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9780679641049
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"The fulfilled renown of Moby-Dick and of As I Lay Dying is augmented by Blood Meridian, since Cormac McCarthy is the worthy disciple both of Melville and Faulkner," writes esteemed literary scholar Harold Bloom in his Introduction to the Modern Library edition. "I venture that no other living American novelist, not even Pynchon, has given us a book as strong and memorable." Cormac McCarthy's masterwork, Blood Meridian, chronicles the brutal world of the Texas-Mexico borderlands in the mid-nineteenth century. Its wounded hero, the teenage Kid, must confront the extraordinary violence of the Glanton gang, a murderous cadre on an official mission to scalp Indians and sell those scalps. Loosely based on fact, the novel represents a genius vision of the historical West, one so fiercely realized that since its initial publication in 1985 the canon of American literature has welcomed Blood Meridian to its shelf. "A classic American novel of regeneration through violence," declares Michael Herr. "McCarthy can only be compared to our greatest writers."
- Format: Hardcover
- Author: McCarthy, Cormac
- ISBN: 9780679641049
- Condition: New
- Dimensions: 8.51 x 1.01
- Number Of Pages: 384
- Publication Year: 2001
Language:
English
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Epic story of violence in the American West
Sean C. - 1 year 3 months agoConsidered to be Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece, Blood Meridian tells the story of "The Kid," a young man who joins a band of Indian hunters in the pre-Civil War American West. The band of outlaws and miscreants set out to bring back as many Indian scalps as possible, but soon their bloodlust becomes such that they butcher anyone and anything that comes across their path. Blood Meridian is not for the faint of heart. Written in the style of ancient epics such as The Odyssey and Dante's Inferno, McCarthy's trademark hyper-literary prose, restrained dialect-laden dialogue, and dense descriptive passages are on full display. Finishing the novel is a serious endeavor. Blood Meridian is also brutally violent. Barely a page goes by without a murder or maiming, mostly at the behest of The Judge, possibly literature's greatest antagonist. But herein lies the crux of Blood Meridian. McCarthy uses the story of white men disposing of America's indigenous peoples as a tableau for the birth of America, and it is a country birthed in blood. As with all of his novel's, McCarthy's outlook is beyond bleak, and as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that McCarthy believes the United States has remained a country of violent people because violence created the nation. While Blood Meridian is not an easy read, if you are a fan of well-written literary works, and can stomach the savage brutality of the novel's subject matter, then you will relish in this brilliantly conceived and executed book. As a bonus, you can check out a lecture on YouTube by Professor Hungerford from Yale, talking about the correlations between Blood Meridian and Moby Dick. Enjoy!
HPB Staff Review -
A Contemporary Masterpiece
Jordan G. - 2 years 10 months agoThe Texas-Mexico border - 1850s: The beauty of the unexplored West collides with the unforgiving brutality of that landscape and its people in Cormac McCarthy's unimaginably ambitious Blood Meridian. Originally published in 1985, it is McCarthy's undisputed masterpiece and perhaps one of the most important and awe-inspiring works of American fiction from the last century. The prose often alternates between poetic descriptions of the landscape and crude details of violence. This is a difficult book, but a rewarding one. Blood Meridian is a contemporary work of genius that will no doubt be studied and admired as long as people are reading books. So what are you waitin' for hombre?
HPB Staff Review -
Unrelenting and unforgettable.
Matthew F. - 3 years 3 months agoBlood Meridian, a novel grounded in true events, details the murderous Indian-scalping rampage of the Glanton gang across the 1840s American West. Awash with brutality, sprinkled with humor of the blackest sort, it is a dark and difficult read. Following a character known only as The Kid through a hellish landscape of mountain, desert, snow and salt, we experience an unrelenting sequence of massacres, imprisonments and pursuits punctuated only by moments of reflection and ribaldry around the murderers' campfires. McCarthy's lapidary prose scrapes through mud with the knifeman Toadvine, treks over cloudcapped mountains with doomed, gold-laden burros, then sweeps to the distant Pacific where whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea'. A lesser author might have sunk beneath the weight of so much vice and violence, but McCarthy draws beauty from ruin time and again. And over all looms the character of the Judge. Archaeologist, zoologist, anthropologist What exists without my knowledge exists without my consent' the seven-foot, hairless, fiddle-playing Judge Holden must rank as one of literatures most arresting creations. As difficult to summarize as it is to forget, Blood Meridian is a must-read.
HPB Staff Review -
Hyperviolent and surreal western mythos.
Daniel W. - 3 years 9 months agoA surreal, horrifying, and violent novel depicting a roving white band of Indian scalp-hunters in the American Southwest during the 1850s. 'Blood Meridian' is among my favorite novels and includes some of the most memorable characters I've ever encountered, and certainly the most evil in Judge Holden. McCarthy's prose is unrivaled in the history of American literature; describing the most vicious acts with prose beautiful, florid, and lyrical. If you've read his later, more popular novels, such as 'No Country for Old Men' or 'The Road,' you will be shocked to find how radically his prose has changed over the years, from the incredibly verbose 'Blood Meridian' and 'Outer Dark' to the stark and taut 'No Country for Old Men.' 'Blood Meridian' is certainly not for the faint of heart, but if you're looking for a masterpiece of American literature that will tear its way into your heart and sear its nightmarish imagery onto your mind, this one's for you!
HPB Staff Review -
Truly Unique
Keegan A. - 6 years 2 months agoCormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" is an acidic odyssey of a band of mercenaries on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s. It is a philosophical romp that blends Dante's Inferno with a Clint Eastwood western. Utterly unsympathetic, McCarthy describes blasted lava plains with striking apocalyptic prose; a hellish environment in which his characters enact a most violent and depraved trek. Every detail is expertly fitted into the narrative. On the outset, the mercenaries are hired to scalp dangerous Native American bands, but it soon turns into an even darker adventure of greed, lust, and indifference. In the center of this maelstrom is "the kid", a fourteen year old from tennessee that inadvertently takes part in heinous events. Other unforgettable characters are Glanton, the chilling leader of the gang, and "the judge", cultured, intelligent, and an expert psycho-analyst, who believes in "no constant good and therefore no real evil". Death by gruesome violence is instrumental in pushing the novel. "Blood Meridian" is brimming with visceral images of the futility of trying to hold onto order in a world of constant, uncaring change. A novel that would make Nietzsche smile, "Blood Meridian" is a sublime text that does not ask moral questions, it is an observation of man in a post-moral world.
HPB Staff Review