A review by matthewgrayson
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

adventurous dark funny reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

You shouldn't read this book if you:

  • Struggle with graphic depictions of violence and gore
  • Don't like stories that focus on characters of low moral character
  • Do not like poetic writing
  • Are uncomfortable with allusions to child abuse and pedophilia
  • Are offended or uncomfortable with realistic depictions of historical racism
  • Avoid occasional nudity in literature
  • Do not like stories based in the American Southwest and Northern Mexico in the 1800's
  • Want something light to read
  • Are nihilistic or are prone to nahilism

You should read this book if you:

  • The above list can be tolerated
  • Have a strong moral compass
  • Are able to analyze and find meaning in the literature you consume

Version:

  • Audiobook (Borrowed through the Libby app)
  • Publisher: Recorded Books Inc. 
  • Narrator: Richard Poe

Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West is about:

  • The moral degradation and depravity of man after reaching the pinical of its societal achievement
  • War
  • Peoples, cultures, and groups striving to live up to the supposed achievements their predecessors with only the knowledge of their virtues and the absence of their faults
  • The results of pride, racism, natural justice (or the justice of God), alliances with the immoral and depraved, colonization, genocide, violence, greed, nihilism
  • Those that dance, and those that do not dance


The most brutal violence is abrupt and sometimes out of nowhere. The book does not relish in the violence, but rushes the violence in a concentrated burst. It can be jarring, however, it helps illustrate the sudden finality of life and how something can be so quickly made into nothing... (unfinished)
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