BLOOD MERIDIAN: BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “violence for violence’s sake” is almost always used as a pejorative. In a successful story, violence is typically used sparingly to accentuate a broader point. The violence itself is rarely the focus but instead, it’s built to be relevant to a larger idea or narrative. Cormac McCarthy’s magnum opus, Blood Meridian, is full of violence for the sake of violence. The story is full of death, depravity, and destruction and it leaves you with a single question: Why?
Blood Meridian tells the story of “the kid” as he travels throughout 1850s Texas with a group of scalpers and bandits collecting money for each scalp they bring to various municipalities across both Mexico and the United States. The story is a catalog of the journey of this gang as we follow along on their bloody conquest. The two leaders of our group are Glanton, a cold killer who ransacks every village they come across, and the judge, a pedophile, and rapist who studies the world and says, “Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.” These two men lead a crusade across the West, terrorizing all, and leaving no town safe.
The judge in Blood Meridian carries a very specific amoral philosophy. He believes that in life, there is no right and wrong, only winners and losers. This same attitude carries through the entirety of the novel. There are very few decisions in the book that are ever explored from a moral perspective by our characters. The few times a moral dilemma comes up, it is always settled with force, then quickly forgotten about. The amorality of our characters’ outlook on life is not reflected in McCarthy’s writing, however. He describes these scenes in such gripping detail that you feel the pain of each victim of violence in your soul.
Strangely, under this system of extreme violence, almost all become equal. Every race hates every other, but the two instances of abject racism within our party in this book, end with the chop of a machete and the shot of a gun respectively. In this world of equals, there is mercy and trust for nobody. Everyone is equally disdained and discarded. Characters die and are never mentioned again, there is no grieving. This takes the fullness completely out of life, reducing the characters to little more than robots at points in the novel.
The apathy all the characters in this book have towards the world makes our setting feel like a living hell. This setting is described in such startling detail that it becomes in itself a character. Paragraphs and paragraphs of the novel are dedicated to describing the scenery of the West. We get to know every detail of the villages the gang pass through. We encounter everyone who lived and died there, every animal, every detail carved into the stone churches. This setting is just as apathetic to the world as our characters; everything exists, then eventually disappears.
Blood Meridian has the power to change how you look at both history and storytelling. The loose narrative structure of the novel, and constantly shifting perspective make it so you can never quite feel comfortable in the world. Something always seems a bit off, and right as you settle into the narrative the world moves from under your feet. This shifting atmosphere is perfect for telling the story of the rocky and violent foundations of the United States and continually reinforces how much we don’t acknowledge the depravity of both humanity and our country.