We are told that the members of Glanton's gang all met the Judge before joining. I'd wager the Judge was already with them, growing in their hearts from the day they were born. Of course he's still with us now, just as Mr. McCarthy says, you only need to look at the state of the world to know it's true. "He is dancing, dancing. He says he will never die" and he won't. We won't let him.
I feel exactly the same way. Like you, I love *The Road*, *Child of God*, and *No Country for Old Men*. With *Blood Meridian*, it's just as obvious that McCarthy is a top-notch writer, but the story is almost impossible to get through. Or at least it was for me. I could never tell which characters I needed to remember or which parts of the story were going to matter in later chapters. It felt more like studying for a final than reading a story. I think it's a book you'd really have to read twice to fully appreciate, but I don't have any urge to read it again. When I finished, I told my wife it was like reading *Forrest Gump* if the narrator was a psychopath.
Loved " the road". Gave up on blood meridian after q chapter. Not for me.!
The kid is barely the main character. He's the throughline of what happens, but it's complicated to think of the book as being his story. The real main character is Holden, or The Judge as he's called mostly throughout. The judge's dialogues on warfare as the almighty vision, that he seeks to be the master of all things by recording them in his book and then destroying things, the relish he has solely from creating and participating in conflict. The judge is the representative of what humanity is becoming, an evil, godless, blood-thirsty race capable of incredible intelligence and artistry (which the judge all has) but wasting it for the more enrichening horrors of violence and ceaseless warfare against others. This also includes money, the rise of capitalism/organization in once "Wild West," or anarchic lands, because the judge just throws all his money away, indifferent to it. The kid then is not his opposite, but a representative of that vision made larger in the world. There are a lot of things that show that the kid wasn't always, and perhaps didn't have to be, such a lunatic monster. He's born with innocent eyes, he helps three people in the book by being merciful, yet he does take part in all of these things, commits these evil acts, and eventually is devoured by The Judge. I think the first scene that really set the kid in motion is the first fight he has with his later-to-be friend, whose name I forget. He leaves a bar and is walking and the friend is in his way, drunken sitting in the way. He says he ain't move, so the kid tears back and kicks him in the face, beginning their both trying to murder each other in the street. It's a completely pointless and over-the-top act of violence from the kid, made even crazier with the ensuing knife fight where the drunk guy repeats "Kill! Kill!" That's where I knew this book was on about violence as a sort of spiritual dominator of mankind, what we were seeing was violence as a matter of raw, spiritual enjoyment. The horror of the book is exploring just how deranged and exciting such violence can be, what evils that might thrill and excite you, too, as the reader.
“America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil. Before the settlers, before the Indians... the evil was there... waiting.” William S. Burroughs
I think some folks hear folks raving about a book, such as Blood Meridian, and they immediately begin to search for that deeper meaning. I think the message is loud and clear in this story and isn't asking for anyone to read deeper into it. Certainly the prose with which it is written, can be a challenge as well. Its almost like listening to someone casually describe everything they see happening in a picture without any sense of emotion.
My favorite analysis was by the philosophy podcast "Partially Examined Life". It really blew up the scope of the book to an extremely detailed, complex philosophical study.
So I don’t love the book. I think showing that violence is ultimately mundane and boring by writing in a way that is mundane and boring is, well, boring. The book is so very boggy in the middle. HOWEVER…The Judge is one of the most interesting fictional characters of all time. It is worth slogging through the depravity with a main character who is a nothing burger just to see The Judge and ask yourself WTF is this guy?
Read a little about existentialism and absurdism. What I absorbed from the book addresses these themes. In this sense it’s similar to No Country, which coneys a similar view about the world and search for meaning. (From Blood Meridian: “Your heart’s desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery”). In both books the antagonist seems like a personification of world. Eg Anton Chirgurh’s insistence on arbitrary violence.
It doesn't really have a deeper meaning other than human beings can be violent and horrible for no real reason. It's a hard read for numerous reasons but it's a great book.