A review by birdybird
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

4.75

While some would (understandably) be put off by the violence in this book, I disagree that the violence is unneeded - it is senseless. Sudden. The purpose of consistently detailing the gore aftermath is to reinforce the senselessness of such. Many of the deaths and desecration of bodies are described in the same heaviness of the changing landscapes. It certainly gets a little *too* slow at times, but I found the slow pace often matches the events that occur throughout the book. McCarthy describes a bloody history that was often ignored in the favor of the romantic ideal of Manifest Destiny. Highlighting that everyone is capable of violence. To me, it wasn’t a coincidence that the most gruesome character in the text was the most intelligent - and his paleness repeatedly described throughout. The ending is haunting. One of the few times where a violent death is not described in so much detail yet it’s because of that is what makes it (and the final scene that follows) leave a pit in my stomach.