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wobblychairleg 's review for:
Blood Meridian; or, The Evening Redness in the West
by Cormac McCarthy
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I loved this AND hated this. Whoa, this book gave me a reading hangover.
Set in a time period following the Mexican-American War, tension and hostilities are very high. This book is basically a distillation of all the worst parts of toxic masculinity, the unforgiving brutalness of surviving the wild west, plus any destruction and extreme violence man is capable of. This story also strongly pushes against the romanticized idea of “the west” typically portrayed by American media.
I read a lot of horror, but the historical fiction aspect of this makes it feel especially brutal. This book is EXTREMELY disturbing. I cannot get over that so many people I know have read this, given the extreme level of violence and it having EVERY trigger warning under the sun!!
There is way too much to absorb in just a single reading. With so many interesting themes and quotes(and I’m not normally the type to save quotes), I’ll be revisiting and thinking about it for the rest of my life.
I also must add that I was not anticipating this being such a challenge to read. Besides the constant violence, the setting constantly changing made it nearly impossible to follow without a literal map(thank you reddit for the wonderful map). The characters being pretty cryptic and rarely disclosing their emotional or personal thoughts only made everything more difficult. Judge Holden ends up being the character we learn the most about since he blatantly talks about his very dark philosophies. He heavily reminded me of Kurtz from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad mixed with man’s idea of evil/the devil. Having said that, The Judge being the main antagonist is not always obvious since everyone is absolutely awful all the time!
This book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Set in a time period following the Mexican-American War, tension and hostilities are very high. This book is basically a distillation of all the worst parts of toxic masculinity, the unforgiving brutalness of surviving the wild west, plus any destruction and extreme violence man is capable of. This story also strongly pushes against the romanticized idea of “the west” typically portrayed by American media.
I read a lot of horror, but the historical fiction aspect of this makes it feel especially brutal. This book is EXTREMELY disturbing. I cannot get over that so many people I know have read this, given the extreme level of violence and it having EVERY trigger warning under the sun!!
There is way too much to absorb in just a single reading. With so many interesting themes and quotes(and I’m not normally the type to save quotes), I’ll be revisiting and thinking about it for the rest of my life.
I also must add that I was not anticipating this being such a challenge to read. Besides the constant violence, the setting constantly changing made it nearly impossible to follow without a literal map(thank you reddit for the wonderful map). The characters being pretty cryptic and rarely disclosing their emotional or personal thoughts only made everything more difficult. Judge Holden ends up being the character we learn the most about since he blatantly talks about his very dark philosophies. He heavily reminded me of Kurtz from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad mixed with man’s idea of evil/the devil. Having said that, The Judge being the main antagonist is not always obvious since everyone is absolutely awful all the time!
This book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail