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I must
admit I am a bit wary of reviewing Blood Meridian.
Time magazine placed it in their top 100 American novels
of all-time (and was in the top five in their reader survey).
It was ranked number three of all-time by a New York Times
survey of writers and critics. Cormac McCarthy is regularly
compared, by scholars are critics alike, to Dante, Melville,
Faulkner, and other massive literary heavyweights. How could
I, the humble internet literary critic, possible handle the
quality of writing, literary techniques, and depth of a book
this masterful? While I hesitated to write this review, concerned
about my inability to convey and discuss this work accurately,
I feel I must. While this book is a "classic," not many people
have read it. If I can convince some people to read this book,
with my tiny words strewn about this humble website, and they
go on to enjoy it, I'll have fulfilled the purpose of this
book club.
Blood
Meridian is the tale of "the kid," who enlists to be a
soldier of fortune in 1850. His group, the real life Glanton
Gang, goes on an expedition into Mexico to defend towns from
Native American attackers, whom they scalp. Being a soldier
of fortune requires a bit of moral flexibility which, over
the course of a slowly simmering and deliberate plot, mutates
into outright misanthropic brutality. It's a downward spiral
of depravity that starts midway to the bottom—a tour
of Dante's Hell, with the demons in charge and showing off
their handiwork with the same literary skill and poetic tongue
as Virgil. It's a violent, bleak, and powerful illustration
of what the American Wild West was actually like, and an unflinching
tale of man's warlike nature.
The book
is a hard read. The writing lacks punctuation. The dialogue,
in the interest of historical accuracy, is written in the
vernacular of the type of person who would travel into unknown
territories in order to mutilate people for money that would
later be spent on massive amounts of whiskey and hookers.
Beyond
the simple literal difficulty of the novel, there are other
aspects that make for a hard road. As the company trudges
through the desert, running out of water and food, covered
in dirt and eating their horses, McCarthy's writing conveys
every painful, dehydrated step. It's like the worst car ride
you've ever taken through Wyoming, except you are walking,
freezing to death because you can't light a fire due to possible
Indian attack, and probably have an arrow broken off in your
leg already. The novel is almost beautiful in its bleakness.
The desert trek isn't so much described as it is experienced.
This, along with the novel's slow-burning pace, makes for
a story that seems to lack action; much of the "action" is
late-night campfire talk from the party members. This could
be seen as a flaw by those looking for something a bit more
entertaining, but those who appreciate expertly written literature
will not be disappointed.
The book's
violence also makes it a difficult read. After killing the
Indian tribes they were hired to defend against, the Glanton
Gang simply takes their place. As the narrative wanders around
Northern Mexico, the gang slaughters anyone who gets in their
way, blasting through towns, leaving a wake of blood, scalpings,
child killing, rape, puppy murder (not a joke), and vandalism.
This turn for the worse is spurred on by the nature of violence
begetting violence, but more heavily influenced by the group's
guidance from a man who is possibly one of the most horrific
and larger-than-life characters ever written: Judge Holden.
The first
time Holden is introduced in the novel, he is barging into
a tent-church service. The huge, hairless, demon of a man
charges to the front and accuses the preacher of simply masquerading
as a man of the cloth, having congress with a goat, and raping
a young girl. The crowd turns on the preacher, and soon a
gunfire-heavy riot breaks out. When later asked how Holden
knew of the preacher's crimes, he says, honestly, that he
had never seen the man before in his life. This is quite possibly
the least evil thing he does.
A giant
of a man, a child molester, a murderer, and a complete genius,
Holden enters the band in a vaguely Faustian deal and eventually
has co-control with Glanton himself. The character is so beautifully
rich, one has to assume McCarthy is using Holden as a metaphor
for either the destructive inescapability of "manifest destiny"
and the industrial revolution or simply for the devil himself.
Holden seemingly knows everything, speaks several languages,
plays the violin (though not a gold one, Johnny), is never
seen to sleep, is deeply philosophical, is versed in numerous
sciences, and is seemingly impervious to all ills. Also, it
seems that each man in the gang had some previous run-in with
the Judge before joining the gang, subtly shading him as some
type of omnipresent force. His shadow hangs over every action
in the novel, and he drives the band of killers straight through
the desert like a train on fire.
By the
end of the novel, in thanks to McCarthy's masterful writing,
it is possible to overlook how psychotic the situation has
become. A near-naked, hairless Glanton leads a band of murders
through the lifeless desert, they are carrying the scalps
of dozens of people; the souls of hundreds of victims on their
consciences; and a caged, naked retarded boy covered in feces.
It's madness straight out of a Tom Waits song, and Hannibal
Lecter seems cartoonish in comparison to the unrelenting malice
of Judge Holden. The possibility that he may have been a real
person is absolutely terrifying.
After
this novel has reached its veiled, philosophical, and debated
conclusion—a confrontation between the sociopathic Holden
and the morally conflicted kid—the reader is left with
a beast of a story. While not overly gory, the violence and
ugliness may be off-putting to some. What confuses is that,
for such an ugly story, it is so beautifully and skillfully
written.
Every
chapter of this book is a reminder why McCarthy is ranked
so highly in the pantheon of American authors, and why this
book consistently dominates polls and lists of great literature.
Taken as a whole, this is a leviathan of a book that is worth
the effort to wrestle to the ground.
(May,
2007)
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