My thoughts on Blood Meridian

Years ago I read a book review in one of the state's metropolitan newspapers that stirred my interest. The book was written by Cormac McCarthy, about whom I knew nothing at the time, and was called Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness In The West. According to this highly favorable review, the book was loosely based on actual historical events and was full of graphic violence. Sounded good. Soon thereafter, I bought a copy and stashed it away among many other unread books.

Years passed, and Cormac McCarthy was recognzed as one of America's finer modern writers. In 2007, I saw No Country For Old Men, based on a recent McCarthy novel. It was easily one of the best movies I've ever seen, so I bought his book and read it immediately. Then I bought McCarthy's book The Road and read that, too. Both No Country For Old Men and The Road deal with hard people living hard lives in a hard environment, and neither could ever be recommended as a feel-good read, but Cormac McCarthy has a way with words that I really envy.

A few days ago I finished a book and was trying to decide which one to read next, and I came across that copy of Blood Meridian that had been sitting around since Christmas 1986. I'm now past the halfway point, and it's more challenging than either of the later novels. Unlike the relatively contemporary setting of No Country For Old Men and the future depicted in The Road, it takes place in the 1840s and 1850s, but it establishes McCarthy's pattern of depicting dangerous people doing dangerous things in a dangerous environment, albeit with a more allegorical tone and more use of literary flourishes. Blood Meridian takes violent imagery to an elevated level, too.

In many ways Blood Meridian reminds me of another book I read recently, Andersonville by the late MacKinlay Kantor, which won the 1956 Pulitzer for fiction. Both books require a considerable degree of effort to read, because of the horrible circumstances they describe as well as the stylized prose of the authors. Overall, Andersonville may have been tougher since it was nearly 800 pages, while Blood Meridian is under 400.

As a rule, I enjoy books by writers like Dennis Lehane, Lawrence Block, and Kurt Vonnegut, which I'm always sad to finish because I get so much pleasure from reading them. The first two McCarthy novels I read were page-turners as well, despite the grueling aspects of their subject matter. Occasionally, though, I read books that I finish with a sense of achievement, not unlike reaching the top of a steep hill after a difficult climb. Blood Meridian will fall into that category, I think.