Book Review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Book: “Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West”
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Not sure why WIX refuses to crop it the way I want. The crop is wrong..fyi
I just read it and I’m left in this strange limbo. It’s such a complex novel, but I really loved it. This isn’t going to be a MFA paper review like some others. I wanted to just share my thoughts right after reading it. With that said, spoilers ahead.
Is it violent? Sure. But what a beautiful way to write that violence. As a woman, there was definitely some parts I wanted to skip, but if you can look beyond that violence and see it for what it truly is, a critique on human brutality, and the way the West truly was, you will undoubtedly appreciate that violence. Personally, I would rather know the truth than the Disney version. I feel like most of Hollywood has always made us think of the western times as this golden era of American history. But when you read this book, you realize, wow this is how it really was.
The West was TERRIFYING. Move over Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid.
His writing is almost like a stream of consciousness prose. You see what he’s thinking when he was writing these things down. You see it all— the way that he was seeing it in his mind. I really appreciated that about his writing. He has his own unique style that I’ve never read before and I really love it. There are few books that have the kinds of quotes that this book offers and it is what makes it a unique timeless classic.
My favorite line is “How these things end. In confusion and curses and blood.” This line in particular almost feels like early foreshadowing on McCarthy’s part. Giving us a clue where things will end. His clues are subtle but if you pay attention a lot is revealed in the last chapter.
And what an end. Wow. Was it his death? Was the kid called a hypocrite by the Judge when Judge was talking about the dancers? The Judge talks about a ritual and a funeral, and when the kid says you are nothing and the judge says that is truer than you’ll ever know (paraphrasing)…It’s a very confusing end.
I think the whole notion that Judge is a representation of the Devil is way too simplistic. It’s possible but it may be the kid’s conscience. I will have to read it again but that is what I am getting. There was never any judge, it can be his own judgement on his life. When someone says, you won’t always have good luck on your side, (again paraphrasing), makes me feel like he has something supernatural about him too. I mean he did get out of getting hanged.
This is one of those books you can easily write a PhD dissertation on and still be left with stuff to write.
I am also one of those people that read it once, and I feel like I only absorbed 10% of what this book really talks about.
I am forever haunted by these images.
What a book. I need to read it again and again. It’s like a puzzle box.
You made me want to read it.
cb