Blood Meridian

this books cool as hell nothing happens and they all just talk

The intrigue to keep going just wasn't there. I wasn't looking forward to reading it every time it came up on my rotation.

Not for the faint of heart, this book is about the violence that men do because it is their nature to do it. They act with animal savagery but in the purposelessness of their actions cannot even aspire to that of animals, whose purpose is to eat. The apocalyptic figure of the Judge, who moves through the story relatively unscathed, does so because he alone openly embraces the nature of humans. The biblical tone of his prose underscores very effectively the complete lack of moral purpose of the characters in the book. Cormac McCarthy is not humanity's greatest cheerleader and he doesn't disappoint in this book.

I tried, but gave up about 40 or 50 pages in. I tend to like McCarthy's sparse prose, but this was too sparse and too violent for me.

This was a heavy read at the beginning, I found myself having to revise certain chapters just to understand what was really going on, but it got a lot easier to parse as I got used to the style of McCarthy's prose. It's really hard to look at other media about the "wild west" now without thinking it's romanticized, I've never seen such a brutal take on it before reading this.

My favourite aspect of the whole book was the judge as this slow-burn antagonist, I really like how he overshadows Glanton as the true evil, an actual representation of the devil. I also thought the conflict near the end was poignant, with the kid not developing into this embodiment of war that the judge had expected him to be, not that he became a pacifist but he kind of shook off the gratuitous killing that he had participated in almost all his life.

At first I thought this was a somewhat optimistic rebuttal that went against the judge's view of the world (and I think McCarthy's as well), but after thinking about it and re-reading the epilogue, I believe the book is actually trying to say that that a person's primal desire for warfare is just laying dormant beneath the facade of law and order we've built for ourselves. It's buried under various checks and balances keeping it at bay, but in areas of the world where those are eroded or non-existent, people do truly awful things to each other as if by their very nature. I feel like "The Road" ended on a similar note, where on the surface it seemed a little hopeful (with the child finding a new family to travel with), but the horrors of that world remained, they didn't exactly go away and the world was still doomed all the same.

This book is tough to get through, but the last chapter makes the entire thing worth it. The book feels dreamy and supernatural while being extremely thought provoking. It’s one of those things that will having you thinking for a long time after it ends.

Blood Meridian and the Iliad both sport 24 chapters…how curious. Grateful that I powered through this, though far from unscathed. Will necessitate another reading to properly judge the earth and learn the steps of its dance

Blood Meridian – Did Not Finish

I can see why Blood Meridian is considered a classic—the writing is strong, and the audiobook narration was well done. However, I found the story itself uninteresting and couldn’t connect with the characters. Maybe, at least for me, the book hasn’t aged well or doesn’t feel as relevant anymore.

Many reviews emphasize the book’s extreme violence, but in 2025, that aspect doesn’t feel particularly shocking or noteworthy. The violence had no impact on my assessment—my lack of engagement came purely from not being invested in the story or characters.

Brutal.

A desolate landscape. No, not completely devoid of life. What little ride on the dusty terrain outlined in this epic anti-western are those with a certain fate. A fate outlined in blood, doom, and destruction.

A 14-year-old from Tennessee, with a “a taste for mindless violence,” runs away from home and sets off to Texas in 1833. “The Kid” eventually joins a scalping gang who are paid well for completing contract massacres across the land.

The Kid meets up with the seemingly enigmatic character called The Judge. The judge is all but a puzzle. He is calamity. He is a blight on the world. He is catastrophe incarnate. An intelligent and omnipresent force that does not seek conformity. He is savage for sure, but he understands humanity. Not unlike the mercenaries who are only participating in the debauchery for money. The Judge teaches with parables, with art, and with ethics. Is he a monster in disguise, a traveled man of integrity who has given in to moral corruption, or something supernatural? All is explored and more!

Told from the perspective of The Kid mainly, this gritty portrayal of the old west reins in a wide variety of themes. Everything from warfare and rituals to partisanship and the nature of evil is covered in great detail.

Conventions are thrown out the window. The Kid is shaped by his encounters throughout the book, but very rarely gives the reader the opportunity to relate to the wholesale decimation of the land. It's highly impersonal. And that is by design.

Blood Meridian is a tough read. Brutal, even. Not for the light-hearted.

Cormac McCarthy's writing is masterful. The scene setups and ability to hold the reader's attention are second to none. Here is a passage I thought was simply incredible: “The shadows of the smallest stones lay like pencil lines across the sand, and the shapes of the men and their mounts advanced elongate before them like strands of the night from which they'd ridden, like tentacles to bind them to the darkness yet to come. They rode with their heads down, faceless under their hats, like an army asleep on the march.”

It's a novel I will most certainly never forget. A new favorite. One I shall have to read several times to take in the magnitude of the narrative.

I don't think I've read more vivid descriptions than these, but still, a bit too much sometimes.

Boring. I gave up halfway through. Then I read some reviews, thinking I must have been missing something for this book to be so widely regarded as McCarthy's best work. It seemed a lot of people thought the back half was better. So I picked it up again.

I finished it three days later and I still don't like it.

I wasn't convinced how good this was until those last few chapters... god damn. RIP Cormac McCarthy.

5/10
The Judge truly dominates Blood Meridian, casting an intimidating shadow that solidifies his standing as one of the most vile and repulsive villains in literature. However, despite his strong presence, the book falls short in delivering a satisfying experience. The relentless and seemingly endless march through the desert, accompanied by RELENTLESS live-leak level gore, really drained me. The constant barrage of never ending nihilism, climaxing in a confusing and unsatisfying conclusion, left a bitter taste in my mouth, leaving many parts of the story feeling disjointed and incomprehensible.

That being said, there were moments of hope amidst the chaos. The Kid's occasional acts of heroism and the relationships he forms along his journey offer glimpses of humanity in an otherwise bleak story. And, of course, the Judge's psychopathic and unhinged behavior provides moments of humor and tension that manage to captivate despite the book's shortcomings. But who knows, I'll probably watch some youtubers video essay and change my mind tomorrow.

I will say this: if nothing else, the ending will stick with me for the rest of my life.

7

The writing takes some getting used to as its quite a difficult read, but once you get used to it, it hooks you right the fuck in and its so incredibly good at drawing you in to the atmosphere of the book. Dialogue is hilarious, realistic and terrifyingly well written. Even though I might never fully understand all the intricacies of the book, I'm okay with that because I've shared the experience with the characters - if you know you know.

The world is unrelenting. The people are horrible. The violence is brutal. The kind are unrewarded. An incredibly important book. Must read.

this took me SO long to finish. i think this is a “it's not you, it's me” but oh boy did i have a rough time with this one. and not even because it's pretty gruesome, but mostly because the narrative keeps you at such a distance. it made it really hard to feel invested at all for the longest time, combined with the fact that despite the characters moving all the time, the story has very little forward momentum. i think it probably didn't help my experience that i didn't have time to really sit with it for longer periods. 

despite not really doing it for me, mccarthy's style did really strike me as very distinctive and remarkable. will definitely read something else from him to see how that lands.

This is my second time experiencing this story, and I have to say that I STRONGLY recommend the audio version of this book over a physical copy any day of the week. After reading other reviews for Blood Meridian, I completely understand why people could easily pick it up, spend ten minutes reading the first few pages, and put it down forever.

Cormac McCarthy's descriptions of this world are gorgeous, but can so easily wear you down with long-winded sections until you forget that you're supposed to be reading a scene in a book. The story is dramatic and symbolic, but so insanely violent and nihilistic that you're scared to read more. Speaking of the story, the biggest complaint that I've seen is that the plot is really hard to follow. And I completely agree when I'm trying to read the physical copy.

On my second time through, though, I will never regret my time reading this book. I listened to the narration by Richard Poe, and have never been able to picture a story as vividly as this version. Shoutout to Richard Poe, his voice is awesome.

Obviously, not a book for everyone. It's absolutely wild how disturbing it is, and how casually McCarthy includes those details in the same sentence as describing something as minor as the dirt on their boots. Also, there are a ton of slurs. Very jarring. The Judge (one of the greatest antagonists in fiction honestly) is the scariest character I've ever experienced.

I think in order to enjoy the story, you kind of have to know what you're getting into. And since I did, I'm giving it 4/5 stars. Wild story. Left me feeling very gross, but I was fascinated with the heights of violence that this book reaches.

I lack the necessary tools to explain to you why me, someone who only read YA his whole life and then somewhere halfway through being 22 years old decided to pickup seriously reading again, thinks that this might be in the top ten pieces of writing ever written, so what I will do instead is just share some things I wanted to disorderly throw into this obligatory review.
There were multiple times during reading before I ended up getting used to mcarthys style (don't make this your first book of his please lol) where I would reread a page five or six times trying to make sense of the insanely dense prose only to realize what I'm reading is just the thirtieth time our characters are riding horses through the desert, but it's written in like the most beautiful way you've ever seen

The recreation of the time period was fascinating. It truly deserves the accolades it had recieved. That was the only reason I was able to finish the book, because the story was a mess.

It was an absolute chore trying to read this book. Extremely dense writing that I couldn't even follow or pay attention to after reading the chapter summary prior to the chapter itself. I somehow made it halfway through this book before realizing I can just stop and life will be better.

Six Stars.

Would that all novels were so ferociously exceptional.

I may never recover from this.

DID NOT FINISH. The coldblooded killing of an innocent infant was a bridge too far for me. McCarthy is off my TBR.

Wow. Blood Meridian is a literary masterpiece, perhaps THE great American novel. Highly recommend if you're looking for a book that will pull you in and not let you look away.

If you're sane, it will make you squirm and feel uncomfortable at times, that's for sure. But it's so worth it. I just finished reading it and am trying to decide if I want to read something new on my list or read this again. I think I'll let it digest and come back for a re-read in a couple months...it's so good.

You can open this book to any paragraph and read something that is amazing, or beautiful, or deep, or all 3; you can re-read and chew on it for a while, for example:

“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge, exists without my consent”

Another:

“The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others.”

(Those first 2 quotes are said by the same character)

One more:

“It was raining again and they rode slouched under slickers hacked from greasy half-cured hides and so cowled in these primitive skins before the gray and driving rain they looked like wardens of some dim sect sent forth to proselytize among the very beasts of the land.”

If you haven't read this book, you need to.

brutal.

undeniably a Great novel, but I will never reread it and would not suggest it to anyone.