Blood Meridian: A Disturbing Masterpiece of the Old West
Cormac McCarthy‘s 1985 novel Blood Meridian is considered one of the great modern classics of American literature. However, it has also proven to be one of the most controversial and unsettling reads one is likely to encounter. Blood Meridian plunges the reader into the anarchic borderlands between the United States and Mexico in the 1850s, following the adventures of "the kid" who falls in with the brutal Glanton gang, a group of American scalp hunters. What follows is a mesmerizing yet horrific tale of violence and retribution played out against the backdrop of the unspoiled Southwestern desert landscape.
The Glanton Gang
Blood Meridian draws heavily from historical accounts of marauding bands who hunted Apaches and other Native Americans for the bounties paid by Mexican authorities for their scalps. McCarthy vividly brings to life the most infamous of these bands, known as the Glanton gang, led by the ruthless John Joel Glanton. Having taken a contract from the Mexican state of Chihuahua to clear Apaches from the borderlands, Glanton and his gang of cutthroats carry out their task with unspeakable viciousness. McCarthy spare no details in chronicling the wanton trail of murder, rape, and destruction left by the marauders. Two particularly gruesome scenes have been burned into the memory of most readers: the wholesale slaughter of a village of Apaches, with infants swung by their heels to have their heads smashed upon rocks; and an attack upon a caravan of Tiguas, where a small child has its head unceremoniously chopped off.
Judge Holden
Presiding over this theater of atrocity is the larger-than-life character of Judge Holden. Described as a "great mounds of flesh" with perfectly white skin and an unnaturally high-domed head completely bereft of hair, the Judge exhibits prodigious feats of strength and knowledge. He is also an cunning manipulator of men, playing upon Glanton‘s greed and hubris to encourage greater heights of barbarity. Above all, the Judge is portrayed as ageless avatar of war and strife, the very archetype of bloodlust and mortal violence ingrained in mankind since the dawn of time. The novel strongly hints that this demonic persona has appeared before at pivotal moments of historical carnage. Ultimately, McCarthy uses the baleful presence of the Judge to insert a symbolic level of meaning into his tale, transforming it into something that approaches the grandeur and scope of myth.
An Unflinching Depiction of Human Depravity
Blood Meridian refuses to look away from the depths of human evil and savagery. McCarthy‘s rendering pulls no punches, forcing readers to grapple with primordial questions of moral order in an indifferent universe. Some critics have accused McCarthy of deploying violence merely for its own sake, dehumanizing the victims of cruelty and numbing the audience to their suffering. Defenders argue that McCarthy aims to shake the reader from complacency, demolishing illusions embedded in more conventional Westerns that shy away from exposing man‘s fundamental bestiality when the veneer of civilization is torn away.
The novel has evoked comparisons to masters such as Melville, Faulkner and Hemingway. Although lacking likable heroes or tidy moral lessons, Blood Meridian possesses an undeniable power flowing from the august cadences of McCarthy‘s heightened prose, which at times approaches the level of Shakespearean tragedy. For willing readers who can weather its hellish intensities, Blood Meridian delivers an unforgettable plunge into the heart of darkness lying just underneath the foundational myths of America‘s Wild West. It is a true testament to McCarthy‘s creative genius that he can make such a nightmarish vision not only compelling but in its own way strangely beautiful.