I read Blood Meridian.  I am still reeling.  Blood Meridian was the goriest, most graphic, and most violent book I’ve read since The Painted Bird, by Jerzy Kosinski.  The book jacket’s blurbs and recommendations touted McCarthy’s Americanness.  I could not agree more.  Where Kosinky’s violence and language was all European, one cannot escape the sheer American-ness in this novel.  Despite it being set largely in South America, the American characters and their attitudes permeate the culture they surround.  Largely colonialist in scope and voice, this novel simply shows us things that might have actually happened, and while it’s scary to think that, it seems comforting too because the epic actions of slaughter, death, betrayal and savagery encountered throughout this book are matter of fact and described as simply as is possible without silence.  Somehow, one is able to feel as though the death described in this book is fated and affected no one.  There is an attitude of hopelessness in this book, a resignation that the past occurred this way.

I actually found this novel to remind me of Pynchon a little.  McCarthy’s style is completely different, but the mystery he’s seemingly uncovering in the building of American ideals resembles the fantastic landscapes Pynchon imagines.  In this way, Blood Meridian seems almost historical and accurate; it’s very inviolability and irrationality make it seem real.

I’m not sure I would be ready to read McCarthy again anytime soon, as Blood Meridian was almost overwhelming for me.  I sincerely loved it though, and could not get enough of McCarthy’s writing.  Now that I’ve finished Blood Meridian, I can think about writing in a different way- the grace, terseness and gore that coincide in the language in this book is almost as overwhelming as the action and death.

Posted at 1:36pm and tagged with: Blood Meridan, Cormac McCarthy, book reviews,.