The Road

Can one say serendipitous in a review of a Cormac McCarthy novel? Reading this book directly after Blood Meridian seemed serendipitous: The Road is in many ways a postapocalyptic rewrite of the earlier Western.

There's a little more "human" in The Road, though, again, I'm perturbed by the unnamed characters and torn between awe of the occasional verbally brilliant, contemplative passages and a suspicion that, profound or not, they're ultimately diversions.

I was surprised at the ending -- even with Oprah's endorsement, I couldn't bring myself to expect quite so much hope. I'm not sure I entirely believe it. In the end, The Road is a more fulfilling, mature novel Blood Meridian.

Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West

Reading The Border Trilogy made me a Cormac McCarthy fan. (I'll admit it: All the Pretty Horses is my fav.) Recently, I read No Country for Old Men, a unique reading experience because I broke my vow to never watch the movie first, but a novel different but on par with the trilogy. I was excited to go back to the Western and an earlier McCarthy in Blood Meridian.

Blood Meridian is relentless, yet with McCarthy, you trust that even gratuity can be meaningful. That said, I like my parables shorter. Probably very few people could say they "liked" reading this book, but all too often I found myself asking, "who cares?" I have no patience with unnamed protagonists; there's a reason that Judge Holden, the character who holds the novel together, has a name. No Country for Old Men, which similarly has few sympathetic characters, nevertheless has characters in a way that Blood Meridian doesn't.

Difficult as it is, Blood Meridian has some incredible passages. The last chapter is particularly stunning (yeah, I knew better than to hope for the fairytale).

McCarthy does strike me as Faulknerian at times, and Blood Meridian is interesting as a piece in his oevre. Ultimately, however, it seems like a warm-up for the later works.