Blood Meridian

The book was copyrighted in 1985, Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West is the title; Cormac McCarthy is the author. The events of this Western classic are based upon and derived from happenings of early America, the majority of these happenings concerning the Glanton gang, the Glanton gang being a scalp-hunting crew who wandered the American-Mexican border slaughtering Native Americans or “injins” from 1849 to 1850. Initially the Glanton gang killed for bounty, but they got a taste for blood, which caused cravings that could only be satisfied by extensive and brutal butchering.

These happenings create an important pretext for the story. Throughout the book, you follow the life of a Tennessean boy referred to as “the kid”, the protagonist so to speak. However, the messages and philosophies that are relayed in this book are conveyed mainly through the accounts of certain character called “the judge”. It is the judge’s sadistic, nihilistic, brutal accounts and what follows, that the rest of the story revolves around.

The story begins when the kid runs away from home; during his travels he becomes acquainted with the judge, who he will meet again later in the story. He continues to travel westward until he is recruited into an army to fight Mexicans. Most of the men in the company die and he goes off on his own again only to join another company (the Glanton gang) that included Glanton, the judge, Toadvine, the expriest, and others. The members of this gang raided villages, scalped men, women, and children, got drunk, whacked baby’s heads to the ground holding them by their feet, shot horses, decapitated, slaughtered villagers, Mexicans, and Native Americans, drowned puppies, severed limbs, brought kids along with them just to shoot them later, raped girls and women, robbed travelers, killed travelers, killed cats and goats to test their arms, and so on. The gang disperses after much traveling and murdering. The kid runs again, this time from the judge when he was under the impression that the judge killed his companions. The kid briefly visited jail. Then he rides off again and wanders for a while, when he returns to town, he meets up with the judge for the last time.

The story is narrated with occasional dialogue. In the narrations, almost the entirety of the description in the book is done; the most gruesome proceedings are recounted in the most gruesome detail. McCarthy’s style couldn’t match more perfectly with the genre, time period, and occurrences of the book. He writes simply, stocky sentences. Maybe the grammar isn’t quite right. But it adds to the affect of the story, makes it interesting, fits it. Fits the kind brutal happenins goin on, makes the story real cold. It’s how the Glanton gang would talk, no sympathy, all edge.

McCarthy depicts scenes with elaboration and metaphor, but it’s all in the same style. Some of the vocabulary he uses sounds strange, they aren’t the kind of words you would normally hear, and together they sound even more strange and twisted, but nevertheless, they fit one another and fit the style. Like this he paints very subjective, figurative pictures.

Those who are reading this book should be no one but sharp people who can tolerate gore and like to learn, although, you don’t have to be intelligent to get sucked into the story. Even if you don’t quite understand McCarthy’s writing, why, and how he writes it the way he does, it’s still immediately intriguing enough to keep you turning the pages.

This book…teaches you, it taught me. It was the judge that did most of this teaching. The judge is hairless, not just bald, but he had no hair anywhere on his body; he had no eyelashes, brows, or beard and appeared to be a naked pig. This nameless, strange appearance enhanced his role as a sort of messenger sent from hell or heaven to teach and guide on the matters of humanity, fate, and war. All the mutilation, abandoning, and ruthless wrongdoing proved that humanity revolved around war. That all men are selfish, would kill others, innocent or not, relevant or not, to protect their pride even if what they’re protecting isn’t even worth the body that it inhabits. It was made clear that all men will kill, strive to kill and even if one knew of this destiny and took some opposite path in attempt to escape it, he couldn’t for all opposites are included in that destiny.

At first, I thought this book was a kind of satire that sharply expressed how humanity is futile and that humans are pathologically inhuman. However, it’s not all death and gloom. Simply the recognition of humanity’s declining fate is humane. The fact that someone was able to relay this notion and that I was able to understand it, proves that we are compassionate; we’re able to reverse our transgressions and serves to redeem this seemingly destitute human fate. I learned and I agree. I now know that McCarthy is an artist just as the artists that I know now and have come to revere. They have something in common; they explore method and strive to vindicate humanity, to improve and enhance life and experience. McCarthy has done this; his writing teaches, unlike so many others.

            Those who aspire to gain knowledge, enjoy it and enjoy masterworks, I’m sure will enjoy this.

Cadence Gorman

11/6/13

RATING: ***** 5/5

(A quick specification – all the questions on the rubric are answered, but I sacrificed their placement in their respective paragraphs for the purpose of flow and also so the second paragraph wasn’t four times as long as the third.)