McCarthy's war novel. Not war between nations but the more elemental and basic desire of man to war on his fellow creatures to advance himself.
At times it reads like a heroic epic poem, at times like a biblical chronicle. There are no heroes here - the characters give free reign to their basest cravings and desires. Violence is ubiquitous. The central character - the kid, is curiously minimized. He appears at the beginning, and again at the end, but in the majority of the novel, as the hideous exploits of the roving warriors are told, the kid is curiously absent from the narrative. We know he is there, that he takes part, but we are not seeing the action through his eyes or even getting his reactions to what happens. In a sense he is everyman, or any man, caught up as a teenager in the war.
The character of the judge is the god of war. He is ruthlessly self-centered. Nothing exists that he does not destroy. He controls and manipulates everyone that he meets.
An unsettling read - grit your teeth and bear it.
Link to Amazon: Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West
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