Blood Meridian, Or, the Evening Redness in the West

Uno de los mejores libros jamás escritos.

I was 15 years old when I read The Grapes of Wrath. Then I read it again. It was my favorite book for 20 years. Then I read Moby Dick, and read it again, and then a third time. Moby Dick has been my favorite book for the past 15 years. Blood Meridian may well assume the status for the next 15 years. I'll have to read it a second time to know for sure. Blood Meridian is a shocking work of art...more

I was 15 years old when I read The Grapes of Wrath. Then I read it again. It was my favorite book for 20 years. Then I read Moby Dick, and read it again, and then a third time. Moby Dick has been my favorite book for the past 15 years. Blood Meridian may well assume the status for the next 15 years. I'll have to read it a second time to know for sure. Blood Meridian is a shocking work of art and made even more shocking by the fact that it is based on true events, well researched by McCarthy. Be assured that this is not a "cowboys and indians" or an opening of the west novel. There are no protagonists in this book and the victims come in indiscriminate colors, races, sexes and ages. It is a view into a surreal hell made manifest through words which themselves seem to grow tenticles and horns as they are beheld. Cormac McCarthy is more than brilliant in this book. I don't even know what to call him. Beware! To tread on such crimson ground is irremediable. To read such a thing will forever leave you changed.   hide

in which McCarthy gets down to business. i heard they gave him some sort of grant to write this, after he wrote suttree. he settled down in a hotel room in Texas i think to write it. there's not much i can write about the prose within the novel. it pretty much explains itself within the first page. and it takes you where it goes. mccarthy i think was one of those rare cases where a divining rod...more

in which McCarthy gets down to business. i heard they gave him some sort of grant to write this, after he wrote suttree. he settled down in a hotel room in Texas i think to write it. there's not much i can write about the prose within the novel. it pretty much explains itself within the first page. and it takes you where it goes. mccarthy i think was one of those rare cases where a divining rod came down and used him up like a vessel. if a human is capable of writing like this who knows what else he may be capable of. who will take his place once he's gone i wonder.   hide

A lot of carnage, but if you can handle it (symbolically, oh and you should know basic spanish) it is the best book written in last 120 years. Faulkner, Stienbeck, all bow down to McCarthy.

Reading Cormac McCarthy is like driving through the ghetto: harrowing, heart-wrenching, potentially harmful, but at least you don't live there.

This book has no parallel in contemporary English Language Fiction, even if the obvious 'derivative' slur may attack it, as it surely has(of Melville and Faulkner). It starts as a western adventure, possibly a more phantasmagoric take on McCarthy's earlier novels, but by the second page you know this is serious stuff; it doesn't try to be serious and fails, thus becoming...more

This book has no parallel in contemporary English Language Fiction, even if the obvious 'derivative' slur may attack it, as it surely has(of Melville and Faulkner). It starts as a western adventure, possibly a more phantasmagoric take on McCarthy's earlier novels, but by the second page you know this is serious stuff; it doesn't try to be serious and fails, thus becoming transparent; it literally transforms from page to page, utilizing sentences that range from beautifully surreal landscape scenes to wretched naturalist everyday scenes in the early west; from furious Joycean style dialogue to honest conversations. This book touches themes as old as Man and Woman, and the effect is not comforting: discovering, for example, that we do not really not know that much about ourselves; that history is brutal, violent, and humans have the capacity for inflicting pain on others more than any other species. That this history is ignored, or at best, sugarcoated. That civilization is a myth. The expansion west deserved such a work of fiction, and McCarthy rose to the ocassion with brio. Serious contender for being regarded as a 'classic'. The problem is, since it is quite violent, classrooms will probably not stock up so suddenly. f   hide

I now understand why No Country for Old Men and the The Road have been billed Cormac’s most accessible works. If it were not for working backwards in McCarthy’s cannon I would have been utterly lost. The Bad Guy’s and the Chigurh’s of the later two show up in the form of the Judge who if he wasn’t dark enough to put Fonda’s Frank in his place we have a man named Glanton to tip the...more

I now understand why No Country for Old Men and the The Road have been billed Cormac’s most accessible works. If it were not for working backwards in McCarthy’s cannon I would have been utterly lost. The Bad Guy’s and the Chigurh’s of the later two show up in the form of the Judge who if he wasn’t dark enough to put Fonda’s Frank in his place we have a man named Glanton to tip the scales. Blood Meridian is best served with the grit and nightmare found in Clint Eastwoods Unforgiven or HBO’s Deadwood.   hide

By far the most eloquent and beautiful book I have ever read. Also the most violent and depressing. Do not attempt to reconcile this book with your conscience...

simply amazing