Book Review: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

There are a few books by Cormac McCarthy that have been on my TBR list for a long time, Blood Meridian is one of them. I hope that the others are quite different because I’m not sure this is an experience I want to go through again.

The time and place in which this novel is set is not one that I’m familiar with. If I knew more about the historical context it was set in, I might have more of an appreciation of the story. That’s entirely my failing, though, not the authors. I love history, but I freely admit that my knowledge is limited to my favourite historical eras and events, I’m not as widely read in history as I should be and this period in American and Mexican history is largely unknown to me.

The entire novel mirrors the experience of war. Long stretches of boredom with nothing much happening, punctuated by battles of horrific brutality.

The long stretches between battles mostly occurred in the desert. I suppose my desert vocabulary isn’t that huge, but at times it read like every desert related word in the thesaurus had been plucked out and dropped into a bowl to be mixed around with all the other desert words to make one giant word salad. I get it. We’re in the desert, can we get on with what’s actually happening in the story now?

I’ve become more sensitive to violence I’ve gotten older, but some of the acts committed in this book made me feel physically ill. I’m sure that these atrocities aren’t just fiction either. They actually happened, and worse. That’s what makes them so difficult for me to read. I was upset by the acts of violence that occurred and found it be an unsettling and unpleasant read. Which is the point, I suppose. I’m should to be upset and unsettled by it.

The protagonist is introduced to us in the beginning, and we follow him in the end, but in between, he is largely invisible. Throughout the majority of the book we are following the deeds of other characters that have been introduced, and apart from one small venture, the Kid is hardly ever mentioned. I was never sure who we should be cheering for, how I should feel about these other characters that are the main focus of the middle of the book.  

I understand that the choice to not use punctuation to identify speech is a stylistic choice, but I found it to be frustrating and distracting. Having not read any other works my McCarthy yet, I don’t know if he chooses to do this with all his books, but I sincerely hope not. It makes for difficult reading when you’re unsure of who is speaking and when their words have finished. Coupled with what appears to be a hatred of commas, and it became an effort to read without any real payoff. Just more desert wandering and violence.

I’ll give Cormac McCarthy another shot, I don’t want to discount an author’s entire catalogue just because one novel didn’t click with me, but I won’t be recommending this read to anyone.

2 out of 5 stars.

Blood Meridian meets criteria seven for the 2018 Read Harder Challenge.

Have you read Blood Meridian? Did you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments below!