Blood meridian, or, The evening redness in the west.

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Cormac McCarthy: Blood meridian, or, The evening redness in the west. (1989, Picador)

English language

Published April 4, 1989 by Picador.

ISBN:
978-0-330-30449-8
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OCLC Number:
212193872

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4 stars (56 reviews)

An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.

15 editions

Review of 'Meridiano de sangre' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

So you think you're a man? To be considered a real man you have to read Blood Meridian all the way through without once grimacing. I made it halfway before I found myself pulling a face at one scene.

This is quite a philosophical book, full of metaphors, I'm certain I've not fully grasped everything. The main character is "the kid", the weird thing is for a lot of the book he is mainly in the background, a witness for the acts that are happening around him. You then have "The Judge" a 7ft tall, 24 stone, hairless giant....a twisted, perverted, violent Sociopath. At one point the judge makes a pact with Glanton, he is good at everything, he keeps popping up, seemingly stalking the kid...combined with the last scene my theory is he was the devil .

I've enjoyed this book, one of the most violent books I've ever …

Review of 'Meridiano de sangre' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I'm roiled by this book.

This is the most violent book I've ever read. That is a slippery distinction considering the fantastic massacres and planetary destruction that I've sailed through in my reading, but Blood Meridian is about its violence in a way that Star Wars isn't. It indicts all mankind as a product of and producer of brutality, and all civilization as a disguise for that truth.

To read this book and be drawn in by the force of its imagery, to be surrounded by its meticulous vision of historical savagery, is to participate in its nihilism. A part of me feels like I rode along with Glanton and his cursed marauders. This is a book of monsters that made me feel like a monster.

It's far from seamless: the famous prose is hit-or-miss. Sometimes it dragged my mind down a track of horror, like a bad dream. Other …

Review of 'Meridiano de sangre' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This novel is a black hole of violence and misery. The land is cruel and flat and hot or cold and mountainous and cruel. The people are worse.

Cormac writes by showing not telling and he is telling you a very scary horrible story. I can't read things like this often without lightening things up with a Pratchett novel or a Charles Stross. Next I'm reading Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway and it is the perfect antidote.

HIGHLY ENJOYED. Not entirely sure what was going on all the time, but I felt it was me not paying close enough attention.

This is the kind of book that you go look for someone's critical analysis of it afterwards. Like listening to Nick Cave's the Mercy Seat, but as a book.

Review of 'Meridiano de sangre' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I’ve wanted to read another Cormac McCarthy book after enjoying The Road; so after a long time of sitting on my To-Read shelf, I decided it was about time to give Blood Meridian a go. This is probably McCarthy’s most known book; other than the Pulitzer winning The Road. Narrated by a runaway known as the “the kid”, Blood Meridian follows the Glanton gang scalp hunters as they massacred North American tribes. Judge Holden is the main antagonist and is an intelligent man but terrifying which his constant need for conflict and violence.

I often enjoy books aspects from history to make a compelling story; James Ellroy and Hilary Mantel come to mind when thinking of authors that do this well and now Cormac McCarthy. As an author McCarthy is rather brilliant, he knows how to spin an entertaining and intelligent story with wonderful prose’s for a book of intense …

Review of 'Meridiano de sangre' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

I'm gunna be harsh. Why not? McCarthy is. I novel is hanged with the fancy rope so many other reviewers extravagantly embroider for it: monotony, flatness, and one-dimensionality. Hold on there illiterate scum, you say, what about all that blood dripping symbolism (and bold historical perspective). But by the time you'll be done saying that (I'm politely pausing, in fact, to let you finish -- I'm more considerate than McCarthy), your scalp will've been ripped from your head and stuffed, clotted with blood, back in your mouth to choke on until your eyes pop from their sockets like boated exploding mules, shoved from dark, high, mist enshrouded ledges, strewn with coyote bones. Out of time. That is all.

Review of 'Meridiano de sangre' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Perhaps it's because I seem to have entered a sort of apprenticeship period as a writer and everything I read now is bright and new again but I was deeply affected by this novel. Not only were it's themes of violence and identity profound and resonant, but McCarthy's prose style used American English and it's vocabulary in ways I never knew possible. If nothing else, McCarthy shows the power of precise diction. The value of knowing what things are called is overwhelming. I am in awe of this work. Not only will I certainly be revisiting this piece again (you pretty much have to read a novel like this multiple times) but I have a new master to admire and worship.

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