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2023/70

Reading Blood Meridian is one of my saddest experiences sofar. No sooner had I finished the chapter where one of the main characters isleft completely alone than I knew about Cormac McCarthy's death. I was dumbfoundedat the news, mainly because it is shocking that an author you really admire isnot here anymore, that his death seems to be unexpected in some way that youjust can't believe it. Immediately after knowing the sad news, I decided not topick up any other book, but rather keep reading BloodMeridian until the very end (I had around five chapters left to go,so in the end it was feasible to accomplish what I intended).

It is even sadder that I didn't enjoy the book as much as I thought I would. Iremember a friend of mine saying to me before even starting to read it: eitheryou love it or you hate it, there's no in between. Well, it seems there wasafter all.
So, to make myself clear and share with you my own reading experience, I'lltalk about every aspect of the book separately following my rating scale below,and rather than bore you with all the details, I'll go directly to the point.

My rating on a scale of 1 to 5:

Quality of writing [5/5] This is one ofthe best books ever published in terms of its writing style. BloodMeridian, just as the other McCarthy's books I've also read, isbeautifully and masterfully written. It is mainly a descriptive book, whereevery single sentence, every single word brings the story to life. Thecombination of English-Spanish is also spot on, mostly natural, realistic, and oneof the main elements of his books I truly enjoy reading.

Pace [3/5] The pace was fine, especiallyat the beginning of the book and by the end of it. In the middle I felt it waspretty slow, almost as though every chapter was longer and longer than theprevious one, despite them being actually shorter at times. There were somechapters where there was almost no dialogue, and the descriptions became alittle overwhelming, and at times made me feel exhausted, as if you had to stopreading for many minutes before picking up the book again, unlike my experiencewith All the Pretty Horses, whose pace was pretty normal andthe story mainly straightforward.

Plot development [2.5/5] Here is where mydissatisfaction with this book started. To begin with, I didn't care about thegory stuff, and as a matter of fact, I kind of liked it. When I was a teenagerI used to see horror movies almost every weekend—this for around 5 years sinceI was 14 and wasn't an avid reader, not even by accident—and sometimes a goryhorror film was the usual, commonplace situation during that time. I remember Imostly enjoyed the films I saw, but I knew some of them, nay, most of them wereusually bad movies, with lots of violent scenes, people dying in gruesome ways,and blood everywhere (don't forget the blood). 16-year-old me used to enjoythat stuff a lot, which is a little weird now that I reflect back on it—as oftoday, I haven't been able to finish Terrifier 2, I guess Ijust can't handle gory stuff anymore. So, as I said, the violent scenes inBlood Meridian weren't a problem for me whatsoever. No, theproblem is the story itself, or to put it another way, the lack of it.
When I started reading the book I was so invested in the storyline and thecharacters involved in every chapter; during the first three or four chaptersevery scene seemed to be so memorable and gripping that the only thing I wantedwas to read the next chapter right away, but alas, at some point the more Iread, the less interested and the more bored I was. Not only were the chaptersquite repetitive—the same pattern chapter after chapter, where the onlydifferences were the location and the people who were being killed—but thecharacters also seemed to do the exact same thing, as if... (let's talk aboutthe characters now).

Characters [2/5] As I said the main plotwas quite repetitive, especially in the middle of the book where you can easilypredict what's going to happen by the end of every chapter. Now, the story isnot the main reason why this book didn't become a favorite of mine, but rathera way to put up with the most disappointing part of it: the characters. Whiletyping my review, two weeks after finishing up this novel, I just can't sayanything I liked about the characters. They were soulless, and almost all ofthem were merely witnesses to the events that take place in the novel frombeginning to end. Their development was, to put it mildly, poor and shallow, tothe point that, once you finish the book, you can scarcely remember a fewcharacter names, 'the judge' among them, who is, in my opinion, the onlymemorable character this story has.
Speaking of the judge, his actions were purely vain and evil, and as for hisspeeches, they were quite remarkable and quotable (perhaps the only parts Ihighlighted in the book). Aside from that, he is not the most villainouscharacters I've come across so far, nor is he a character that you'll rememberfor the rest of your life, as someone told me before. He is interesting amongnot so interesting characters. He is an antagonist, and that's his role in thebook; the boy, for instance, his role is to be our eyes as readers, Toadvine,his dependable friend, and so on and so forth.

Enjoyability [3.5/5] Needless to say Ididn't enjoy this novel as much as I wanted. Once a chapter was over, I had tocheck out how many chapters were left to end the story. That's definitely not agood signal.
Unlike my experience with The Road, I wasn't reallyinterested in the descriptions, but rather in the dialogue, which is conciseand at times simple, yet boundless and profound. When the judge speaks youlisten, and maybe you will need to pause the audiobook for a moment, or rather,listen to that section again. Speaking of the audiobook, Richard Poe as alwaysdoes an incredible job in bringing stories to life, and his version ofBlood Meridian is not an exception. Actually, it was hisperformance as a narrator that I enjoyed the most when reading this book, andthat really helped me finish it up.

Insightfulness [4.5/5] I have mentionedthat the dialogue is masterfully written, as well as some descriptions, butit's the story itself where the profoundness of the novel relies on. To witnessthe atrocities McCarthy describes in every chapter is painful to read,especially knowing that such things happened in real life. When I readAll the Pretty Horses and realized that it was set during theMexican Revolution I knew McCarthy would become one of my all-time favoriteauthors. With Blood Meridian, set during the Mexican War,this pattern remains, and I really liked the fact that it feels as if you werevisiting desolate places all the time, where a bleak, gloomy atmosphereprevails, and where everything surrounding the characters looks like chaos anddestruction. Unfortunately, as you already know, this wasn't enough for me totruly love this book.

Easy of reading [3/5] No, it wasn't easyto read. To put it another way, before reading this book I thought I spokeEnglish, but after reading it, I have my doubts. The language is complex, thelength of some sentences made the experience really confusing, sometimes I hadto come back and read a few paragraphs again before keeping up with the story.The audiobook was useful, but at times I was left behind and in order for me tocatch up with the narrator, I had to make another pause, take a deep breath,and read the freaking passage again and even three times if needed (rememberingthis just makes me furious, I know).

Photos/Illustrations [N/A]

All in all, Blood Meridian is a great book, a novel thatwill become a classic in the future—it is already a classic, isn't it?—sadly,it was not for me whatsoever. I'm happy that I read it, that I gave it anopportunity, and that I survived despite my overall experience. Don't ask mewhy but I'm pretty sure my next McCarthy will be an extraordinary journey,perhaps a 5-star experience, and I can't even wait to pick the next one up.McCarthy, this is not a goodbye, but a 'see you around.'

Total [22.5/7] =3.21