A review by stephen_coulon
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Cormac McCarthy’s merciless western that retreads the brutal misdeeds of the notorious Blanton Gang of the Mexican-American old west. This is maybe the most brutal book I’ve ever read, but also strangely beautiful in its violence. The imagery McCarthy captures in his individual scenes is inimitably cinematic; I feel like he’s a visual artist as much as a wordsmith. This book plays out in my head as a series of stark panoramic dioramas, each perfectly, symmetrically composed, every detail in its vivid and perfect place. There’s not a lot to connect to with the novel’s protagonist, who's a reader’s stand-in and relatively static, but the story’s villain Judge Holden has got to be one of the most well drawn pictures of evil in literary history. It occurs to me to compare him to Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. I feel like Chigurh is a lite beer version of Judge Holden’s stout. McCarthy writes a bit beyond his typical spare style in this one, at times some descriptions tend toward tinting purple even, but he never quite crosses the line into pulpy overindulgence. This one will stick with me in a sickening way, a ill burden I’ll be glad to carry along in my literary psyche.