On Blood Meridian

On Blood Meridian

Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” has sprinklings of the Moby-Dick stardust throughout; and there are references, as many people before have pointed out, to John Milton’s Paradise Lost as well as the writings of Samuel Chamberlain. 

“Blood Meridian” is regarded as McCarthy’s magnum opus. It is a sprawling saga of raw, unconfined violence, an odyssey of vile and vitriolic grandeur that morally makes you, the reader, question why you are undertaking this journey with the kid and the company. 

I read “Blood Meridian” in one sitting; it is a book of magnetic qualities. I wanted to shirk away from the incessant violence, the constant allusions of evil and mania, and most importantly, from the Judge. However, for those reasons just mentioned, I could not take my eyes away. The nature of being human is laid bare in these pages, and McCarthy’s writing makes you question your nature as well. For who could murder and pillage and move on to the next junction without much care, and who could read all of this happening and still want to continue reading, knowing that there is more of the same coming?

There is no discernible plot, so to speak. The kid is the protagonist; a 14-year old boy who, it is revealed in the first page itself, “broods already a taste for mindless violence”. Violence begets violence, and the kid continuously finds himself in the company of violent men, capable of the worst deeds imaginable. Soon he stumbles upon the company of the murderous Glanton gang, and they set off on a treacherous journey across the American borderlands, brutally eliminating the Mexicans and the Indians, and thriving, so to speak, in the world of blood and viscera. 

The famed literary critic Harold Bloom is a big fan of “Blood Meridian”; he describes the book “canonical imaginative achievement, both an American and an universal tragedy of blood.” McCarthy, through his words, is prodding us to imagine an environment bleak and unforgiving, characters cruel and nihilistic, and actions unimaginable yet plausible. It is upon the bodies of this fictional characters (some are real) upon which the real world has seemingly been built, and the reason “Blood Meridian” is considered to be an American classic with no close match. The blood and the gore and the violence, and the mindless violence and the plotless storyline are all prophetic; for is that not what is happening today? Judge Holden, whom Bloom describes as “the most frightening figure in all of American literature”, is evil incarnate; the man who whispers in the ears of gullible men and sets them forth to do deeds immoral. He is seven feet tall, murders kids and dogs, and is clearly a man of great intellect. The expriest, Tobin, a member of the company, explains to the kid about how the Judge came to join their group: “There he sat on a rock in the middle of the greatest desert you’d ever want to see”. He knows how to make gunpowder from scratch, has the knowledge of languages, and is able to converse on theology and science to a high level.

While Judge Holden demands your attention and your disgust, the protagonist, the kid, is not as fleshed out but still shows characteristics that set him out. There are instances of moral fibre and steel shown by the young boy beyond his years, and while he does not shy away from violence and death, there are instances strewn throughout the novel that display his morality.

There is a smattering of other characters throughout the book, possibly the most significant being Glanton, the leader of the gang. But my attention was drawn towards Toadvine, another member of the gang, and probably the kid’s closest confidante, who is also, in my opinion, a character of complex moral character. Like the kid, Toadvine is no stranger to violent and evil acts, but shows some semblance of moral steel when for a brief period he stands upto the Judge after he kills a small child; he later refuses to leave the kid alone after he is hit by an arrow; insisting that they stay together. However, the complex nature of Toadvine’s character is shown when he refuses to join Tobin and the kid on their journey to California, saying that they will arrest him there. The kid replies to this thus: “It aint country you’ve run out of.”

I read McCarthy’s “The Road” and “No Country for Old Men”, but both failed to capture my attention the way “Blood Meridian” did. The former two novels are both bleak and unrelenting in their own way, but there is some respite and some space to catch your breath. “Blood Meridian”, unlike those novels, makes you feel suffocated, and I think that is the novel’s greatest success. “Blood Meridian” is a prophecy and an observation of the world.