Lawyer's Reviews > Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

"Blood Meridian" is hellish nightmare of successive acts of violence. Based on the story of the Glanton Gang operating on boundary between Texas and Mexico in 1849-1850, McCarthy's novel focuses on an unnamed protagonist known only as "The Kid." The Kid is fourteen, a runaway from the hills of Tennessee. He finds himself among a group of Filibusterers bent on finishing what the Mexican War began. The band is attacked by Comanches. The Kid is among the few survivors. However, he survives only to find himself imprisoned by the Mexican government for his participation in the invasion of their territory. The Kid is released to become a member of the Glanton Gang to rid the Mexican populace of marauding Apaches. A bounty is paid for each scalp by the Mexican government.

Glanton and his band find themselves outnumbered and out of gunpowder. They are miraculously saved by "The Judge." The Judge seems to know of the gang's approach. He is waiting for them on top of a rock and witnesses their plight. The Judge ably mixes up a batch of gunpowder from nitre, sulfur, and urine. The powder is dried by the heat of the southwestern sun just in time to turn the massacre of the gang into a slaughter of the surprised Apaches.

If the Kid is the protagonist of "Blood Meridian," the antagonist is the Judge. At one time or another, each man in the gang has crossed paths with him, although they cannot remember just how the encounter occurred. The Judge is indifferent to the violence committed by the gang. He is also a participant and a killer of children. Violence is the nature of man, seems to be the Judge's estimation of humanity or the lack of it. At one point he says, “War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.”

In an interview of McCarthy conducted by Richard Woodard of the New York Times in 1992, the following appears: "There's no such thing as life without bloodshed," McCarthy says philosophically. "I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous." See "Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction" http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17...

Eerily, at on point, the Judge proclaims, "Nothing exists without my consent." The Judge keeps a notebook handy, meticulously rendering drawings of antiquities and artifacts in his personal journal. After reproducing the item, making it his personal property, he destroys the original object, preventing its discovery by anyone else.

As the depredations of the Glanton gang continue to pile up, the Kid is an observer of the relentless violence, but is a relatively mute witness. It is only much later, after the demise of the gang that the Kid confesses to his participation in Glanton's murder of hostile and friendly Indians alike. To Glanton, a scalp was a scalp. Its origin was irrelevant as long as it produced a bounty.

Once the last page of "Blood Meridian" is turned the only conclusion to be reached is that evil exists in the world. One can react to it, participate in it, or be indifferent to it. In the final pages of the novel, the Judge dances to fiddlers in a brothel and saloon, proclaiming he will never die. And, perhaps that is true. Evil, not confronted never dies.

As to the fate of the Kid? By novel's end, the Judge refers to him as the Man and that he is sorely disappointed in him. What transpires in the Judge and the Kid's final meeting is ambiguous, subject to interpretation just as life will always be. That the Judge meant to possess the Kid is unquestionable. To the degree that the Judge took the Kid is open to question.

McCarthy concludes "Blood Meridian" with a curious epilogue. A lone figure treks across the desolate southwestern landscape, tapping holes into the ground, striking sparks with each blow. His identity is not revealed. But he is followed by a band of wanderers who observe him at his work. A symbol of fencing in the tractless wasteland, the bringing of civilization, or a matter of greed led by the Judge in his endless dance?

In another excerpt from the Woodard-McCarthy interview is McCarthy's observation: "The ugly fact is books are made out of books," he says. "The novel depends for its life on the novels that have been written." His list of those whom he calls the "good writers" -- Melville, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner -- precludes anyone who doesn't "deal with issues of life and death." Proust and Henry James don't make the cut. "I don't understand them," he says. "To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange."

"Blood Meridian" is a kaleidoscopic portrayal of the inevitability and existence of violence. It brings to mind the swirling violence of a Sam Peckinpah film, the paintings of Heironymous Bosch, and Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" as reconstructed in Coppola's "Apocalypse Now."

This may be the most disturbing book I've ever read. Yet, it will remain completely unforgettable.