On Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian"

Oh boy, it's time to anger readers.

Written brilliantly—and I mean in true, searing brilliance—Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" is a magnum opus of a different time, its meteor strike so violent as to deform its later receipt in ruddy, jagged ways. This is a book that changed American literature and American storytelling, and, by proxy, American history, as it forced the recalibration of America's myth-making.

Where, then, is the problem?

To put it dumbly, I'm too fucking woke for this book and it's the book's fault that I'm as woke as I am. The American Indian genocide is nothing new to me and nothing new even to the subject matter covered by ScreenSaver! I know of the violence, I know of scalpings, I know of languishing and bent crooked men pedestaled through sculpture and paid by bond, and I know it all and I say that in appreciation but also in resignation as it keeps McCarthy's work at arm's length away. There are hundreds of pages of bloodshed here and every single page is responsible for a better, more honest understanding of this country, but they are hundreds of pages that reached me in other ways—through conversations at home, through a progressive California education, and through museum exhibits, films, and documentaries that speak without fear.

It is all, and I hate to say this, a tad obvious upon reading.

But that isn't even my largest criticism. Instead, and forgive me, the book is kind of dumb.

The character of "the judge" excels most as a stand-in for Manifest Destiny—a self-executing unbound force exerting its will unto the land, its people, and their record. There's such provocation here, especially in a little scene where the judge copies an ancient cave drawing in his sketchbook, only to destroy the real cave drawing with his hands—suggesting, I think, our country's approach to history: We decide how you're remembered by deciding when you're destroyed.

And elsewhere, the judge's deployment of legal jargon, faux-philosophy, and what I can only call "riddle-work" are such clever and enjoyable symbols for our country's relationship with American Indians and westward expansion. We killed because it was legal, because it was "right," and because when it wasn't right we made it legal to give us the right.

And somehow, so much of this falls apart because McCarthy's obsession with war isn't as sharp as his observations on violence. The judge's monologues about war as divinity and war as God are such a dread and nearly embarrassing to read, the kind of text you'd expect from a high schooler aiming for shock value in Cathechism class. Admittedly, I'm a harsh critic here because "Gravity's Rainbow" is likely the most complete dismantling of war ever collected onto paper, so, you know, good fucking luck trying to compete with Observing The Pattern.

Finally, there's a scene near the end that astonishes, with McCarthy straight up writing "Of this is the judge judge," and brother, there's probably 1,00 writers in all of history who could ever get away with such blatant point-making language, but McCarthy earns his spot.

I recognize how silly this sounds by now. I'm writing a lot of great things about a book I didn't love, but in my defense the first 100 or so pages do not have a plot and many of the pages in between the rest are a bore.

Also, also: McCarthy reuses descriptive metaphors! Why don't we talk about that!