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Dan Schwent's Reviews > Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West
Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West
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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 Jesus in the desert.
Cormac McCarthy's prose is simple but powerful. It also feels really smooth, like he barely had to work at it at all to get it on the page. It has an almost Biblical feel to it. Once the kid hooks up with the judge and the Glantons, things get worse and worse, like getting kicked in the crotch by progressively more spiky shoes.
There were a lot of times during my read of Blood Meridian where I had to stop and digest what I just read. It had a dreamlike, or nightmarish, quality a lot of the time. The judge is by far the most memorable character in the piece.
The book really doesn't have much of a plot, just scene after scene of brutal violence. I read a lot of detective stuff but this was one of the most violent books I've ever read. I could only read it for 30-45 minutes at a time before I had to stop and digest.
Lastly, what's with the lack of quotation marks? Was McCarthy sexually assaulted by quotation marks while he was a boy scout?
Four stars, but not for the squeamish. If you have any amount of squeam in you, you'll be squeaming all over the place in no time.
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 Jesus in the desert.
Cormac McCarthy's prose is simple but powerful. It also feels really smooth, like he barely had to work at it at all to get it on the page. It has an almost Biblical feel to it. Once the kid hooks up with the judge and the Glantons, things get worse and worse, like getting kicked in the crotch by progressively more spiky shoes.
There were a lot of times during my read of Blood Meridian where I had to stop and digest what I just read. It had a dreamlike, or nightmarish, quality a lot of the time. The judge is by far the most memorable character in the piece.
The book really doesn't have much of a plot, just scene after scene of brutal violence. I read a lot of detective stuff but this was one of the most violent books I've ever read. I could only read it for 30-45 minutes at a time before I had to stop and digest.
Lastly, what's with the lack of quotation marks? Was McCarthy sexually assaulted by quotation marks while he was a boy scout?
Four stars, but not for the squeamish. If you have any amount of squeam in you, you'll be squeaming all over the place in no time.
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Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West.
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Reading Progress
March 27, 2012
–
Started Reading
March 27, 2012
– Shelved
April 2, 2012
– Shelved as:
2012
April 2, 2012
–
Finished Reading
April 10, 2012
– Shelved as:
homework-from-the-ladies
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Apr 02, 2012 06:25PM
my squeam runneth over, but I still hope to read this
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Hey Dan, Was wondering what you'd think of this. I adore M's The Road, an amazing novel. Also dark, but post apocalyptic rather than historical.
Blood Meridian I was reading during stressful times and had to stop as I kept having the most savage and bloody nightmares.
Definitely an amazing author. I think it likely he worked extremely hard to make it look effortless.
And LOL! I agree with the " " mark lapse. However a number of literary authors are slipping into it, so I've tried to adjust. I do find it really can be confusing at times, though, figuring out speech from narrative.
Strangely, I find I'm a grammar/style holdout despite the trend otherwise. If it makes the work easier to understand, why not?
Good review Dan. This novel is the stuff of nightmares. And its basis is in truth. The Glanton Gang existed and were notorious scalp hunters. They were paid bounties by the Mexican government for Apache scalps. They astutely realized it was pretty hard to tell the difference between an Apache scalp or another tribe member's scalp. I definitely agree that this is one not for the squeamish. I've gone back and begun reading the McCarthy "Southern" quartet. I highly recommend them. They are The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, Child of God, and Suttree. I've read the first two and had to take a break before moving on to "COG." It would probably have been more I could have taken. *nervously laughing*On his lack of quotation marks, he has this to say, during his interview with Oprah Wynfrey:
Of his decision to eschew quotation marks and semicolons, he says, "You shouldn't block the page up with weird little marks. If you write properly, you shouldn't have to punctuate." At the same time, "You really have to be aware that there are no quotation marks to guide people, and write in such a way that it won't be confusing as to who is speaking."
Again, great review.
Mike
I am reading this one this month. I have not liked that much for some reason the road but have hope for this and his border trilogy.
That's really interesting, Mike. Thanks for the added info on the Glanton gang. Fascinating.
Nice review! Reactions:
1) It's so tiresome when Important Books have those themes and such ;)
2) I suspect the quotation marks might be a kind of viral disease, like chickenpox. I suffer from the ellipses variety.
3) I'm definitely squeamish. Which is why I love your reviews far more than the books.
Checkout this fan based movie trailer I have posted on my web page for a while now
Was McCarthy sexually assaulted by quotation marks while he was a boy scout? Fabulous
Thanks for reading, everyone. It was a rough ride but worth the read. I'll be picking up more McCarthy somewhere down the line.
i love "squeaming." great word.
karen wrote: "i love "squeaming." great word."I picture it being a lot like dry-heaving.
totally. c mc c is totally jealous that you coined that word before he could.
He'll use it in a two-hundred word sentence with missing punctuation.
to work "sluicing" in there, too...
Other works of McCarthy? The Road, it is awesome. With some amazingly spectacular writing. Better than the movie, though the movie did an decent job of things, I think, anyway. You can't beat the words on the page, though. Extremely brutally beautiful.
I thought it was a neat trick how the boy just sort of disappeared in the middle of the book. He just became a ubiquitous part of the gang. It makes you wonder just how much he really participated in the atrocities that those scalphunters just loved to commit.
While reading Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy, you may want to see related to it as answered in the alt.usage.english (AUE) Usenet newsgroup. My thanks to the participating AUE members. The focus of my questions was the language: rare words, funny or original expressions, special or strange constructs 鈥� as I saw them, from within my own idiosyncrasies.
Half way through and definitely squeaming all over the place. Very slow going because i need breaks between each squeam.
A person can only handle so many squeams in an evening.
I'm due to read All the Pretty Horses this month and had a quick scan through and noticed the lack of quotation marks. That could be make or break for me! I might need to get the little lady to add them into my copy by hand (fun task ahoy!)
Only if she gets done washing your car first.
Jose Saramago, another master, doesn't use quotatoin marks, either. Must be a slide towards....some elite economical writing. But they are two of my favorites!
I finally finished this book last night and posted my review. Re-reading your review, I see that I agreed with you quite a bit. I kind of wondered about the violence just for the sake of violence until Judge Holden really emerged in the latter portions of the book. I see some similarities with the judge and Anton Chigurh, except that Chigurh is a sort of "cool" villain, whereas I don't see myself liking any part of Judge Holden."Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn."
Disgusting. Yet makes me think too.
I agreed with your rating there was some plot holes but overall a good book
Nice review. This is one of my favorite books. The author's best in my opinion. Humanity can be down right despicable.
