Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

The man finished the book. He closed the pages tightly together then put one foot on the floor then the other then used his hands to push himself up out of the chair and then put one foot in front of the other until he had walked all the way to the book shelf and then put the book on the book shelf. The deer walked in. The man whirled around and fired once with his pistol and the brains of the deer went flying out the back of its head and painted the wall a color dark red like blood. The man sat [...]

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is unquestionably the most violent novel I’ve ever read. It’s also one of the best.For those who would consider that a turn-off, I offer this caveat:For the overwhelming majority of fiction that involves a lot of violence, the violence itself is an act of masturbation representing either the author’s dark impulse or, perhaps worse, pandering to the reader’s similar revenge fantasies (this might explain why the majority of Blood Meridian fans I know pers [...]

Spilledemptiedwrung out…soul-rippedat pretty accurately sums up my emotional composition after finishing this singular work of art. Ironically, I’m sure I only absorbed about 10% of the “message” McCarthy was conveying in this epic exposition on war, violence and man’s affinity for both. Still, even with my imperfect comprehension, I was shaken enough by the experience that, though I finished the book days ago, I’m just now at the point where I can revisit the jumble in my head enoug [...]

Breathless. Unique. Brutal. There are many words that could be used to describe Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. For me, this was my second time through and I liked it far better than my first reading. Judge Holden, John Job Glanton, Toadvine, and the "kid" are all fantastic characters. I shudder to think that the horrors visited upon the Indians and Mexicans and homesteaders were all based on fact. The apocalypse described in The Road is not too far a cry from the hellish country on the US-Me [...]

This is Jane Austen antimatter. Trying to convey how this was so different to anything I've ever read, it occurred to me that it was like a huge black vortex that would suck early nineteenth century marriage plot novels into the void. It's the complete obverse of sweet girlie stuff: no lurve, no irony (I wonder if Cormac McCarthy has a humour mode? If he does, he certainly wasn't in it writing this), no insightful self-discovery or examination of the human heart. No, this is bleak and bloody, go [...]

After reading Blood Meridian, I may never view a western film the same way again. To be certain, it is a masterpiece, a rare and unique work of literature that rises above classification and genre. And to be certain, McCarthy must be viewed as a great American writer, one of the greatest in our time. That having been said, this book is not for everyone; it is painfully brutal, violent at it's heart. McCarthy's primitive writing style emphasizes this primal, bloody landscape like a Jonathon Edwar [...]

There are two ways to evaluate a book, as far as my unlearned mind can concoct at the moment. Stylish literary flourishes sometimes cloud our judgment when it comes to evaluating the plot itself, which is, after all, the reason why the book exists.This book is well written. If I'm a 11th grader, and I need to do a book report, I'm drooling over the blatant symbolism dripping from each page. The scene is set admirably, though the repetitive nature of our brave hero's wanderings (at least it's wit [...]

Ματωμένος Μεσημβρινός ένας συγκλονιστικά λογοτεχνικός εφιάλτης. Ένα χρονικό αφιερωμένο στην απόλυτη αποκτήνωση του ανθρώπου. Μια φρικιαστική ελεγεία για την αληθινή κόλαση σε κάποιον άλλον «πλανήτη» με είδωλα και σφραγίδες απο καμμένη σάρκα και αίμα. Ίσως, να περιγράφετ [...]

Cormac McCarthy's west of absolutes is a wonder to behold. Villainous attacks on people devoid a home, desecration of the west-land, listings of all things in the majestic, transitory landscape like observations by Darwin at the Galapagos in lush (sometimes horrific) detail, murky human psyches, no dialogue, and especially that campfire philosophy by which anyone can find some sort of meaning in their modern lives (especially if you're fortunate enough to inhabit the places which Mr. McCarthy de [...]

The wiki page for 'manifest destiny' has a picture of a painting by John Gast depicting an angelic figure (personification of America) purposefully drifting towards the west, her pristine white robes and blonde curls billowing in the breeze, a book nestled in the crook of her arm. Airborne, she awakens stretches of barren, craggy terrain to the magical touch of modernization. The landscapes she leaves behind are dotted by shipyards and railways and telegraph wires strung on poles but to her left [...]

Quite possibly the most chilling and horrifying book ever written, 'Blood Meridian' is a unnerving glimpse of humanity at its worst during one of the most savage periods in American history. McCarthy pulls back the curtain to reveal the unforgivable evils and trespasses our species made all too often and all too easily in a new world, a novel that shows us the true price we paid in bodies and blood for the expansion of the 'Wild West'. Unlike some of Cormac's other work, 'Blood Meridian' is not [...]

In the old west, a young man falls in with a bad crowd, scalphunters, and the worst of them all, the judge.It's not often when I can't figure out how to summarize a book. Not only does Blood Meridian fall into this category, I'm also struggling with trying to formulate my thoughts about it. I'm sure it's one of those big important books that has themes and things of that nature. It seems apocalyptic at times, with the judge showing the kid the horrors of the world, kind of like the devil and Jes [...]

Brutal and Poetic at the same timeJust changed it to a five star, what the h This book is monumental. Seems like a contradiction, brutal and poetic, but somehow it works. The story is bleak, dark, bloody but also filled with beautiful descriptions of the countryside, the desert, the people in the book. The colorful Judge is some character. Tough book, not sure I took it all in and had to take some breaks during the read. but hey, it's Cormac McCarthya grand writer he is. It was evening of the fo [...]

*Updated, now with an additional McCarthyized section of the Bible, moved up from the comment section.*Here's what I'm thinkinE CORMAC MCCARTHY PROJECTEver since reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I've been considering the possibilities of revisiting the classics and, um, reinterpreting them. Butchering? Yes, you're probably right. Butchering them. That's the right word. Anyway, since Cormac McCarthy has the most distinctive and powerful voice of any modern writer (that I've read recently) [...]

Fuck yeah. This is great. I felt fully absorbed and enclosed in the nightmare. I was scared. McCarthy at his very best commands some black and frightful reserves. To chose from so many scenes: Judge Holden under a ribcage parasol holding the halfwit by a leash, the two shuffling though the sun-bleached desert Golgotha bellowing threats and promises to Kid and Expriest who are hidden, cowering, “prone in the lees of those sour bones like sated scavengers” awaiting “the arrival of the judge [...]

That's so, said the judge. They do not have to have a reason. But order is not set aside because of their indifference.Rugged individualism.There's a whole unholy host of words one could use in reckoning with this, some more explicated than others. Penchants for ideological idiosyncrasies and survival have shaped mine; yours are your own. May the last speaker standing still breath.Ye carry war of a madman's making onto a foreign land. Ye'll wake more than the dogs.History, human, homicide. We ha [...]

Maybe the power of some books is just how horrible they make you feel.McCarty's most beautiful and darkest prose occurs in this book. It is a book that I have had a hard time reading, one that upset me because of its brutality, its sadistic characters, and because of its graphic killings. I would pick it up and put it back down. I just could not make friends with it. But then I would come upon some of the most haunting prose, and I would think, like others have, I want to read it again and again [...]

In Cormac McCarthy's novel The Crossing, McCarthy proves he can write about about the travels of a wolf in a poetic and engaging way. In Blood Meridian McCarthy writes about three or four wolves, calls them humans - those characters he bothers to name at all - and shows that with enough talent and powerful prose, a writer and his work can be called "great" without having to develop a single character in 330 pages.Among those who would be unsatisfied with the mere word "great" and have to go furt [...]

This book has moments of fleeting brilliance, and the last 50 pages of the book are almost flawless. However, there are 280 pages before that you have to read, which consist of, in my opinion, nothing more than barren landscapes, borderline shock-value accounts of depravity, and self-indulgent simile. It's a never-ending journey on the shoulders of quite possibly the most unlikable group of characters I've ever read, which in the hands of a particular writer, may workMcCarthy does NOT pull it of [...]

In David Foster Wallace's posthumous essay collection Both Flesh and Not there's a little piece called "Five Direly Underappreciated US Novels > 1960," and Wallace goes off on paragraph-long defenses of some books he likes - "Bleak but gorgeous," he says of Omensetter's Luck, "like light through ice." But when he gets to Blood Meridian there's just this one line under it:"Dont even ask."Unfortunately everyone did anyway and this book, where you can identify the good guys as the ones who haven [...]

Το βιβλίο αυτό για μένα ανήκει στα καλύτερα λογοτεχνικά δημιουργήματα του 20ου αιώνα Οκ μπορώ να δεχτώ πως στην Ελλάδα δεν είναι πολύ δημοφιλές λόγω της θεματολογίας του (Άγρια δύση και νεότερη ιστορία των Ηνωμένων πολιτειών), όμως ειλικρινά το συγκεκριμένο ανάγνωσμα είναι [...]

Seductively dark, desolate, and violent, Blood Meridian speaks to you on a very primal level. On reading this a second time, I can definitely say that it’s one of my all-time favorites; a stark, bleak, brutal country I’ll be drawn to again and again.

This book has no quotation marks or serial commas. If the above sentence made you clutch your breast and squeal in unabashed terror, you're gonna want to skip everything Cormac McCarthy writes. No use in aggravating yourself. McCarthy is an author's author. While people who do not write could likely marvel at what he manages in this novel, I think those who love and study the craft of writing will receive the most bang for their buck while reading this. For fuck's sake, guys, they teach this boo [...]

What a show-off. I swear, if you were to hand this book to an aspiring artist experiencing a depression-inducing creative block, you may just find yourself with a d.b. on your hands thanks to thoughts like "So wait, this was written by a human being and not an alien?" and "Fuck me!" and "Oh fuck it, I give up." While you'll hear no argument from me that The Road isn't a masterpiece, it is my firm conviction that this'n is even more masterpiece-ier, though far, far darker than The Road is even wi [...]

Cormac McCarthy is on good speaking terms with the dark. Written 30 years ago, Blood Meridian is filled with gorgeous prose, 'a vicious snarl of flies', 'a vomit of gore', 'profound and absolute darkness'. You can see it, almost smell it as you are reading. It is also full and to bursting with indiscriminate killing, butchery, and base cruelty. Know what you are getting into before cracking this one open.It is the mid 1850's, and the Glanton Gang is riding roughshod over the countryside, giving [...]

It seems that almost everybody raves about Blood Meridian and rates it the best novel written by Cormac McCarthy. I had already read three of his books prior to taking on Meridian; I was a fan, and regarded the book with a mixture of excitement and trepidation: excitement, because I had heard so many superlatives about it from other reviews - trepidation, for the exact same reason. It was with such conflicting expectations that I began; from word one the prose wasn't holding me for some reason, [...]

Those who travel desert places do indeed meet with creatures surpassing all description.They’re riding through the mountains, deserts, muddy and dusty pueblos, leaving behind them piles of mutilated and scalped bodies, massacred people and animals as well. They’re killing all who they encounter on their road, no matter, Indians, soldiers, villagers which they were to defend. They leave no witness of their crime and iniquity. Only blood and death behind them, and more blood. They ride like Bi [...]

Reasons to read Blood Meridian:» Friends have told me I should –- friends, no less. And these are people I like; people who have my back (bibliophilisticly speaking).» The prose is like nothing I’ve read before. It’s elaborate, but not fussy. No flourish need apply. And I swear he just makes words up if the standard ones in English seem too refined. The effect is just right for a seared earth adventure. It grew on me.» See if you can tell from the pattern of my recent reads what I was [...]

I love McCarthy's early work. It's much denser, grimmer, and richer than "All the Pretty Horses" and what follows.

I'll be frank right up front: I loved this book. It's a poetic, metaphor-and-symbolism-rich wonder of a novel, and every bit as violent as its reputation states. McCarthy has such a seemingly effortless ability to render forth horrific and beautiful descriptions of everything from sunrises to Indian attacks that it's enough to make one weep with envy. McCarthy certainly gives the lie to the nostalgic romanticizing of the Old West enshrined in American culture; these cowboys 'n Indians aren't fil [...]