Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian puts me in the mind of the Thomas Hobbes quote about the life of man being solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Life is cheap in this book, regardless of race, ethnicity, or national origin.

The main character remains nameless throughout the book; he's simply referred to as "the kid." The kid is born in Tennessee, and leaves home for the West in 1849 without any plan. He travels to Texas and then into Mexico, falling in with bands of soldiers of fortune and then Indian scalp hunters. The Glanton Gang (the scalp hunters) include in their midst, the strange figure of the judge. The judge is a mammoth albino who has a high intelligence and a thirst for blood to match. It's never quite clear what the role of the judge is, but he seems to be everywhere at once and have control over situations that otherwise seem untenable. I tend to think he's a stand-in for Satan (particularly after he was able to make explosives out of brimstone found in the desert). The kid manages to avoid death while with the Glanton Gang and in the immediate aftermath. The story ends with the kid's death 28 years later, when the chickens, at long last, come home to roost.

McCormac's book is not for the squeamish or faint of heart. It puts the lie to the John Wayne version of the old west. Acts of incredible violence are the norm and people aren't ever neatly scrubbed and wearing clean clothes. Just as an example, two babies are killed when the Glanton Gang raids a camp. Not killed simply and easily, but killed by a man taking hold of a heel of each and bashing their skulls together. The native Americans aren't characterized as simple victims either; they're just as brutal. In on scene, the gang comes across a group that was slaughtered by Indians. Again though, not just killed. Killed but with the flourish of chopping their genitals off and stuffing them in their mouths. McCarthy's raw prose makes you realize that the "good old days" weren't actually good at all.

On the surface, it's a book about the American Old West. At a deeper level, I think it's more about how we're all not too far removed from the beasts and that civilization is a pretty thin veneer. In fact, once you cross the paper thin meridian into the west, law and order are just words. The law of the jungle prevails in the "evening redness in the west."

In summary, I'd rate this book as excellent, but I'd say it falls short of the great or classic label.