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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
DNF @ 33%.
The reader arrived motivated but the text was long and punishing and the sentences ran into paragraphs and the punctuation was stubbornly absent and the pages blurred together in a dry mess of style. Whereas The Road was brilliant and made the reader’s heart drop twice across decades, this celebrated and notorious novel was arduous and frustrating and oscillated sharply between blunt violence and searing landscape with little development or direction between. The protagonist lacked interiority and the characters blended together and their actions were inscrutable and base and repetitive and the horses were there and the sun did something to the mountains and the reader couldn’t imagine himself caring about whatever else could possibly happen.
The reader arrived motivated but the text was long and punishing and the sentences ran into paragraphs and the punctuation was stubbornly absent and the pages blurred together in a dry mess of style. Whereas The Road was brilliant and made the reader’s heart drop twice across decades, this celebrated and notorious novel was arduous and frustrating and oscillated sharply between blunt violence and searing landscape with little development or direction between. The protagonist lacked interiority and the characters blended together and their actions were inscrutable and base and repetitive and the horses were there and the sun did something to the mountains and the reader couldn’t imagine himself caring about whatever else could possibly happen.
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
blood meridian is easily one of my favourite things i've ever read. this book is just straight up amazing and it's one of those rare cases where i would actually be thrilled at an adaptation (especially if it is anything like the "no country for old men" adaptation!)
cormac mccarthy uses unbearably long sentences at times, ones that take up half the page, to describe the tedium of the long, brutal journeys the characters face. i really like that, though it made the book difficult to read at times; i found myself stranded halfway through a sentence, not unlike the protagonist shambling through desert wastelands.
the violence is ample in this book, but not gratuitous regardless of how prevalent it becomes. the manner in which the horrors are described are written with such a frankness that it's clear such brutality is not celebrated, nor relished in by the narrator. in fact, i believe that mccarthy's purpose to the violence was to completely desensitize us to it by delivering it to us so matter-of-factly. in blood meridian, violence is just an inevitable facet of life and of manhood. therefore, the characters grow accustomed to it. similarly, readers of blood meridian eventually understand that violence is an inevitable aspect to the book. and consequently, we begin to anticipate it ourselves.
i think it's so well done, i could talk about it for ages, really. i finished this book just as jesse welles released his album "middle", where he quotes the book and mentions it by name in several songs, and it was so fitting and amusing to me that the timing worked out that way.
cormac mccarthy uses unbearably long sentences at times, ones that take up half the page, to describe the tedium of the long, brutal journeys the characters face. i really like that, though it made the book difficult to read at times; i found myself stranded halfway through a sentence, not unlike the protagonist shambling through desert wastelands.
the violence is ample in this book, but not gratuitous regardless of how prevalent it becomes. the manner in which the horrors are described are written with such a frankness that it's clear such brutality is not celebrated, nor relished in by the narrator. in fact, i believe that mccarthy's purpose to the violence was to completely desensitize us to it by delivering it to us so matter-of-factly. in blood meridian, violence is just an inevitable facet of life and of manhood. therefore, the characters grow accustomed to it. similarly, readers of blood meridian eventually understand that violence is an inevitable aspect to the book. and consequently, we begin to anticipate it ourselves.
i think it's so well done, i could talk about it for ages, really. i finished this book just as jesse welles released his album "middle", where he quotes the book and mentions it by name in several songs, and it was so fitting and amusing to me that the timing worked out that way.
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Genocide, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, War
Minor: Excrement
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
I was so let down by this book. It felt disjointed and repetitive and the only parts I enjoyed were the descriptions of the scenery. The characters aren't just unlikable but they're also painfully similar to each other which ends up just being boring.
After reading "The Road" and hearing people talk about this book as though it's some work of art my hopes were so high. Unfortunately it didn't elicit any kind of response from me. The scenes were dark and disturbing but ultimately the same.
I could summarise it in a series of repeating bullet points:
-Main characters arrive at a destination
-Slaughter and blood bath
-Camp fire scene
-Beautiful descriptions of their travel to the next place
That's it. That's the whole book. And the formatting is a nightmare.
Maybe my expectations were set too high but I genuinely don't get the appeal of this.
After reading "The Road" and hearing people talk about this book as though it's some work of art my hopes were so high. Unfortunately it didn't elicit any kind of response from me. The scenes were dark and disturbing but ultimately the same.
I could summarise it in a series of repeating bullet points:
-Main characters arrive at a destination
-Slaughter and blood bath
-Camp fire scene
-Beautiful descriptions of their travel to the next place
That's it. That's the whole book. And the formatting is a nightmare.
Maybe my expectations were set too high but I genuinely don't get the appeal of this.
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
AGHHH! FINALLY!
I don't think I could tell you, at least in detail, a single thing that happened in this book. It's all a bunch of... words... so many words, yet nothing happens! Knowing McCarthy had some sort of adversity to quotation marks, I listened to the audiobook... which essentially just became background noise in my quest just to slog through the damn thing. I was NOT sinking in all those hours just to DNF it!
I SHOULD have learned my lesson with The Road, but NOOOOO. I hear this book is SO disturbing, so I'm naturally drawn to it. The only thing I felt was disturbing about this book was how boring and nondescript it was. McCarthy had a knack for describing a half sentence action in two pages.
Now, I'm going to read chapter summaries. Hopefully, those will be more entertaining and will let me know what the actual fuck went on.
I don't think I could tell you, at least in detail, a single thing that happened in this book. It's all a bunch of... words... so many words, yet nothing happens! Knowing McCarthy had some sort of adversity to quotation marks, I listened to the audiobook... which essentially just became background noise in my quest just to slog through the damn thing. I was NOT sinking in all those hours just to DNF it!
I SHOULD have learned my lesson with The Road, but NOOOOO. I hear this book is SO disturbing, so I'm naturally drawn to it. The only thing I felt was disturbing about this book was how boring and nondescript it was. McCarthy had a knack for describing a half sentence action in two pages.
Now, I'm going to read chapter summaries. Hopefully, those will be more entertaining and will let me know what the actual fuck went on.
dark
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No