Blood Meridian

First published in 1985, Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece remains as unsettling today as it was on publication. Its infrequently brutal, crude and unemotional depictions of atrocities linger long in the memory. Nonetheless it is an essential novel that aspires to greatness and deals with the weightiest of themes: man’s primordial need for violence.

It tells the story of a young Tennessean known only as the ‘kid’, who is first orphaned and then drawn into a nightmarish world of savagery. He is initially recruited by a gang of filibusters on the U.S.–Mexico border in the 1850s at the time of the Texas-Mexico war. Later, out of luck he then joins the Glanton Gang, a now-infamous band of mercenary scalp-hunters employed by the state of Chihuahua to protect its citizens from rampaging hordes of Apache Indians. Although readily apparent before, it is with Glanton that the primeval lawlessness of the time comes into sharp focus; massacres, rape and pillaging are as common as in the time of the Vikings. As both the whites and the Indians equally partake in the maelstrom, we become aware that this is no ordinary Cowboys and Indians tale.

Among Glanton’s men is the massive, menacing Judge Holden, a hairless, seven-feet tall, twenty-one stone giant who is the apotheosis of bloodthirsty evil. Apparently a historical figure, he is a fine fiddle player, balletic dancer and a polymath capable of holding court on topics as wide-ranging as astrology, philosophy and draughtsmanship. He is also one of the most sinister and memorable characters I have ever encountered; recently voted one of the hundred best characters in all American fiction, he is almost a reason in himself to read the book.

However, one of the things that most impresses throughout the novel is the prose. For, as in all of McCarthy’s books, the type is shorn of any extraneous marks, such as inverted commas or semicolons, and the text is left to speak for itself. And speak it does: the rhythmical, lyrical prose at once evoking Milton and the Bible, the extended descriptions of the sky and landscape evoking Homer’s Greek epics. This allusiveness and ambition never comes over as bombastic, it merely lends the events an importance and grandeur that makes one sit up and take notice.

Indeed, McCarthy does have much to say about the vagaries and violence of our species. Thus, his interweaving of fact and fiction, peppered with a web of allusions, is his own way of lending credence to his views, whilst striving for immortality through fiction. For fans of McCarthy, attracted by his brilliant, The Road: this is an impeccable next stop; for people new to his oeuvre: this is an enchanting, beguiling, hypnotic read. For firm fans of McCarthy: why not have a re-read?