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This month, I read the novel “Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy. Here are my impressions.

“Blood Meridian” is a Western biographical fiction novel. The plot revolves primarily around a kid, known only as “the kid,” who joins the Glanton Gang, a real-life gang of headhunters who were contracted to kill Apache warbands roaming the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s.

The kid, after getting into several brutal fights, meets John Joel Glanton and his right-hand man, Judge Holden. Glanton is a straightforward character; his mission is to exterminate the Native Americans on the border and bring in their scalps for a bounty. Judge Holden, on the other hand, is an enigmatic character who appears only interested in the creation of conflict. In his first scene, we see him make spurious accusations against a reverend, inciting the townsfolk to lynch him. He’s both one of the main characters and the main villains.

The story revolves around the (mostly) accurate exploits of the Glanton Gang and its ultimate downfall. They begin doing their assigned job, but they eventually move on to butchering peaceful Native American settlements and killing Mexicans to sell their scalps as well. It follows John Glanton in his descent into violent madness, when he begins killing basically anything he can come across.

The writing style of this book is very odd. It uses essentially no punctuation, preferring instead to stick to a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and a period at the end. Even a certain sentence containing over 200 words only has eight commas. However, this unique style serves to accentuate the brutality of the characters’ surroundings and lifestyle, displaying a kind of simplicity and also making certain fights or other violent events seem routine. However, it doesn’t always work like that.

There are several massacres, battles, and other occurrences with high body counts. These are frequently described graphically and in great detail. The purpose of this is to display fully the atrocities committed by the United States on the frontier. However, it may alienate some readers.

This book, despite being published in 1985, is considered a masterpiece or a modern classic, and it is clear why. It follows similar themes to other classic novels such as “Heart of Darkness,” about the violence that humans are capable of, especially against a culture considered “inferior.” It is excellently written, intricately plotted, and every linguistic and writing style decision seems hand-picked to accentuate the book’s messages.

Final Score - 10/10