Kathy’s Reviews > Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West > Status Update
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Kathy
is on page 189 of 351
okay, the fact that this novel is apparently based on the contemporaneous biography of a real dude and his band of mercenary murderers and it’s famous for historical accuracy means that I’ll read at least another 50 pages before I completely and totally lose my marbles. but after that, no promises.
— Oct 14, 2026 12:19PM
Kathy
is on page 177 of 351
this line cracked me up: “Patriotic toasts were drunk, the governor [of Chihuahua, Mexico]’s aides raising their glasses to Washington and Franklin and the Americans responding with yet more of their own country’s heroes, ignorant alike of diplomacy and any name at all from the pantheon of their sister republic.”
— Oct 14, 2026 06:28AM
Kathy
is on page 114 of 351
let’s be so fucking real. what is the point of Any of this.
— Oct 11, 2026 06:06PM
Kathy
is on page 86 of 351
struggling with the racist depiction of Native southwest peoples in this. see this source for deconstruction of the racist portrayal of the Comanche: Fowles, Severin, Arterberry, Lindsay Montgomery, Atherton, Heather (2017), "Comanche New Mexico: The Eighteenth Century", in New Mexico and the Pimeria Alta, Boulder University Press of Colorado, pp. 158–160.
— Oct 11, 2026 12:07PM
Kathy
is on page 77 of 351
while the prose is gorgeous (a stunning, unusual voice), the themes are bleak and cynical in the extreme. mccarthy seems incurious as to the causes of violence; it seems that he’s the kind of christian that believes that ontological evil is real, and it possesses human beings, and therefore there’s no point in examining the “why.” maybe the remainder will prove me wrong.
— Oct 10, 2026 08:03PM
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Oct 13, 2026 07:27AM
UKLG: “The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”
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Butler: “When apparent stability disintegrates,As it must--
God is Change--
People tend to give in
To fear and depression,
To need and greed.
When no influence is strong enough
To unify people
They divide.
They struggle,
One against one,
Group against group,
For survival, position, power.
They remember old hates and generate new ones,
The create chaos and nurture it.
They kill and kill and kill,
Until they are exhausted and destroyed,
Until they are conquered by outside forces,
Or until one of them becomes
A leader
Most will follow,
Or a tyrant
Most fear.”
So many authors have done these themes better justice with more nuance. McCarthy seems entirely indifferent to the causes of violence, seeming to believe it springs eternal from ontological evil. Butler knows what causes it, and she shows us. “They have no power to improve their lives, but they have the power to make others even more miserable. And the only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it.”
“The great American novel of this generation”, my ass.