3 ms·
I read Blood Meridian a decade ago and still have some mental images burned in with perfect clarity. My favourite (not to say I'm fond of the violence, rather I
by brenainn 5y ago
I read Blood Meridian a decade ago and still have some mental images burned in with perfect clarity. My favourite (not to say I'm fond of the violence, rather I'm fond of how a novel created such vivid images in my mind) is when one of the gang's horses gets gored. The rider extracts himself from the fallen horse and walks away in a daze, but then stops and returns to unceremoniously shoot the horse. It's analogous to someone being in a car accident and in shock, then realising the engine is still running. I picture it in my head like a Sidney Nolan painting.
Great book. One of the biggest hurdles, besides the violence, is the lack of punctuation, but I encourage anyone put off by that to stick with it. Once you adjust it flows very well.
And with that said, I like the Border Trilogy more and find those novels better westerns, but that's because it's more romance and less apocalypse.
- mabub24 5y agoThe "legion of horribles" sequence is also incredibly sticky, just some of the phrases like 'death hilarious" stick around for years... "A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools."
- wrycoder 5y agoRather like a cross between Stephenson and Faulkner.
- mabub24 5y agoMcCarthy's other brilliant book, Suttree, is like Faulkner on acid with incredible prose and a grotesque sense of humour (there's an infamous scene with a melon and a desperate man). I've never read a man describe trash and filth quite so beautifully.
- da39a3ee 5y agoSuttree is one of my favorite novels. I loved reading it. So I guess that marks how different it is from BM, since I don’t think one would say that about BM.
- thomasfromcdnjs 5y agoAgreed. One of my favorite books ever, and I personally love the writing style.
- pugworthy 5y agoIf you need a cleans with humor while also getting that Cormac style, I might recommend Yelping with Cormac. https://yelpingwithcormac.tumblr.com/ https://yelpingwithcormac.tumblr.com/
- walkhour 5y agoThe last paragraph when certain character is dancing and laughing, saying he will never was imprinted in me since I read it. I still get chills when I think of it.