Author: Cormac McCarthy
Title: Blood Meridian
Publisher: Vintage
Date of Publication: 1985
Source: My good friend Nick told me it had blown his mind. A colleague of his said that Blood Meridian says more about America than any other 20th Century novel. These two comments made me want to pick it up.
Response: I was completely transfixed by this book; so much so that when I was travelling I left it on a bus and I went to a bookstore and bought a brand new copy so I could keep going. Blood Meridian is probably the most violent book I've ever read. It is set in the post-Civil War American southwest, with a decidedly porous Mexican border, when one could make a lot of money scalping Natives and Mexicans. The novel follows a character known as the kid and his travels with a band of scalp hunters. One of the leaders, the judge, seems to take on superhuman qualities of strength, intelligence, knowledge, and brutality. The writing is uniquely spare - characters are as likely to spit as they are to actually say something in dialogue. Days seem to go by with only three or four words passed between these men of evil purpose. It is simply engrossing, but not for someone who is troubled by violent writing - nothing is gratuitous, but it can be quite graphic. McCarthy writes about death as casually as taking a drink of water. It is with purpose, though, because these characters cannot afford to trouble themselves with the implications of their actions. If they did, they would slow down, and if they slowed down, they would die. I wonder if this book says so much about America, what that means for us today?
A Taster: "Glanton rode his horse completely through the first wickiup trampling the occupants underfoot. Figures were scrambling out of the low doorways. The raiders went through the village at full gallop and turned and came back. A warrior stepped into their path and leveled a lance and Glanton shot him dead. Three others ran and he shot the first two with shots so closely executed that they fell together and the third one seemed to be coming apart as he ran, hit by half a dozen pistolballs. Within that first minute the slaughter had become general."
Rating (1-10, 10 being the best book I've ever read): 8.5
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