Book Review:
Blood Meridian: Or the Evening
Redness in the West: (Vintage,
1992, 335 pages). This was the first book I read by Cormac McCarthy. It is both
beautifully written, and deeply flawed. The prose is often scintillating. McCarthy’s
command of the language and his use of metaphor and vocabulary is extraordinary,
enough to make me envious. On the other hand, the flaws (as I see them) often
make this book a difficult read.
First, in the modern literary tradition, McCarthy attempts
to make his book as inaccessible as possible to readers. He eschews the use of
normal dialogue punctuation and often leaves out helpful speaker tags. There
are “no” quotation marks to indicate dialogue and I was incredibly irritated by
this. It smacks of elitism. I see no benefit to it and the costs are
considerable. There were many places where it was difficult to recognize
transitions in dialogue and who was speaking. The writer’s job is to make his or
her prose as accessible as possible. Note, I don’t say “easily accessible.”
McCarthy’s work almost demands rereading for the quality of his prose, his
imagery, and his meaning. Why, then, make a sometimes difficult task more
difficult by doing something as silly as leaving out quotation marks.
There were two other major flaws in this work, flaws that
prevent it from reaching the level of artistry that it had the potential to
reach and which the cover blurbs suggested it had obtained. First, and most
critically, there is little “story” in this tale. I don’t believe story is the
“only” reason for writing. I appreciate beautiful language and surrealism, but
story is important and is needed to carry a long work like this. A book cannot
be a masterpiece without story.
For the most part in this book, a young man, fourteen
years of age when the tale begins and known only as “the kid,” wanders around
in Texas and Mexico observing and participating in various acts of extreme
violence. He has no goals (realistic perhaps but not particularly conducive to
story). He simply survives one scenario after another with little more than
animalistic reactance. His “will to live” may be remarkable, but when the
blurbs say that this book should stand alongside Moby Dick I think they
are wrong.
In Moby Dick, at least the character of Ahab had a
clearly discernable goal--to kill the white whale. The Ahab character in Blood
Meridian, who carries a touch of the character of the white whale as well,
is known as “the judge.” But the judge
doesn’t even appear until page 79, and his motives are opaque, at least to me.
Another flaw, and one that strikes me as a major one in a
“literary” novel, is that there is virtually no character development. This is perhaps understandable for the
judge, whose personality is fully formed when we meet him, but it seems there
should have been much more development for the kid, who ages by over a decade
during the book. There is no “regeneration through violence” as the front cover
asserts for the kid. He is the same at the end as at the beginning. The sheer
weight of violence this boy witnessed and took part in would have been expected
to have shaped his character. It doesn’t. He becomes neither holy nor truly
debauched. In fact, his emotional reaction throughout is virtually deadpan. It’s
as if he’s spent the years as a garbage collector, but without really getting
any extra ‘stink’ on him.
Speaking of violence, Blood Meridian is, make no
mistake, intensely and brutally violent, perhaps the most violent book I’ve
ever read. The violence is constant and deftly handled, neither over dramatized
nor too understated. There are certainly echoes of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
and such films as Apocalypse Now.
Had the violence more clearly served the purposes of a story I would
have praised it. Perhaps McCarthy’s point is that there is no glory or honor or redemption in violence, and he may be right.
But that is hardly the stuff of myths. One aside about the violence in Blood
Meridian is that I find it interesting that a level of violence that would,
in a genre novel, be seen as “over the top,” is here considered masterful. Perhaps
violence that has a point is suspect.
A last flaw in the book comes with the ending, though I’m
sure many literary critics would disagree. Frankly, as with many literary
novels, I didn’t understand the ending. When the kid stumbles upon the judge at
the end, the judge embraces him and then.... What? From the response of witnesses it was
something rather horrible. I ’m just not sure what. Cannibalism? Murder?
Sex? Clearly, Blood Meridian had an effect on me or I wouldn’t
have gone on so long about it. It has passages of great beauty, and though I’ve
criticized it I still find myself recommending it. I don’t think it is a great
novel, but it does have power.
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