Good article, well written. Allow me to be the first to disagree though. I found Blood Meridian to be an exceptional, if challenging, read. It is a novel closer to a poem or painting than a straight literaturary exercise. The violence is difficult but as with American Psycho it becomes interwoven with the whole feel of the novel, the readers eventual indifference to it reflects positively on the overall setting and desperatly brutal feel that McCarthy was trying to build.I personally think it is a masterpiece.

No. It's ace.

Sociopaths can't relate. That's the whole point. By historical accounts the Glanton Gand did exactly what you're accusing McCarthy of doing - reveling in needless violence. It'd be odd to write or read a story about a bunch of scalp hunters and then expect the gore to be low key. Judge Holden is one of the best bad guys I've read in any book, ever, and the kid, in my opinion, is meant to be a blank slate. Later, towards the end of the story he becomes a bit more human, but even then, it never felt that the reader was meant to understand the Kid on a more intimate level. The violence is kind of the point of the novel. I think McCarthy purposely wanted to eschew the notions of the white 'Hero of the West' and depict these archetypal gunslingers in a colder light of day - as greedy, blood-thirsty nutters who killed for pleasure. As for the long sentences, I didn't find them such a trial. Ulysses and The Rotters' Club piss all over 245 words. Obviously it's all a matter of opinion, but "unnecessarily long" sentences seems to be a bit of a lame critique.

Never been a fan of Blood Meridian, but the prose as quoted stands up well against your insipid, sub-A level, everybloke crit.

Not read it and from your review I probably won't, good article nevertheless, thank you. @Joe - He's written a review not a complimentary short story, get a grip.

You are wrong. This book is brilliant.

Bob, shouldn't that be complementary? I'm not asking that he write like McCarthy, just someone who's fit to wipe the man's crack, given it's the quality of the writing that is under discussion

"I wish that this was the only example of an unnecessarily long exercise in creative writing, but the book is littered with descriptions like this on every other page. It gets quite trying, and is quickly rendered redundant by its own pomposity." You just don't get it, do you?

shithouse

I appreciate any constructive criticism and feedback about my writing. As an emerging writer, I am still trying to find my voice. Comments like Joe’s aren’t useful as they only serve to undermine and belittle rather than provide anything meaningful or useful, and it makes you come across as a bit twatty. I usually write about video games and music, and this is the fourth book review I’ve ever written. I’ve never studied literature, and nor do I claim to have. I enjoy literature, and this is a book that I didn’t enjoy but felt compelled to write about.

Hey Joe write us a review pal

"Why Shakespeare's Othello was a wanker"

@Joe - 'Complementary', you are quite correct. To quote Mother Teresa of Calcutta "Oh, fucking dog's cock". I stand both humbled and corrected.

Looking forward to your future pieces, like Why Radiohead are the most overrated band on planet Earth and Why o2 exchange is the most overrated lung function

You sir are wrong. Blood Meridian is one of the best, and historically acurate, western novels out there. In my opinion, it is not McArthy's best - try Child of God and/or Outer Dark

I agree. I stopped reading about a third in, simply fed up with it. Totally agree with you about his depictions of men and of violence. I liked his border trilogy though(especially all the pretty horses) - just couldn't get with this, or the road for that matter.

Joe, you sound like Brian fucking Sewell.

Tackling Blood Meridian as a fourth review is no mean feat, so hats off for that, but I don't think Joe is completely wrong. The critique seems to essentially be on what the book is about, and a secondary complaint on how it uses drawn out descriptions needlessly. This strikes me as odd because it's the evocation of landscapes that are seen as a redeeming feature. Surely CM employed similarly structured prose to the one quoted for that positive aspect, too? Moreover, the book doesn't pretend to be anything other than a violent, very descriptive depiction of overly macho characters doing very bad things. With that in mind, it all seems more about the answering of a question of personal taste, which is fair enough, but it wouldn’t be a review that would turn me off reading it at had I not done so. To say comments like Joe's aren't useful is a moot point. People will comment of what each other write and will inevitably disagree in any way they see fit. Taking snipes at what you’ve written is par for the course. By calling the ‘offender’ “twatty”, it kind of reduces you to their level, and undermines the very ambitious task of reviewing a much vaunted work. Then, to profess one hasn't studied literature having employed the supposed misuse of cumulative syntax as a reason for calling BM "the most overrated novel of the 20th Century", does makes it all seem a bit flawed.

Never trust a writer who uses 'quite," let alone a writer show uses it a handful of times.

I read this article from a prejudiced perspective: I knew instantly that I wouldn’t agree with the writer’s viewpoint, but hey, I can be persuaded occasionally. Someone commented that this piece was ‘well written’ and I somewhat agree. However, the writer’s inclusion of the sentence that ‘took the piss’ only served to show his own writing failings. McCarthy writes with a severe disregard for the rules of punctuation, allowing for flow and meter and trope to roll from the tongue. This article - surrounding 245 words of genius - was cluttered and stunted with comma overuse and ‘look! I know how to use a semi colon’ signs. He could have chosen any long sentence from Blood Meridian to prove his point. Instead, he chose the one that didn’t. He sarcastically told us to breathe: I gasped.

Hate to be the first to say "you didn't get it" because I certainly don't "get" Blood Meridian after only 4 read throughs, but you shouldn't expect to relate to characters in BM. The only real character is the omnipotent narrator and its manifestation in Judge Holden.

I just... fuck it. fuck it all. i give up.

Sir, you are incorrect. And I dare say, a dickhead as well.

Stick to reviewing the video games friend, they'll be more suited to your cognitive ability.

You'll not fool me with this pseudonym, Nicholas Sparks!

"but 245 words is unnecessarily long for a sentence" yes it is. 244 would have been so much better. yes, the violence is like video game violence. yes, you have been aware of this book for years and no doubt it has been aware of you like a pretty girl at your local youth club disco watching you wander around in ever decreasing circles before you pounce, bring her home and realise you have no cock to intercourse her. yes, its sickeningly macho. I too ached for Strictly Dancing scenes or X Factor dramas. I too lamented this hard world Mr McCarthy has created. I too love cumulative syntax if done properly instead of the way that Mr McCarthy uses it to show the spilling out into the world of existence the essence of our being here and the violence that begets us from cradle to grave while the winds of war rage all around us in a free for all by here comes everyone as we slaughter each other's mortality but i digress i would have preferred brevity from Mr McCarthy. Perhaps I am being unfair. Perhaps not. Dear Reader If you are a reader and love literature then take this book and bleed your eyes out for a few hours and leave this child alone. PS I think your editor is trying to getting rid of you by inducing professional suicide. Best of luck. I'll stop laughing now.

I completely agree with you. I read the road and was completely floored by it's darkness. It was so very awesome. I then looked to find that this particular book was listed as one of the greatest books of all time. So I bought it on amazon and it was sooooo fucking boooring! I could give less a shit about these characters after page 30 and kept thinking when the hell is Cormac gonna give me a reason to? I think anyone that raves about this book is probably a pretentious prick who drinks coffee at starbucks and bores the shit out of people with meaningless details of their own life while the listening party keeps trying to interject and leave politely...but this fucking guy keeps talking about shit that nobody cares about because to himeach and every word is pure gold and there's really no value that embraces dynamic. This book lacked just that..I've heard the last 50 pages are stellar and I've started reading them..so far so good..but the reast of the book is just so fucking drab I wanted to punch myself repeatedly in the scrotum to feel something. This book lacked emotion and seemed Cormac just wrote it off the top of his head as if he meant to edit it at one point but it would have ended up being to short so he said..to hell with it, I'm just gonna throw everything in there cause I'm that fucking special. Well You're not dude, I know it's been thirty years but you need to go back and edit all the fluffy shit out of this 'masterpiece'' and then it might actually be as good as everyone says it is. Other than that there are better books that deserve the type of recognition and praise this one recieved.

Yeah- your opinion is available but clearly it s wrong

To claim that the kid's father is from Texas not only betrays a failure to read the first page of the novel, but also an egregious failure to grasp the historical context of the landscape that you claimed to enjoy. I do agree, however, that cm's apparent effort to seem "literary" with this one (perhaps under the pressure of living off of his MacArthur grant) is fair game to be labeled off-putting. Would you say the same, however, of Moby Dick? Paradise Lost? Inferno? Likely not, if only because they are initiated into the pantheon of classic literature. Many esteemed critics (NOT just Bloom, though a google search may give that impression) have suggested that Blood Meridian bears comparison to these works, so perhaps, in attempting to tell us that the book IS literature, McCarthy has overwhelmingly succeeded.

I'm about 2/3rds through this novel. It was recommended to me by my nephew who told me it was his all-time favorite book. He is a freaking genius and grad student at Reed College in Portland. I read all the time and love it, everyday. I'm not like a lot of you guys that are experts on the classics and all but I still love reading, stuff like Asimov, King, Tolkien etc. Anyway, I tend to agree with Jon. We have access to no ones feelings in this book, just mindless violence and long sentences that go on with vague references to more fog! The Judge is the only character that we have some kind of insight to. Even though he is a crazed insane killer, he is educated and likes to document different species. I have to have a dictionary and a Spanish to English translator site handy to know what he is writing about. I am going to finish this book and may try "No country for old men", I loved the movie! I am going to recommend a couple of writers to my nephew, since he seems to like raw honest themes. I will tell him to check out "Ask the Dust", John Fante and Factotum, Buckowski. Hank

Well, I finished the book tonight and I can say that I'm glad I did! I'm not going to leave a spoiler:) I'm still kind of spaced... So, what's the next book should I order from amazon? It seems like there are many to choose from. This was my first but like I said, I liked the movie, "no country for old men". I guess no one even checks this blog anymore so this is probably in vain:) Hank

Your an idiot, fuck yourself and die

I wasn't going to remark on this piece but, having read the previous comment, I now have to ask, what sort of person names their child Eat? I appreciate that if your surname is Shit it must be hard to select a Christian name that sits well, but there must be many better options than Eat.

The most overrated novel of the twentieth century? Bit bold, isn't it? How do you feel about Finnegans Wake?

The fact that we gain no access to individuals psychologies in the novel is part of the point. At the text's core is a philosophical argument that 'history is written by the winners', and that in history ACTION is all that matters. Action i.e. what people do, not what they think or even what they say. Hence all the significant plot points and practically all of the character's actions are historically viable in one way or another. Psychology is not necessary in our world, a world where man versus man, in war and conflict (a symptom of which is violence) is all that matters. The only thing of import, to a divine extent, is that one man can or cannot beat the next. Which is why Judge Holden says: War Is God. Also, the middle third of the novel is a purgatorial, torturous journey through the desert. It is a tough read. Even I lost interest there- and this is my favourite novel. But you have to push through. The first third, and the last third of this novel are incredible, and justify the nightmarishly long middle. I totally disagree with you Jon; but I sympathise. It's one of those novels that on a first, surface-level read seems pretty unecessary. But it's also one of those novels that, if you do the tiniest bit of digging into the theory behind it, you'll turn up solid gold two inches down. Check out John Emil Sepich's book "Notes On" about it. It's revelatory. (For example, Judge Holden was a real person! Who is described in a witness account exactly as he is in this book!) Yeah, I just wrote a dissertation on this thing.

Agreed, i was so disappointed after all the hype i have heard. NCFOM was a very good book, this was just boring.

Blood Meridian is overwhelming, the prose stark and arcane, the characters mostly poppets for the murder that takes place in it. The sentence you quote, and the scene it comes from, is one of my favorite parts of the book. The Apaches swarming down on the Glanton Gang seemingly out of nowhere. You could break it up and add some periods here and there--but then the sense of crush and the swarming of the Apaches would be lost. It's a damn difficult book and to be honest, I was kind of swimming from around page 100 to the ending passages--it becomes a wash of landscape and murder--but that's largely the point. The book is basically a study of the grinding, mind-boggling remorselessness of the 'settling' of the West.

Well, I think most people will agree with Shedlock, this was "a tough read" I still liked it. I had 2 favorite parts. The first was when the judge made the black powder and saved all of them. The second was when the kid drew the short straw and couldn't do it. I wished the end was the opposite but I knew that would never pass! I also want to thank Dave Lee for his comment. I may be an idiot but we all die, eventually.

Good article although I can't agree, one of the most brutal, shocking books I've ever read. Terrible sentence to pick as an example though, a bit like saying 'I hate the Beatles', then playing 'Tomorrow Never Knows' as the reason why. If anyone who hasn't read the book isn't the least bit intrigued after reading that sentence I'd be amazed.

I agree wholeheartedly with Fabian. "I'm just gonna throw everything in there cause I'm that fucking special." Yup.

Dang it! I omitted the most important part of Fabian's remark: "Well You're not dude, I know it's been thirty years but you need to go back and edit all the fluffy shit out of this 'masterpiece'' and then it might actually be as good as everyone says it is." I also very much appreciated your appraisal of BM, Mr. Cronshaw! Thanks.

The author of this article deserves top be scalped!

This whole article is a troll attempt to summon Judge Holden.

I realized this review was a waste of time once it became apparent that the reviewer believes the kid is from Texas. He's a Kentuckian, which us significant not only in the context of the book but also in the greater context of McCarthy's work up to that point. As it turned out, further reading proved the article to be evidence of a complete misunderstanding of the subject. (The kid spent forty-odd days on a riverboat going...where? Cancun?) Hopefully the author used a pseudonym.

Since first reading Blood Meridian ten years ago I've read it at least a half-dozen times and it gets better with each visit, but it still can't match Suttree, my favourite McCarthy novel.

Since first reading it ten years ago I've read Blood Meridian at least a half-dozen times, but, as good as it is, it's nowhere near as good as my favourite McCarthy novel, Suttree.

Bullshit. That 245 word sentence is one of the most evocative I have ever read. I saw that heathen horde bearing down upon me and shat my pants. And I wasn't even high.

Well written, good-hearted review, though I disagree with you like crazy. First, I think it's appalling that you, kind of, claim to know how a book should be written. Not overly long sentences, not too distant, and not too violent. Second point you make is almost correct, because I agree that there are sentences (thoug only a few) that come close to muscle-flexing, but you 'prove' that point by quoting possibly the best sentence in the whole book, and the best proof that long sentences can work. You had your proof making a point against yours. But the thing that really got me going was the claim that it wasn't well written. I read it, then read it again, then read it again, then let Google Translate make something of it (being Dutch i thought my english isn't that bad, but you try what you can) and then read it again. I mean, seriously? And at the end we agree, that there's no-one around who is better at describing the landscape in which the story takes place. But on the whole, nice article (more an opinion-piece than a review i think, for its non-conformist 'look at me being the only one disagreeing with you all'-title and content. I only wish it would make more sense.

Mr Cronshaw -- you, sir, are a cretin! There, succinct enough for you?!

Come on .................you totally missed the boat here......Blood Meridian is the best novel written since 1960

Come on you- totally missed the boat here...Blood Meridian is the best novel written since 1960

The comment section for this article is hilarious. Everyone is just trying to write very formally and it's really awkward. WRITING Like AN ENGLISH TEACHER DOESN'T MAKE YOUR OPINION ANY MORE IMPORTANT/VALID. This is the internet.

Thanks for reminding us of that by this lazy off-topic comment. Why are you here? There are so many comment sections. This is the internet.

So the Kid doesn't share his feelings with you. And your conclusion is that there are none there? That CM deliberately created a cipher? If you're going to read literature, you must expect to do a little work. To sum up a character as "dickhead" is feckless laziness.

read this book about 5 years ago, thought it was nothing special. re-read it over the last week, absolutely blown away, cant understand how i missed it the first time around.

You comment about the bleakness of the landscape and the care with which McCarthy describes it. The landscape is a character in this novel. It is a void in which dead things wander, in this case The Kid and the Glanton Gang. These men are in hell. Judge Holden is in many ways Satan. He is strangely beautiful of mind, an artist, a man with an education and the ability to know better, who instead embraces darkness. He is a manipulator, he is a leader... yet, he acts as if he is just another follower. In short, he is a deceiver. There is so much depth to this novel. Hell is a place of suffering and violence and so too was this environment. There aren't "good guys" in hell. These guys are all "dick heads" (a simplistic notion that betrays any notion that you are a deep thinker) because they're all flawed, evil and damned. The victims within this novel are all two dimensional caricatures of humanity. The violence against them is numbing. McCarthy doesn't bludgeon you with violence for the sake of shocking you, he does it in order that you become as numb to it as the men who are committing these acts. Putting things rather simply, you failed to grasp the point of this novel. You obviously did not plunge any depths, you simply swam the surface. This is tough read, it isn't something to pass some time while you're at the airport.

You wrote 'pointing towards some prophetic fallacy' at the end of the third last paragraph of your review. I think you meant 'pathetic fallacy'.

The Kid's father lives in Tennessee. You're not a very intelligent person.

After every paragraph of this review, I found myself thinking, "But that's the POINT!" They were supposed to all be sociopaths. They were supposed to all be macho men. It was supposed to be hard to read. You were supposed to become desensitized to the violence. If anything, this review proves that McCarthy did accomplish exactly what he set out to.

this is a hilarious review, though i'm sure that was not your intent. and to think that this was written fairly recently... you are a joke of a writer, and your skills of literary review are poor.

Ed's comment - Best comment by far and sums up the entire experience of reading this book. Kudos Ed

Whoops. You're wrong.

I remember when I read my first... The Kid is obviously written as an "anti-hero" protagonist and done so quite well.

I've always been of the opinion that lazy readers and idealists shouldn't read Blood Meridian. This article is a brilliant example of that.

Did you even finish the book? Get to the 'god is war' speech? The violence is the entire point of the book. And no, the kid is not a protagonist, he's meant to be a blank slate you cast your own values on. Like a documentary film camera you look through. Yes the ending is a bit 50/50, but the journey is amazing. You have absolutely, thoroughly misunderstood the entire point of the book - so much so I have to assume you are perhaps trolling?

I'm not much of a reader - doubt if I've read a dozen books cover-to-cover in my 60-year lifetime, but after reading Blood Meridian, I picked up every title ever written by McCarthy, and I've consumed them all like an opiate - slow, soothing, narcotic. I don't personally find his use of violence to be excessive or 'gratuitous', although I can see how some might, especially if they're not in the right (desert southwest) mindset beforehand. One has to look beyond McCarthy and his writings to the times themselves depicted in this novel (ca. 1840-1890). A lion's share of the story unfolds within the boundaries of the vast geographic empire known as "Comancheria", where tribal violence inflicted by men upon other men, women and children can exhaust the imagination. But it clearly wasn't overblown by history or drama simply for drama's sake - it wasn't a myth. It was a lawless environment in a lawless time, and unlike the spectrum of tiny, multi-colored little bars used to depict military achievements in our present-day culture, human scalps displayed across a warrior's pony at the time, were a direct and undisputed badge of fearlessness and proficiency at violence. Some here have said that 'violence' itself seems to be the very point of this great McCarthy novel, and I think that McCarthy himself has more or less agreed, but then, how could it be otherwise, when violence was at the very heart of one's daily existence in those times. It was simply inescapable. As McCarthy himself states . . . for some, the most violent of all acts (death itself) probably came as a relief. Some Suggested Readings: Lone Star: A History of Texas and Texans by T.R. Fehrenbach Comanches: The Destruction of a People also by T.R. Fehrenbach. Comanche Empire by Pekka Hamalainen

OR, perhaps you're just a pleb who regards twilight as high literature and can't stand anything being the slightest unpleasant. The Catcher in The Rye was about a dickhead too and it was bloody fantastic, a likeable protagonist is never a requirement

I'm with Joe. Blood Meridian is one of the great modern american novels, your review fails to get to grips with the book on any level. If you accuse McCarthy of being "puerile and adolescent" and then describe the protagonist of his novel as a "dickhead" you run the risk of coming over as a bit dickhead-y yourself.

"Perhaps I’m being unfair to Blood Meridian, and I’m sure people will tell me that I didn’t get it, or that it should be read metaphorically." I can't imagine why anyone would tell you that you "should" read Blood Meridian as metaphorical, it's a literal example of the actual genocide that was visited upon the Indians in the old west. Do you think anyone "should" view the Jewish holocaust as metaphorical? Also, on a much less serious note, it's a bit unfair to pick out the longest sentence (by far) in the novel and then claim that the book is "littered" with similar sentences on "every other page", which is demonstrably untrue...

This book kicks burro. End of discussion. The language is challenging, so be it, just another reason to return to the book and read it again. So many layers, so epic. Those who haven`t read it have a lot to look forward to. Enjoy.

what is this, a high school book report?

Is this a critique from a guy who's only done 4 of these total, or just an op-ed piece? I think we can all agree that you've got every right to not like a book, but...the epic journey of a dickhead? Fuck man, you missed the whole thing. If you hated it THAT bad, you could've stopped ya know? It's not like we'd all be out here missing your "review" Just sayin.

It is amazing how many people who write on the internet cannot actually read. Blood Meridian is a unique book which will be remembered for all time; this article will only live on in the feeble mind of its author ...

Too macho? That's the most tone deaf thing you'll ever write. If any of the characters were less macho, they'd be dead. The book is a realistic portrayal of the gruesome madness that was the America West. It was a lawless wasteland filled with macho lunatics and rightfully terrified women. McCarthy documents the absolute worst of it. You don't have an emerging voice, you're just another hack kid out of his depth and still bleating on. Hit the library or just quit now.

molly nailed it. the problems you found were the entire the point. the "kid" is a dickhead but that's the point, but he is guileless in his violence. his violence is one of necessity, not design, like the Judge's. In the end the kid almost renounces what he once was and rebukes the Judge and pays the price.

If you find the pervasive horror and violence in blood meridian cartoonish or desensitizing or pornographic you've missed the point completely. "To try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man`s will or whether his own heart is another kind of clay" is kind of the running question throughout the book and its on the first couple pages. christ, man.

Mr. Cronshaw Maybe if you went to the mccarthy home page, not of his making, and read some of the in-depth appraisals of Blood Meridian, some of it's historical fact, it may give you a keener sense of what mccarthy is trying to get at. In my look, Blood Meridian is not only a novel based on historical facts, but is also a work that can cleanly be said to be straight up revisionist history. This is not the west that hollywood gave us. For another startling look into this time, read the revisionist history of the Comanche Indian, aptly titled Comanche Empire. It's fascinating and it is not a novel. Larry McMurtry was somewhat stunned after he read it and as Augustus McCray said in Lonesome Dove, he knew he was lucky to have made it out of south Texas alive. Good luck and I hope you give it another shot. ps, excuse my spelling, please. I can't spell for shite.

1.You don't understand this book. 2.You can't write for shit. 3.If you don't understand something, don't try to review it. Blood Meridian is the best book I have ever read.

I can understand why someone may not enjoy this book. It happens to be my favorite but it's gnarley as hell. I read it twice...the second time was much better. To say that its the "most overrated novel of the 20th century" is insane!!!! So many good parts in this story...the ferry, the guy with the fucked up arm, black jackson getting white jackson, the gun powder, and the ending!!?? such a good book. I DISAGREE but good talk. And child of god is amazing to, as well as outerdark

It's tough to stand up and articulate your own feelings about something, particularly when faced with the prospect of being unnecessarily vilified by people who never had the confidence to write their own articles. There was nothing so scathing or vindictive in the article as to warrant the kind of responses he's received. In fact he was very clear and fair about the pros he found in the book, and even went so far as to point out the flaws people might find in his own (Jon's) logic. Do I disagree with some of his assertions? Yes. I would consider Finnegan's Wake to be much more "overrated" than Blood Meridian as Robert above stated. But ultimately we have come here to be informed on a perspective of the book that is different from our own. I personally found the book to be a bit meandering and unfocused myself, but does that automatically mean I'm attempting to impugn the standing or capabilities of this acclaimed writer? Of course not. All that means is that we have yet another layer of richness and complexity added to the debate of how we should view this imminent work of art. Thanks Jon for giving me something to chew over.

Read "Empire of the Summer Moon" for a nonfiction record of basically all atrocities that take place in Blood Meridian-- it's not ultra-violent murder porn, it's pretty consistent with history.

I've read it 8 times... It really does improve each time! I used parts of it to teach reading comprehension, and have found it to be a litmus test for intelligence. Those who are not moved by it (like or dislike matters not) should, like this reviewer- stick to reading comics... Nobody mentioned the last page, and its allusion to the fact that the west is was it is today because of the evil visited upon so many undeserving of that fate. In any event, to paraphrase-- Blood Meridian endures.

People be real different about what charms them or not. The "Legion of horribles" intro sentence is considered by many to be one of the most brilliant passages in any modern novel. First read near blew my head off. Second read, ten years later, near same. Wishing to preserve my head, I don't often re-read it. It shows a complete mastery of a difficult writing style, and it succeeds in making its point. No one reads McCarthy just to have fun. There are other authors for that.

Dude, please stick to reviewing videogames.(Thats not a knock against videogames as a medium, they are just generally more black and white) You say the kid is a dickhead. THATS THE FUCKING POINT. There is no hero in this book. If this was the first book or movie or videogame(red dead revolver) ever written about western expansion I'd understand you criticism, but thats CM's whole point. Is that violence was the only morality of these people in this period. It wasn't manifest destiny, or protecting native land it was simply violence. Disgusting, traumatic violence. Thats why the men are so "macho" as you put it. They are supposed to remind us of the archetypes of the macho men who opened the west, but show us the truly violent nature of them. As for CM's style; bro it goes on boundless and challenging because it is supposed to remind you of the boundless and challenging frontier that the men were facing. I normally don't comment on reviews but you gotta be smarter about this. Unless its just for page views...

Blood Meridian is mesmerizing. It's on MY best-books-of-all-time list.

A friend of a friend never read a book again after Blood Meridian because anything afterwards would be a disappointment. Pretentious twat.

As usual there are lots of people dissing others who say they don't like Blood Meridian. The book is neither good nor bad - it simply resonates with some and not others. Respect each other's opinions. I think fudge is the best thing ever but you're not a moron if you hate it. Get over yourselves.

I too got rather bored with the baby bashing and spitting. McCarthy's points are made and remade to exhaustion. Not my favourite McCarthy, but a visceral must-read for those who like horror films that rely on gore over suggestion.

The comforts you enjoy we're built on the pile of skulls depicted in that book. Brush it off all you like. But all nations are built on mans inhumanity to man. It has always an will always be this way.

"Man is a wolf to man" as the Russians living under the iron boot of the soviet empire waxed...

writer is on target, tales of a dickhead, did it titilate you? 9-11 killed more people in one hour than all serial killers in this century! resulting war killed even more people. and this book is supposed to shock us? his horror show is a repeat, nothing new under the sun, pathetic.

Blood Meridian is not that difficult a read. Gravity's Rainbow, Finnigan's Wake, Solaris; now those are difficult reads. Blood Meridian asks the reader to take time with it, an effort richly rewarded. It sent me frequently to the dictionary but every time I looked up an unfamiliar word I was rewarded. McCarthy chose them because they are the best available. Comparisons to Moby Dick have been overused but what the two have in common is ponderous pacing which drags the reader deep enough for her to contemplate the meta content. Saying Blood Meridian is about a murderous gang is like saying Moby Dick is about whaling. One technical comment on the review. Using I is redundant. Of course it is you. Who else could be writing the review? Mr. Cronshaw. Give Blood Meridian another shot.

Overrated... You just saying that makes me think you're a moron. The Sound and the Fury, A Farewell to Arms, Moby Dick, have you ever read these books that are so thick they resemble bibles?? They trudge and are slow for a reason, and that reason is to engross you in the tale. The point of the book is violence, that is literally the P O I N T. That is why it is tiresome, that is why it is pornographc in its depictions because that is the P O I N T. Calling it overrated just means you're ignorant. It really isn't even an opinion. Because you struggled to get through it then the book is overrated. Everyone struggles to get through this book even the people who praise it... Again, because it is the P O I N T of the novel. The tree for mentioned books I don't care for. I love Moby Dick but I won't ever read it again and it was a struggle to get through each one of them. You don't read books from great authors and expect for it to be quick and painless, that is not great writing. The journey is the journey. The endless descriptions of bushes and trees and walls and villages and Mexican townships that are described in the novel are tedious for a reason, because you are then more thrown off, more sick, more horrified and more stricken by the massacres and rapes of these people that you jus learned so much about.... Because it is the P O I N T.. Like the head of a pen sir.. IT IS THE POINT.

I read them book enjoyed it, and would put it right next to a mark twain novel on the bookshelf. If you don't like it don't write a drawn out idiotic essay on how you didn't approve. I'm sure Cormac McCarthy could care less what you thought about his best seller. Sounds like your attention span is a little to short to read more than a couple paragraphs before getting board. As I must say is the same way I felt while reading this blog.

The chunk of prose singled out as being 'overly long' is for me the most striking imagery of the novel. As for 'Used sparingly, these images of extreme inhumanity could have been incredibly poignant and moving, but instead they are normalised within the novel and lose their impact quite quickly' Talk about missing the point. That is exactly the point of it! The characters also find it almost blase to be massacring another township. They even kill the Mexican army, just for the sake of it. Of course, if you need to be able to root for a protagonist, even if it be an anti-hero, this book probably isn't for you. But if forumlaic plot lines are your requirement for being able to tolerate a novel, I'd say the problem is with the reader. Each to their own, I can understand folks who don't like 'Blood Meridian', but it's the criticisms levelled at it in this 'article' that don't sit well with me. Misguided tosh.

The moral of this story is if you are from Tennessee, Van Diemens Land or anywhere else, stay there!

Mr. Cronshaw should try reading Harry Potter, the characters are more relatable and it would better suit his reading level.

I agree with the article. I also find the book very boring and lacking of any pace. This might be the point, but it sure doesn't make this a fun or easy read and thus seems to keep the reader at bay from full immersion. Some of the descriptions were uneeded and amature (a "urine sun" anyone?. However, I will say this, the passage used in this article to express how long winded McCarthy can be is actually my very favourite passage. The imagery in those few lines is almost priceless.

I agree with Cha McI above, who said that "McCarthy writes with a severe disregard for the rules of punctuation, allowing for flow and meter and trope to roll from the tongue.". McCarthy's writing should be read aloud to be appreciated. I highly recommend the audiobook of Blood Meridian - the language is a joy to listen to.

i disagree with you on a number of points yet i feel no need to insult or criticize you. my opinion vs. your opinion. silliness. the paragraph i liked the most was the one describing what the "savages" were wearing when they decimated White's party. their garb was so insane. Putting it in nice little sentences would have neatened up something that was chaotic. i think the number of "savages" was so large that the passage needed to be relentless. it's point-of-view. just my opinion.

I just feel like I am reading the dialogue of a bunch of over sensitive hipsters who are way to over educated as well as sheltered to see the truth and grit that is shown in this book. If you cannot appreciate the Blood Meridian for its brutal nature and forward depiction of what IT WAS REALLY LIKE in the west, you are ignorant. On one hand the book is brutal and violent, but on the other hand it is also beautiful in a literary depiction sense. You can literally picture every detail of the landscape on each and every page. To say the book is overrated is pure ignorance my friend. Because it is you one dimensional opinion compared to millions of accredited people giving the book nothing but praise. So please, go back to reading the books that you "you like" and try not to pick up a book that may really test your mind to put yourself in such a situation. But that being said, just stay away from all McCarthy books, their all probably too "brutal" for such a person. Leave them for the us Sociopaths who appreciate a good book.

I have to disagree with you altogether. I find it contrived and prematurely judgmental that you find the kid as a "dickhead". He is experiencing things otherworldly that you possibly and obviously can't imagine and seems to take them with a grain of salt and to the best of his knowledge. The Kid obviously has trust issues and a certain prose against humanity but this seems to be for the better given his lack of education. Maybe a person who was very well civilized, educated at the very highest levels, and had several years of experience in warfare could be considered as a "dickhead" in the place of The Kid. But the truth is he responds through grit and instinct to how he knows the world to be. I find your own accusation of The Kid to be leaning all the more in your favor as you have completely undermined his childhood and worldview, and thus have replaced him with an everyday citizen who has been well educated and groomed in the formalities of a comfortable society. Also, if you believe that Mccarthy's sentences and descriptions are too long then maybe you should try listening to them on audio tape to offer you a better vantage point. I agree that at times it can be hard to read and is a book that may take multiple readings but Mccarthy is not the one in error my friend. Politeness aside, you are the "dickhead" sir, because you are getting paid for an utterly pointless review while others are working hard for their money.

This book maybe overrated to you. I found it great. It's based on true facts. The narrative and style are quite original, as well as the characters. The book is not the Davinci's Code to get you hooked. That's not the point of the great novels. Very likely you didnt understand the message. Like all the egregious stories, the goal is that question yourself about many issues, and by looking to the answers to those questions is where you find the value of this remakable book. It's just a shame that you find it overrated. Perhaps The Great Gatsby is also overrated to you as well.

My comment awaits for moderation ! What moderation !

you just dont get it. And no, ignorance of literature (you said: "I’ve never studied literature, and nor do I claim to have.") is no justification to say half cooked thoughts about America's greatest living writer.

"It felt as though McCarthy tried so desperately to create disturbing and shocking images that it quickly became puerile and adolescent." "It felt"? How can you make the uneducated remarks you make about this novel, yet still claim feelings? Perhaps jealousy is the single emotion you're calling into service here. McCarthy didn't "create" these characters, they existed, as did their deeds. They did (without McCarthy's narrative flair of course) what he wrote they did, oftentimes in the exact geographies he writes them into. Look into My Confession: the Recollections of a Rogue, by Samuel Chamberlain. Chamberlain, an ex-Union C.O. in the Civil War rode with the Glanton Gang, and his accounts match McCarthy's prose, often to the letter. "As well as being stupidly violent, Blood Meridian was sickeningly macho. Every character was a man’s man..." Have you no knowledge of the depravities which regularly occurred on the American western frontier? What am I saying...obviously you don't. "I love cumulative syntax if done properly, but 245 words is unnecessarily long for a sentence." Really? I suppose you'd also make this flippant claim of Joyce, Faulkner. And who the shit are you to determine what constitutes an "unnecessarily long" sentence or when one is "done properly"? Judging by your piece, you'd be best to stick with Subject, Verb, Object. Perhaps if this great work offends your delicate sensibilities this much, you could write children's books.

Everything I want to say has already been said here, many times. Summary: OP missed the point. Yes it is painful, if you can't tell that's deliberate you should maybe read it again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

I'd like to disagree with the concept that you don't 'get' blood meridian. You absolutely do! It is a book that forces the reader's face in the victims blood, and that forcefully immerses the reader in the horror of the bloodshed and the towering magnificence of the landscape. You get it, but you really don't like it, and with valid reasons. I'd humbly suggest a title change to Blood Meridian. For me, it moved my concept of what literature could be to a whole new level (especially the run on sentences depicting a hellish perversion of a modern army!). In my view, this article should be titled 'why I don't like Blood Meridian'. Wuthering Heights, on the other hand, is just overrated as an absolute.

I can tell by your writing that you understand very little of what the author was attempting to achieve with this book. You don't seem to have grasped much other than the aesthetic, surface layer of meaning that book contains. The reasons that it is an important work of art go far beyond the your concerns of long sentences and violent imagery. With all due respect I would strongly suggest re-reading - it is the kind of art that will peel its layers back like an onion the more love you give it.

I found it hilarious that you chose what is probably the most jaw-dropping, brilliantly written passage in the book and described it as "taking the piss." You should stop writing reviews, in my humble opinion.

If you would have studied literature in college, you would know the writing devices you're complaining about are amazingly well done. It takes a true master to do the things he can do. I wouldnt suggest reading hills like white elephants and trying to decode the symbolism. I'm sure you're more f an action driven story kind of guy...may I suggest Tom Clancy or Dr. Seuss?

To be honest I took a wrong turn on the internet highway and ended up here. Never heard of Cormac Mccharty or Blood Meridan but seeing how much emotion this novel awoke in comments section alone made me buy it today. Am only 30 pages in and must say it's every bit fucked up as I expected it to be from reading the comments. Bottom line is, I like it very much! Just wanted to say thanks to the reviewer and posters.

It is always an occasion for derisive laughter when some fool speaks about "what it was really like in the West," or in any historical period for that matter, as if he knew. It is even more ludicrous when that fool vaunts his lack of education as something that would put him in a particularly advantageous position to know. History, both what happened and, more to the point, the understanding of why something happened as it did, or happened at all, is a subject of often intractable debate. If you think that McCarthy's novels are exercises in historical research, imparting some sort of privileged insight into the past, rather than being works of fiction portraying an invented or fictional world, then you must count yourself a fool of the first order, a hopelessly ignorant and incorrigible fool. Such a fool would do well to maintain his silence so as not to make his folly so painfully obvious.

you want "fu-- up," read the history about the Comanche genocide--and the Kid is based on an actual book that was popular in its day--a historical artifact that displays the sociopathic nature of "manifest destiny" ideology. Samuel Chamberlain, "My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue." Here's some actual historical background from the University of Virginia: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/hns/scalpin/heads.html

Read the book fool, the father is from Tennessee.

I'm half way through the book and I agree that it's like trudging through thick mud. I find that a lot of the text is overblown and unnecessary and the characters remain anonymous. We get to know virtually nothing about them, their motives, or their hopes and fears. Why are they there? Why are they doing what they do? Why do they apparently have no conscience? How do they explain their actions? etc. Big on description, shallow on content. There's been a lot of reference on this blog to Moby Dick. Really there's no comparison. Maybe it will get better as I continue to trudge my way through but I'm still waiting for something to inspire my interest.

I think its funny you call him a dickhead. Other than that, no, the book was great. The long sentence is one I recall right near the beginning of the book. Great scene and great effect. McCarthy thankfully could give a shit about your opinions.

I cannot believe how few people have responded by raising the point that Holden is supposed to be the Devil. At the beginning, the evangelist priest who The Judge castigates introduces him to the reader as "the devil himself". The Judge was found in the middle of nowhere, and noone is sure how he came to be sitting on that rock. Like the devil in Paradise Lost, he leads his gang to the top of a volcano and forges gunpowder out of the raw ingredients. He is seductive, and charismatic. All who meet him are in his thrall. He speaks languages, and the whole suffering of humanity is a bit of a humorous curiosity. Look at how he can enter a room, or town, and it all descend to chaos. He 'will not die' remember. For me, Blood Meridian should rest on the shelf next to Moby Dick and As I Lay Dying. The Judge is as interesting a character as the great Ahab, in my opinion. McCarthy's best, with The Crossing as a close second.

After reading several of McCarthy’s other works and detailed research into Blood Meridian I am convinced that McCarthy’s underlying, and in many ways fundamental, message is Gnostic. A Gnostic reading of Blood Meridian explains and does away with the complaint that the book is nihilistic and gratuitously violent. It also accounts for the judge and his statements, the kid as an understated protagonist, and the book’s cryptic epilogue. The repetitive use of fire as the central symbol in Blood Meridian and other works like The Road and No Country For Old Men can also be best explained using a Gnostic framework. My piece entitled: "A Tragic Fire: Cormac McCarthy and Gnosticism in Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men, and The Counselor" can be found at the link below. http://www.chuckcrabbe.com/the-harlequin-blog/a-tragic-fire-cormac-mccarthy-and-gnosticism-in-blood-meridian-no-country-for-old-men-and-the-counselor

',,,the one element of the novel that I found intriguing was the landscape itself: meticulously crafted, and always pointing towards some prophetic fallacy.' Well that is a great start in understanding the metaphors and the key to understanding the book. I think you are unfair in your criticism and believe Blood Meridian to be a modern classic. It is beautifully written in a prose that took my breath away. The characters are skillfully constructed to carry the enormous novel. How was the west won? By violence, brutality,genocide and insidious racism. The book also says many things about the USA today with its innate culture of violence and gun culture. It never strays far from the USA's current propensity for war, with the judge being its despicable conscience. As the Tee Shirt used to say: "Join the Army, travel the world, meet interesting people and kill them."

I tend to agree with you, Jon. I found this book a very hard read that felt like I was trying to jog through mud. I felt that the subject of the book was about no more than the violence and the violence was extreme. I felt no connection to the storyline or the characters. There was no opportunity to connect with any of the characters. The landscape descriptions were very detailed, but after a while, they just ran together and I completely lost my geographical bearings. Thanks for being brave enough to share knowing that there would be very hateful comments thrown your way. Whether I would have agreed with your analysis of the story or not, I appreciate your willingness to put it out there.

18 pages was enough. All detail and not enough story.

The fact that you prefer No Country and The Road to Blood Meridian tells me about all I need to know about your knowledge of literature. Personally, I think your writing style fucking sucks and your opinion on just about anything is probably useless. Goodluck

The whole point of the novel is to accurately portray the violence that occurred during our expansion West and our attempts to "takeover" Mexico and the collateral violence that was caused. The "Kid" is a stand in for all of us if placed in certain circumstances. He is uneducated and lives in a world where violence rules the day. We more civilized people can acquire wealth and power through the use of our brains, but the violence is just the same, but it occurs far from us in Africa and other parts of the 3rd World. The slaughters in the 3rd World are in some way caused by the lives we lead here in the first world. During expansion in the west violence was right there and in many cases it was kill or be killed. We, for the most part, are not confronted with such realities, and kudos to Cormac for not giving us some sugarcoated Louis L'Amour nonsense.

The kid found himself staring into a chasm filled with the pitiless, the wanton; all that he had wished to believe of life before this moment drowned in that molten quagmire; hope became arid and stagnant, compassion flavorless, love a cliche; the venomous horde needn't threaten or intimidate as the kid was stunned catatonic by their sheer mass, yet they spat writhed cursed flailed and howled in an indefatigable hatred, intent on eliciting the visceral response that would cost the kid his soul should he relent. Poor Cronshaw. A novel as universally revered as Blood Meridian refutes this faux-proletarian critique on its own, as Mr. C seems to have realized long before the unfortunate submitten clicken (indicting McCarthy's use of run-ons akin to the lowest imaginable playground taunt). Then in six month's time dozens of mean-spirited ill-disguised trolls troop by to rub his noise in the shit he left on their little virtual society of the pretentiously hyper-literate with scarcely two constructive comments strung together. Cronshaw's peers have already shamed him for these half-baked ideas on the novel I can assure you; no doubt he bounced these ideas around many times before writing this review. Who among you feels justified in further shaming him? The sum of the needlessly personal comments I read is more shameful than the reviewer's comments. I'm guilty of doing the troll thing myself. I also found myself grinning at the first fifty or so insults. But the remarkable lack of wit and, in many instances, proper grammar usage or punctuation of the comments forced me to defend Cronshaw. Was his review well-reasoned? No. Lacking critical thought? Yes. Does it warrant strongly-phrased suggestions that he reconsider its premise, frame and conclusions? Absolutely. Deserving of name-calling, gratuitous F bombs, indictments of his literacy and suggestions that he kill himself? Give me a motherfucking break.

What great american novels have you written lately? I can't seem to find any...

I love that the sentence you quoted to try to prove your point is one of the most incredibly vivid and memorable passages I've ever read.

Finally...someone implodes the sanitized and squeaky clean Westerns of Hollywood and limited imagination. McCarthy writes the Old West without any frills and bows. I'm sure a much more accurate description of the way it really was, dirty, squalid, and at times hopeless for the many poor and underrepresented who searched for a better life "out West."

Saying that Blood Meridian sucks because there's not enough character development is like saying Beethoven's 5th Symphony sucked because there wasn't enough bass.

jeez. the writer of this piece is a genius. on the other hand, everyone always knew that the best way to attract traffic to a stupid website would be to place yourself immobile in the middle of the street, racking up your naked ass pretendin to be an imbecile whore and than just wait for every dimwitted passersby to relieve himself in that and reeking hole. i couldnt resist even myself. truly funny though are the few who come to defend the ladys honor.

Ironic that as i reread that 255 word sentence all i could think about was how breathtaking and vivid it was. I think you undermined yourself with that. Cormacs works arent about telling a story, though some do. They are about how shitty life is.

Well said. You hit the nail on the head. I can no more read McCarthy than I can read Stephen King. The same self congratulatory style, Oh I made you jump/wince/cringe there didn't I? Yes you said what needed to be said

asinine article.

fight me

The excerpts from the book you posted as a intended detraction are flippin brilliant. This book is pure class. Kill yourself

Well, there's no accounting for taste. I'll just say this, as I once heard my English prof say to another student, "If you don't like a great book, well, let's just say there's nothing wrong with THE BOOK"

Jon - surely if you've read literature and you enjoy literature, you've studied it? You don't need somebody else to tell you whether you should like something, and why.

Simon - Except McCarthy knows he is a damn good writer and writes accordingly, without apology. It's telling that King names Blood Meridian as one of his favorite books. King is a story teller who has to craft his art through writing just because that's the only instrument he can play. McCarthy is the exact opposite, a lyricist within the art of writing. And even though he writes a pretty simple, straightforward 'road novel', it is still the best novel written in the last 50 years. So much so, it isn't even close. I had to chuckle at the criticism of the 255 word sentence, too. Do this guy even know a comma can be used for pausing?

Sweet Jesus, so many of you are absurdly upset about this. If you love Blood Meridian, that's awesome, but what's with the hyper aggression? Relax everyone, people aren't always going to share your opinion and that's a good thing. Get off your pseudo intellectual e-penors, accept diversity in thought and read what you want.

"I’ve never studied literature" That's obvious, you don't understand the concept of an external focaliser narathor. You might want to look that up.