Bart's review
Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
In Cormac McCarthy's novel The Crossing, McCarthy proves he can write about about the travels of a wolf in a poetic and engaging way. In Blood Meridian McCarthy writes about three or four wolves, calls them humans - those characters he bothers to name at all - and shows that with enough talent and powerful prose, a writer and his work can be called "great" without having to develop a single character in 330 pages.
Among those who would be unsatisfied with the mere word "great" and have to go further in describing Blood Meridian, unbelievably enough, we find literary critic Harold Bloom. Mr. Bloom, who has published at least 1,000 pages that say irony and character development are the only measures of a major writer, is ridiculous in his praise, writing that Blood Meridian is "clearly the major esthetic achievement of any living American writer."
McCarthy is a writer of overpowering prose, no doubt. So overpowering, in f...more
Among those who would be unsatisfied with the mere word "great" and have to go further in describing Blood Meridian, unbelievably enough, we find literary critic Harold Bloom. Mr. Bloom, who has published at least 1,000 pages that say irony and character development are the only measures of a major writer, is ridiculous in his praise, writing that Blood Meridian is "clearly the major esthetic achievement of any living American writer."
McCarthy is a writer of overpowering prose, no doubt. So overpowering, in f...more
