One of my favorite authors to read is Cormac McCarthy. He has a way with words that sticks in my brain long after I’ve closed one of his books. Poetic, intelligent, altogether lovely.
Recently I picked up McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, an adult literary novel that highlights life in the savage American south. It was by turns alarming and stunning.
What stood out most about this book were the descriptions McCarthy chose to use, which contained within them such startling verbs that you couldn’t help but picture them in your head.
Take this passage, for example:
“They rode on and the sun in the east flushed pale streaks of light and then a deeper run of color like blood seeping up in sudden reaches flaring planewise and where the earth drained up into the sky at the edge of creation the top of the sun rose out of nothing like the head of a great red phallus until it cleared the unseen rim and sat squat and pulsing and malevolent behind them. The shadows of the smallest stones lay like pencil lines across the sand and the shapes of the men and their mounts advanced elongate before them like strands of the night from which they’d ridden, like tentacles to bind them to the darkness yet to come. They rode with their heads down, faceless under their hats, like an army asleep on the march. By midmorning another man had died and they lifted him from the wagon where he’d stained the sacks he’d lain among and buried him also and rode on.”
Here are three things I enjoyed most about Blood Meridian:
- The descriptions. I’ve already mentioned this. They were elegant and eloquent and really made the story come alive. McCarthy has an exquisite gift.
- The unusual dialogue. McCarthy has a particular style about his dialogue. He doesn’t use quotation marks. Because of this, you actually have to work for what you’re reading. The book took me a while to read, but, hey, I like being challenged (and I’ve read other McCarthy books, so I wasn’t altogether unfamiliar with his style).
- The action and characters. This story was not your typical action story, but there was so much intrigue and fear and tension, especially built up around one particular creepy character.
And, for the action-oriented readers, there was some pretty descriptive violence, like the following:
“Two thick ropes of dark blood and two slender rose like snakes from the stump of his neck and arched hissing into the fire. The head rolled to the left and came to rest at the expriest’s feet where it lay with eyes aghast.”
Brutal.
After reading Blood Meridian, it’s even more clear to see why McCarthy is the award-winner he is.
The book mentioned above has an affiliate link attached to it, which means I’ll get a small kick-back if you click on it and purchase. But I only recommend books I enjoy reading myself. Actually, I don’t even talk about books I didn’t enjoy. I’d rather forget I ever wasted time reading them. (But if you’re curious whether I’ve read something and what I thought about it, don’t hesitate to ask.)
