![]() ![]() The man who believes that the secrets of this world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.”Īnother of my favorite passages is when the judge explains to Toadvine why it's important to learn everything you can about the world around you: " The judge tilted his great head. My favorite quote from the judge is this one, whose structure feels like a microcosm of the entire book: “The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. The judge's beastly character is exposed through so many great statements from him, such as "The freedom of birds is an insult to me. ![]() If I just made you throw up a little in the back of your mouth, now would be a good time to stop reading. If that sounds like the sort of book you'd enjoy reading, the following are a few other aspects of Blood Meridian that you may find interesting as well. ![]() The cumulative effect of those scenes is a strong statement about religion, although religion is never mentioned at all. McCarthy's churches are populated by buzzards, corpses, and feces, all described in vivid and unforgettable detail. The author never says this explicitly, but every church in the book happens to be in disrepair, or filthy, or the scene of a violent confrontation. McCarthy fanatically observes details, and leaves conclusions to the reader.Ī recurring theme of the book is that Christianity is decaying. This applies to McCarthy's explorations of the human condition every bit as much as it applies to his explorations of North American geography. The key phrase there is exploring vast uncharted distances with a fanatically patient minuteness. But if anything, McCarthy writes with a yet more terrible clarity than does Melville." - Steven Shaviro Both savagely explode the American dream of manifest destiny of racial domination and endless imperial expansion. Both manifest a sublime visionary power that is matched only by still more ferocious irony. Both are epic in scope, cosmically resonant, obsessed with open space and with language, exploring vast uncharted distances with a fanatically patient minuteness. Much has been written about Blood Meridian, and this quote from critic Steven Shaviro sums up its appeal pretty well for me: "In the entire range of American literature, only Moby-Dick bears comparison to Blood Meridian. I would never attempt to "review" Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, or make any claim to truly understanding it, but I enjoy re-reading this massive book and in this post I've shared a few thoughts on why it appeals to me. ![]()
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