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| Wednesday, April 8, 2009 06:32 PM |
| Book Report - Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West |
 by Fëanor |
The latest stop in my continuing journey through Cormac McCarthy's bibliography is Blood Meridian. It's similar to the other books I've read by him in a lot of ways, especially The Road. Indeed, Blood Meridian's wild American West of the 1850s is frighteningly similar to the post-apocalyptic world of The Road. Both books describe a journey across a lawless wasteland full of violence, death, madness, and misery, a journey that becomes a litany of horrors. The disturbing thing about Blood Meridian is that it's based on a true story.
When we first meet the main character of Blood Meridian - a nameless young man who is referred to at first only as "the kid," and later, in a telling change, as "the man" - he mostly just takes advantage of any kindness showed him and moves on, seeking only to live as well as he's able. The phrase "he'd kill you as soon as look at you" seems to have been created to describe the people in this book, the main character in particular. He lashes out violently at the slightest provocation. But as time goes on, and as we meet more of the other characters of the book, we realize that the kid is actually pretty kind and soft-hearted compared to some. And he changes quite a bit over the course of the story. In fact, about halfway through, he disappears entirely, drifting into the background after joining a cold-blooded gang of killers, led by a man named Glanton. Glanton and the others are hired to kill Indians, but actually simply roam the wilderness taking what they like and killing whomever they please, selling the scalps of the dead as those of Indians even when they're not. During this part of the novel, McCarthy focuses on the gang as a whole rather than on the kid, and on other characters in the gang, especially, and most importantly, a man known as the Judge. The Judge, as you might have guessed from his rather archetypal name, is a mythical, almost Satanic figure, huge and seemingly immortal, wandering the world, examining it, and writing everything down in his little notebook. He wants to show that he can have knowledge of anything and everything, that he can control and have dominance over the world. He often shows his own personal control over himself and over others by randomly killing innocent creatures, like animals or children. His belief is that man's best and only pursuit is war and death. To do violence and to stake one's life in conflict against another is the highest and most honorable thing. War is god, he says.
The kid resurfaces in the later portions of the novel, and the book solidifies into a physical and philosophical conflict between the kid and the Judge. Near the end of the book, the kid meets a young man who is angry and violent and ready to fight over anything. In other words, he's just like the young man the kid once was. Recognizing who he was in the child, the kid becomes "the man," and is referred to as such for the remainder of the book. It's a subtle and powerful transformative moment.
The Judge sees the kid as ultimately flawed because he has a conscience and is disturbed by the acts of mayhem in which he takes part. The kid sees the Judge as a psychopath. He is eager to show he is not afraid of the Judge, but constantly avoids direct conflict with him until the very end of the novel, when they finally face off against one another. This ending sequence is ambiguous, metaphorical, and allegorical, but the most common interpretation is that the Judge has killed the kid, and triumphed.
McCarthy has an enormous vocabulary and is an undeniable master of the use of language. There are many passages in this book that are breathtakingly beautiful, powerful, and thought-provoking. The novel is a meditation on the human experience, especially as it relates to violence and death. It's written at times like a bible or an ancient myth or an allegory - a weighty tome within whose pages the secret of life seems to lie. It's wise and terrible, brutal and uncompromising, beautiful and hideous, stark and lush.
The book is full of a heavy sense of fate and doom. McCarthy doesn't just foreshadow events; he tells you straight out that this character will die in this way so many days or years hence. As the kid and his posse pass through a town, McCarthy reveals that they'll pass through it again in the next couple of days and kill everyone there. At the beginning of each chapter he provides a series of short phrases describing all of the events of that chapter. We know what's going to happen; nothing can change it. It's all written already. Often the events of the story are described as like a play, like theater, like a dance. It's a dark story, full of horror, and it gives us little hope for humanity, even though there are fleeting moments of generosity and kindness here, too. I sometimes wonder if Cormac McCarthy has ever written a happy story, featuring rainbows and unicorns and puppies that don't get strangled and thrown into rivers. I'd like to read that story! His bibliography so far is a little disappointing in its unchanging and unrelenting grimness. But besides the fact that it's depressing, I can find little other fault with this book. It is deeply moving, masterfully written, and very important - which is a word I don't often use to describe a novel, but which I cannot avoid using here. In fact, Blood Meridian is probably one of the most important novels I've ever read, especially in the context of American fiction, but also in the larger context of world fiction. It's definitely worth a read, if you can stomach it. |
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