Our book club theme this year is "Villains." Blood Meridian was claimed to have the most evil literary character - Judge Holden. But with all the violence committed by nearly every character, it was a toss up as to who was the most evil. And we did wonder if McCarthy's use of violence and his attack on the meaning of life, didn't make him the villain.

We were saddened that the more we read, the more we became desensitized to the violence.

The violence makes this a man's book. And its subterranean meanings makes this a book better suited to an upper level college course than for a book club discussion.

Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy-author
This is one of the darkest books I have ever read. It is about a world populated and controlled by the depraved. In 1833, The Kid is born. At the tender age of 14, he leaves home to seek his fortune in life. He meets hermits, false prophets and criminals. He is robbed of his belongings. He falls in with the real-life scalp hunting Glanton Gang and is slowly transformed into a misguided lawless and violent miscreant like the rest of them. For almost the following three decades, until the late 1870’s, we follow The Kid as he wanders through Mexico and the Southwest, eventually becoming the character known as The Man toward the end of the book. Page after page of villainous, heinous behavior involving death and destruction follow without pause, but the more things changed with the passage of time, the more they seemed to stay the same. Life did not improve and hopelessness and despair prevailed. Violence and disorder were pursued without remorse.
Paid exorbitant amounts by the Mexican and American authorities, the Glanton Gang was hired to basically seek and slaughter the Apaches, a native American Indian tribe that raided villages and homes for supplies. They brutally murdered their victims and took scalps as rewards. The Glanton gang were equally brutal. They were well rewarded for each scalp that they brought back, but they suffered a grave number of casualties during their raids and when they were raided as well. Historically, there is only one major source that cites the existence of the reckless endeavors of the Glanton Gang, in the mid 1800’s. Samuel Chamberlain, a soldier, wrote of his experiences when he briefly rode with them. McCarthy based this novel on some of the information in his memoirs.
Along with the scalps, Glanton also collected the ears of the victims which he wore as a necklace as they dried and blackened. The Glanton Gang grew more and more sadistic as time passed, and as they ran out of Apaches to murder, they began killing innocent travelers that they happened upon, to increase their bounty or to satisfy their well-developed hunger for violence. John Joel Glanton, the leader, murdered with callous abandon. Victims were beheaded, burned, scalped, stabbed. The second in command was known as Judge Holden, referred to as The Judge in the book. He was a larger-than-life, grotesque looking man with a huge intellect and absolutely no moral compass. He pontificates a great deal and commits murder without remorse or guilt. His lengthy comments are cerebral in nature, and he often seems to create his own reality and sense of justice. He takes on an almost supernatural image as he survives and reappears after each violent episode. He definitely appeared deranged. At one point, he befriends an imbecile, alternately referred to as an idiot. He took him with him on his travels. They moved along without any regard for traditional lifestyles, often appearing naked and filthy. Alongside his oddly surreal description as a violent genius, he often seemed like a pervert. Characters appeared and disappeared, almost randomly, then found each other again on the road or in small towns. That stretched my imagination.
Page after page describes the unrelenting violence and wanton murder that takes place with the casualness befitting a much calmer behavior. Once might as easily be describing eating nightly dinner, as the author depicts their raids on Indians, Aborigines, travelers and the odd strangers they encounter. Each raid is described as being conducted with brutal abandon, with no after thought about what had been done. When they are attacked, their wounded are abandoned or murdered too. Although the book grows more and more depressing, as every form of dysfunctional life is explored and becomes the acceptable norm, the reader will be motivated to keep on reading because of the beauty of the way the words are put together, painting graphic images of events that although they are brutal, are lyrically described. The sentences flow without convoluted descriptions and are, thus, easy to read.
The use of different languages was sometimes distracting since there was often no English translation. The number of characters sometimes became unwieldy; some are the fallen priest, the Delawares, the Mexicans, the soldiers, the gypsies, the madman, Toadvine, Captain White, the two Jacksons, one white and one black, and both equally barbaric, etc. The narrator of the novel remained unknown throughout the book. At the beginning of each chapter, asides are presented which foreshadow the events to come. The similarity to the trials of life today is unavoidable. We are still beset with cruelty, and oftentimes, the illegitimate and unfit are unduly powerful and in charge. Is humanity doomed to barbarism and decay?