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Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

Cormac McCarthy

Start date: August 1, 2022

Finish date: August 31, 2022

Discussion: Group Reads

Why we're reading this: August 2022 Completist Selection
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Group Reads

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
By Matthew , Assistant List Master · 4 posts · 18 views

last updated Sep 18, 2022 11:34AM

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
By Matthew , Assistant List Master · 7 posts · 22 views

last updated Aug 31, 2022 01:49PM

What Members Thought

Oct 29, 2019 Jason rated it liked it

Shelves: own

Western-style Inferno, but while Dante had Virgil for a guide, 'the kid' has only a demon (imo) with a severe case of alopecia, referred to as 'the judge', that shadows him (possibly herding him) through each nightmarish encounter and progression. This tour is more participatory and less guided than that of Dante. There's a touch of Naked Lunch about it. Perhaps thinking of this as a sort of hell is just easier than thinking of it as an epic telling of some piece of historical reality, and perha Western-style Inferno, but while Dante had Virgil for a guide, 'the kid' has only a demon (imo) with a severe case of alopecia, referred to as 'the judge', that shadows him (possibly herding him) through each nightmarish encounter and progression. This tour is more participatory and less guided than that of Dante. There's a touch of Naked Lunch about it. Perhaps thinking of this as a sort of hell is just easier than thinking of it as an epic telling of some piece of historical reality, and perhaps the interpretation that a demon is at play helps alleviate the responsibility from the simple human depravity of it all. This is a book of violence, beautifully and horribly told.

“All other trades are contained in that of war.

Is that why war endures?

No. It endures because young men love it and old men love it in them. Those that fought, those that did not.

That's your notion.

The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.”

McCarthy can write, there is no doubt about it, his style is magnificent; I just can't like the material.

“The flames sawed in the wind and the embers paled and deepened and paled and deepened like the bloodbeat of some living thing eviscerated upon the ground before them and they watched the fire which does contain within it something of men themselves inasmuch as they are less without it and are divided from their origins and are exiles. For each fire is all fires, and the first fire and the last ever to be.”

...more

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Apr 29, 2023 Eileen rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, horror, audiobook, 2023genrechallenge, historical-fiction, 2023, literature, 2023-ng-group-challenge, western, rfp_challenges

Yeah, okay, this novel was just not for me. I gave it a try and if it hadn't been for the narrator helping me make it through the lack of quotation marks and the senseless violence, I don't know that I would have made it through. But I don't give ratings for books I don't finish, and I was at least hoping that when I got to the end, I would gain something from it. I know I'm in the minority because this book has raving reviews. But I'm probably not the right audience for it. I don't gravitate to ...more

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Nov 08, 2012 Janet rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is a very bleak portrayal of the old west, very gruesome and violent. I knew it before I started reading so I can't say I didn't like it because of that but future reader beware that it is not for anyone easily disturbed by evil, violence or cruelty. Sometimes the plot was rambling but I think that was because the author was following outlines of a memoir by Samuel Chamberlain who was involved with the infamous Glanton Gang. ...more

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Aug 31, 2022 Liane rated it really liked it

Shelves: x-2022

Definitely grisly and highly bigoted, Blood Meridian describes the Texas/Mexico border violence in the 1850s involving US mercenaries, Mexicans and Native Americans. This was certainly a view I haven't read in depth but it seems to be an articulate description of the Wild West with a lot of philosophizing from "the judge" and the ex-priest.

This was one such bit that resonated with me: "If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now? Wolves cull themselves ...more

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