tristan23 's review for:

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

4.5

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad 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

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A ghastly masterpiece of unfettered cruelty and violence. The prose itself feels violent and the writing style McCarthy employs to tell his savage tale is nothing but poetic. The numberless archaic words were a joy to read and the unpunctuated dialogue was always staggering and vivid. The reoccurring motif of describing the state of the sky as 'the kid' journeys about the West were always beautifully written and it is one of my favourite parts of the book. Regarding the actual narrative, its a morbid pilgrimage of sin that paints a wild picture in the readers mind of the unrelenting violence of the American West and the unending cruelty that human beings have for each other. Blood Meridian well exceeded its reputation and is indeed a Great American Novel of Old Testament proportions.