#26: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

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100 books, book review, books, Cormac McCarthy, literature

A few years ago I began trying to put together a list of every book I have ever read.  While I cannot hope to remember all of them (especially those from my childhood), I have done a pretty fair job of recalling most of them.  The list currently stands at 434 different books (not counting books that I have read on multiple occasions).  There are a few books that stand out in my memory as truly great.  Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls is one favorite.  Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is another.  Plato’s Republic, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra will have lasting impacts on my intellect.  Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-5 will always have a special place in my heart, as will the recently deceased Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451.  Yet out of all of these books there is one that has earned the distinction of the best book I have ever read.  That book is Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, book number twenty-six this year.

Blood Meridian is the story of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennessean who runs away from his abusive and alcoholic father in roughly 1848.  The Kid makes his way to Texas, eventually finding himself at a religious revival in Nacogdoches.  Here he meets Judge Holden, an enormous and entirely hairless man who will emerge as the novel’s antagonist.  Holden accuses the reverend holding the revival of impure acts with both an 11-year-old girl and a goat in Fort Smith, Arkansas, enraging the crowd and inciting them to kill the preacher.  Holden later reveals that he made up the accusations.  The Kid continues his travels, working his way down to San Antonio.  He signs on with an expedition of ex-US Army soldiers intent on reclaiming territory returned to the Mexican government following the end of the Mexican-American War.  Shortly after crossing into Mexico the party is attacked by Comanches and most of the soldiers are killed.  The Kid makes it to Chihuahua, where he is arrested for participating in the illegal enterprise.

The Kid and two other Americans secure their release by signing on with a scalphunting operation headed by a man named Glanton.  The scalphunters have a contract with the Chihuahuan state to protect villagers from Indian attacks (specifically Apache), and are paid for each scalp they bring in.  Judge Holden is Glanton’s unofficial co-commander and is looked at with awe by most of his fellow marauders.  The Kid learns that Glanton’s gang found the Judge in the middle of the desert when they were fleeing from a band of Apaches.  The gang was out of gunpowder, but Holden brought them to a burned out volcano where he proceeded to mix a batch of gunpowder from the elements available.  This allowed the gang to slaughter the Apaches and established Holden as an almost superhuman figure.  The Kid also learns that every other member of the gang (except for Tobin, an ex-priest) claims to have met the Judge somewhere else prior to signing on with Glanton.  The gang proceeds to engage the Apaches when possible, but eventually descend into butchery of anyone who crosses their path, including innocent villagers, peaceful Indians, and Mexican National Guardsmen.  When word gets back to the Chihuahuan authorities, the gang flees to the borderland between Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora.

In the area around Yuma, Arizona the gang seizes a ferry on the Colorado River.  They use the ferry to rob and abuse travelers headed for California and fortify their position as a base from which to raid the nearby Yuma Indians.  Eventually the Yumas mount an attack and slaughter the gang, scalping Glanton in the process.  The Kid escapes with the ex-priest Tobin, and Holden escapes separately.  Holden encounters the Kid and Tobin in the desert, and tries to talk the Kid out of his gun.  The Kid refuses and sets out with Tobin.  Holden eventually gets two rifles from other survivors and tracks the Kid and Tobin in the desert.  After the Kid passes on several opportunities to shoot Holden, they successfully hide from Holden (although Tobin is shot in the neck).  The Kid and Tobin make their way to San Diego, where they are separated and the Kid is imprisoned.  He is visited in his cell by Holden, who tells him that the authorities belive the Kid to be responsible for the demise of the Glanton gang (due to Holden’s testimony).  The Kid reveals the true circumstances to his jailers and is eventually released. 

The final chapter takes the reader to 1878, where the Kid is now known as the Man.  The Man encounters Holden in a Fort Griffin, Texas saloon.  Holden does not appear to have aged at all.  Holden tells the Man that his sympathy for the Indians was the seed that ultimately led to the demise of the gang.  There is no room for sympathy or clemency in a world ruled by violence and bloodshed.  He implies that the Man exists only for the purpose of doing violence, which the Man denies.  The two go their separate ways.  Later that evening, the Man enters an outhouse to find the enormous and hairless Holden waiting for him naked.  The events in the outhouse are left vague, with two other men later entering and reacting with horror to what they see.  The novel ends with Judge Holden dancing and fiddling back at the saloon, declaring to his fellow revelers that he will never die.

Blood Meridian is not a fun book to read.  It is unbelievably violent and deeply disturbing.  It is also beautifully written in prose that seems Biblical at times.  McCarthy has a singular gift for creating characters and landscapes that seem larger than real life and yet entirely believable.  Judge Holden is one of the most remarkable characters I have encountered in all of my reading.  His seems to represent wisdom and erudition at the same time that he represents violence and depravity.  The best word I can think of to describe him is haunting.  He will stay with you for a very long time.  He somehow exudes a magnetic quality that draws the other characters (and the reader) to him despite his despicable deeds.  The Kid manages to be a sort of hero despite engaging in many of the same violent acts that are so easy to condemn in the Judge.  His ultimate demise at the hands of Holden seems to imply that evil and violence will eventually extinguish even the tiniest shred of goodness in this world. 

Blood Meridian is painful and depressing.  It is violent and horrifying.  It is exhausting and excruciating.  It is also the greatest book from the greatest living American author.  Read it (and then adopt a puppy to feel joy in your life again).

The Current Count

26 Read, 74 To Go

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#16: Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy

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100 books, book review, books, Cormac McCarthy, literature

Today I finished the third volume in Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, Cities of the Plain.  This book brings together John Grady Cole, the central character of All the Pretty Horses and Billy Parham, the central character of The Crossing.  Cities is set roughly three years after the events of All the Pretty Horses, and almost a decade after The Crossing.  Billy and John Grady both work on a ranch in southern New Mexico, not far from Juarez and El Paso.  The two men have formed a strong friendship, and the reader sees echoes of Billy’s relationship with his brother Boyd (who died in The Crossing).  They both seem at home in their cowboy lifestyle, despite the looming shadow of a government takeover of the ranch for use in military testing.  This threat is largely ignored by John Grady and Billy, as well as their fellow ranch workers.  They all have the same response: if it happens, we will find something else to do.

The threat to the ranch is a footnote to the main plot.  John Grady falls in love with a young Mexican prostitute, and the two agree to be married.  Unfortunately for John Grady, the manager of the brothel in which the girl is forced to work is also in love with her.  His name is Eduardo, and Billy attempts to negotiate for the girl’s release on John Grady’s behalf.  Eduardo refuses and makes it clear that he will not allow her to leave him without a fight.  Despite the threats from Eduardo, Jon Grady and his love continue with their plans.  Eduardo eventually murders the girl rather than lose her.  Heartbroken and enraged, John Grady confronts the pimp and the two engage in a back-alley knife fight.  John Grady is severely wounded but manages to kill Eduardo.  John Grady tries to flee but is too seriously injured to survive.  He is able to contact Billy, who sits with him until he dies.  Billy leaves the ranch for good a few days later.  The book has a lengthy epilogue in which we see Billy as an old man.  After bouncing from town to town and job to job, he eventually winds up as a homeless man.  As he nears death he is taken in by a kind family who provide comfort and seem to genuinely appreciate him.

Cities of the Plainis an excellent book, although I enjoyed the other two volumes in the Border Trilogy more.  I loved the interplay between John Grady and Billy and the poignant image of a dying way of life. All the Pretty Horsesleft off with John Grady uncertain of where to call home, with the strong sense that he left his heart in Mexico. Citiesbrings that notion to culmination, with John Grady ultimately losing his life in Mexico over an affair of the heart.  Billy is again a tragic figure, losing everything he loves to the violent and headstrong country south of the border.  The entire trilogy is as much a story of individual heartache as it is the story of the disappearance of the last vestiges of wild and free America.  Despite his incredible resourcefulness and strong will, Billy ultimately becomes a hobo, unable to integrate into modern America.  He is a relic of a dead way of life, suggesting that a part of him passed away in these books as well– his utility.  McCarthy has reminded us all that the world we know is as fleeting as our own individual happiness.

The Current Count

16 Read, 84 To Go

#15: The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

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100 books, book review, books, Cormac McCarthy, literature

There are a few books that you recognize as masterpieces the first time you read them.  They transcend the enjoyable and cross into the sublime.  All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy is one of those books.  It is also the first book in McCarthy’s Border Trilogy.  It’s sequel is The Crossing, which I finished two days ago.  I was pleased to discover that The Crossing lives up to the promise of its predecessor and is also highly deserving of the title of masterpiece.

The Crossing is set just prior to World War II in along the border between Old and New Mexico.  Billy Parham is a sixteen-year old cowboy working alongside his father and younger brother on their New Mexico homestead.  A she-wolf has been ravaging the local cattle and the Parhams set about trapping it.  Billy captures the wolf in a trap but is inspired to return it to the mountains in Mexico from whence it came rather than kill it for its pelt.  This journey begins a tragic cycle in Billy’s life.  Despite his best efforts, the wolf is killed before he is able to return it to the mountains.  Heartbroken but determined, Billy eventually buries the wolf in the mountains.

Billy returns home after his long journey to find that his parents have been murdered and their horses stolen.  He finds his younger brother Boyd staying with a foster family and the two set out on another journey to Mexico, this time in search of their lost horses.  Along the way they rescue a young girl, who forges a close bond with Boyd.  The brothers eventually find the horses, but Boyd is shot in the chest during their attempt to reclaim them.  Boyd miraculously survives his wound but runs off with the girl after his recovery.  Billy returns to America alone.

Billy returns to Mexico soon after in an effort to locate Boyd.  He learns that Boyd has been killed.  Billy sets out to find his brother’s grave and return his body to their homeland.  Despite band of highwaymen that molest Boyd’s remains and stab Billy’s horse in the chest, Billy makes it back to America and buries Boyd.  As the novel closes, Billy meets a wounded and disfigured dog seeking shelter and comfort.  Despite his previous attachment to the wolf and his history of helping the less fortunate, Billy chases away the dog.  Recognizing this change in himself, he tries and fails to find the distressed canine.  As he comes to understand how much he has lost in his various border crossings, Billy hangs his head and weeps.

This book is beautifully written and utterly heartbreaking.  Although similar to All the Pretty Horses in its coming-of-age theme, The Crossing is much more depressing.  Billy comes by his understanding of the real world in a brutal fashion, losing everyone dear to him through the course of the novel.  The third novel features Billy and John Grady Cole together, and I cannot wait to read it.

The Current Count

15 Read, 85 To Go

#14: All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

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100 books, book review, books, Cormac McCarthy, literature

The world can be a rough place.  For all of the joy and beauty to be found there is an equal measure of darkness and depravity.  Few authors present the dark side of reality in as poetic a manner as Cormac McCarthy.  His novels imbue the tenebrous side of life with a haunting nobility that reiterates the value of every human life, no matter how squalid the conditions in which that life exists.  All the Pretty Horses is an excellent example of McCarthy’s remarkable talent for transforming the downtrodden into the admirable.

All the Pretty Horses is the story of John Grady Cole, a sixteen-year-old cowboy from San Angelo, Texas.  Following the death of his grandfather, Cole learns that his mother plans to sell the family ranch.  Unable to dissuade her, Cole decides to run away to Mexico.  He persuades his friend Lacey Rawlins to accompany him, and the two set off on horseback.  Along the way they encounter another runaway, Jimmy Blevins, who rides a magnificent bay horse that is almost certainly stolen.  Despite Rawlins’ misgivings, the two allow Blevins to accompany them into Mexico.  Shortly after crossing the border, Blevins loses his horse, his pistol, and his other possessions while hiding during a thunder-storm.  He persuades his companions to go into a nearby town in order to find his horse.  They locate his horse and steal it back.  A band of horsemen set out after them, and Blevins leads the pursuers off while John Grady and Rawlins escape in another direction.

John Grady and Rawlins find work on a large ranch, where Grady soon distinguishes himself for his skill with horses.  The ranch owner offers John Grady a more distinguished job helping him select wild mares for breeding with a thoroughbred champion stallion purchased in America.  John Grady also encounters Alejandra, the beautiful young daughter of the ranch owner.  The two begin a passionate affair.  This good fortune comes to an end when John Grady and Rawlins are arrested without warning.  They are brought back to the town where Blevins had retrieved his horse.  After being separated from John Grady and Rawlins, Blevins had returned to the town to reclaim his pistol.  In the process he shot three men, killing one.  Blevins is executed and John Grady and Rawlins are sent to a Mexican prison.

The two friends are brutally tested in prison, fighting for survival on a daily basis.  Rawlins is attacked with a knife and sent to the infirmary for his injuries.  While Rawlins is in the infirmary, John Grady is attacked by another prisoner wielding a knife.  Despite being seriously injured, John Grady kills his attacker.  He is also sent to the infirmary to heal.  During his convalescence, he and Rawlins are ransomed by Alejandra’s aunt, on the condition that she never see John Grady again.  Rawlins returns to Texas, while John Grady attempts to reconnect with Alejandra.  The two meet but Alejandra refuses John Grady’s proposal, despite being in love with him.  John Grady returns to the town where all of his troubles began and reclaims his horse, along with those belonging to Rawlins and Blevins.  He also takes the police captain who had executed Blevins as a hostage.  He again flees a group of riders, eventually losing them.  After the captain is taken from him by another group of Mexican riders, John Grady returns to Texas with an uncertain future and a wounded spirit.

This book is amazing.  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my friend Seth Daulton at Surf Waco for the recommendation.  McCarthy is the greatest American novelist I have read in recent memory, a worthy successor to Hemingway and Faulkner.  All the Pretty Horses is the first book in McCarthy’s Border Trilogy.  I enjoyed it so thoroughly that I immediately purchased the next two books when I finished reading this volume.  This book is as close to perfect as any I have ever read.

The Current Count

14 Read, 86 To Go

#41: Suttree by Cormac McCarthy

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100 books, book review, books, Cormac McCarthy

I am a skeptic when it comes to books or movies recommended by others.  When one person recommends a book, I actually think about reading it.  When two people recommend a book, I consider it doubtfully.  If three people recommend a book to me, it has no chance.  That is one of the many reasons I will never read the Harry Potter books.  They are just too popular.  Certain books and movies somehow acquire a popular momentum that seems to be based on their popularity rather than their quality.  Take Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.  It was an entertaining book, but it was not the kind of groundbreaking literature you would expect from the tremendous public reaction it received.  I don’t want to feel like I am reading a book because the current of pop culture has forced me into it.  I’m not saying it’s right, but that’s the way I am.

For this reason I have always been a tiny bit sceptical of Cormac McCarthy.  Too many people seem to like his books.  Too many of his books have been turned into movies.  It helped his case that I actually enjoyed the movies based on his books that I have seen (The Road and No Country For Old Men).  I have thought about reading his work previously, but never overcame the hesitation caused by his popularity.  That changed when my good friend Daniel Ogletree of Surf Waco loaned me Suttree.  Here was a McCarthy novel of which I had never heard, recommended by someone even more reluctant to embrace pop culture than I am.  I am glad to have overcome my resistance, because Suttree is one of the most original and captivating books I have come across.

Cormac McCarthy

Suttree tells the story of Cornelius Suttree, a young man in Knoxville, Tennessee.  He has turned his back on a well-to-do family and a life of apparent ease to become a poor fisherman living in a houseboat.  He moves among a circle of downtrodden outcasts and rough-edged members of society’s dregs.  The book is written in non-linear form with numerous flashbacks and without the use of many conventional elements of grammar and punctuation.  The result is a story that happens rather than one that is told.  The events assume a reality and the characters a sincerity that is amazing.  McCarthy uses language like an artist with a charcoal pencil.  He creates people with fuzzy edges and shadows across their faces.  They are at once clear and mysteriously undefined.  The reader feels an understanding of them despite knowing very little about them.  This is especially true of Suttree himself.  As much of his life as McCarthy shows, the reader is left with so much unknown.  This mirrors the truth of all relationships– no matter how much you know about someone else, there is always more you don’t know.

Elements of this book are definitely depressing.  It takes place amidst squalor and despair, and a sequence of unfortunate events plagues Suttree throughout the book.  That said, the triumph of Suttree is that it is actually optimistic and laugh-out-loud funny.  Suttree fashions a happy life amongst his fellow outcasts that makes his misfortunes seem bearable.  The supporting characters are absolutely hilarious and include a melon rapist (yes, I said melon rapist).  The ultimate message of Suttree  for me is a double-edged blade.  On the one side, Suttree fashions a life worth living out of almost nothing.  On the other hand, it implies that he could not have fashioned a life of happiness in the world of plenty most of us inhabit.

The Current Count:

41 Read, 59 To Go