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?

Gravity's Rainbow

I recently finished Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 epic, Gravity’s Rainbow, and have been trying to work out how to write about it ever since. Described variously as ‘The postmodern Ulysses’ and one of the finest books of the twentieth century, it is a baffling, beguiling and brilliant read. So much so that Time Magazine have said that “Among American writers of the second half of the 20th century, Pynchon is the undisputed candidate for lasting literary greatness. This book is why.”

I must admit that I was a fan of Pynchon beforehand, as one inevitably must be when attempting to read a 900-page book that contains extended dream sequences, pages of rocket science and more than 400 hundred characters. I can also understand scepticism as feel that whenever one reads a book that is more than 500 pages long, one becomes so engrossed in the act of reading and the characters that it is impossible not to adore the book in question. But, this book is resoundingly different.

In short, it tells the story of Lt. Tyrone Slothrop, an American soldier who finds himself in Blitz-time London, when German V1 and V2 rockets are hailing down on the weary metropolis. After marking all of his sexual conquests on a map of the city, he is noticed by British intelligence, who recognise that his conquests exactly match the sites of rocket attacks. Slothrop is then sucked into an international conspiracy spanning continents where no one can be trusted and everyone is in search of an elusive V2 rocket. Whilst this may not seem like much of a plot, there is a conventional story buried under a phantasmagoric and chaotic mix of styles, digressions, ‘stupid songs’ and surreal scenes.

I would recommend the novel to anyone interested in serious literature and specifically postmodernism as this is, clearly, not a book for everyone. But if you do get your hands on a copy, prepare to be amazed at and entertained by the sheer beauty of the prose and the virtuosity of one of the finest works of possibly the world’s greatest living author.