Blood Meridian

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy

THE STORY: There isn't one. A youngster runs away from home and spends his life in one nightmare after another. Its McCarthy's masterpiece tho plenty of critics confess they cant read it from start to finish because the violence is constant and over the top, and its frightening. If things can go wrong in the worst way they will and do. There are no heroes only the dead and those not yet dead. Even the dead get sodomized or dug up and eaten by wolves.

The dialog is offensive much of the time. No one has any decency or redeeming virtues. All are corrupt, treacherous, and sinister. The kid is an alcoholic who spends every dime he gets on whisky.

Its carnage from start to finish.

Why is it a masterpiece? The descriptions are the best there ever was. Faulkner was maybe the best till McCarthy wrote this book. Every word is the right word, every action is the best action. No one navel gazes or thinks, everyone acts. Most of the scenes will stay with you forever. Like the scene where all the village kids urinate on prisoners in the jail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cuccco2umo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cHZvDsM7sA

 

[jomar]

I remember it as a whole lot of meandering. Probably need to re-read it as metaphor and see how that works.

The Road didn't deserve a Pulitzer so it was a body of work prize.

Did like No Country For Old Men.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I remember it as a whole lot of meandering. Probably need to re-read it as metaphor and see how that works.

The Road didn't deserve a Pulitzer so it was a body of work prize.

Did like No Country For Old Men.

I didn't care for THE ROAD, either. I don't see the metaphorical quality of BLOOD MERIDIAN. It reminds me of the 50s when young guys made hot rods of Model Ts and Model As. HOT ROD Magazine was my Koran. McCarthy took a bloody enterprise of the 1850s and souped it up. The same things happened across America: Here in Tampa we had the Indian massacres associated with the 3rd Seminole Indian War. Later we had renegade blacks roaming about slaughtering farmers, deputies, and travelers in North Central Florida.