LITERATURE: Focus on Blood Meridian

While The Great Lettuce Head focuses on space, I spent 335 pages focused on detail. This is my first reading of Blood Meridian, my first reading of Cormac McCarthy’s work. Maybe for me, my next reading will produce a different reaction and I will notice some other element such as symbolism more often. Maybe the GLH has been through the different phases in each reading and is still open to more. What it comes to show me however, is that what experience we bring in changes our perception of the reading, and the reading in turn changes our perception.

There is violence and open, bloody human beings (yes, I meant “open” literally) sprawled all over the pages throughout the book. Graphically described, but in the cold, jaded voice of the narrator who has seen it first hand. Dare I admit that the scenes that elicited a shiver from me were, first, a horse’s head being split open and next, the two dogs that were thrown alive onto the bonfire that burned the bodies of Glanton and the doctor. Why this, after all the men, women, children, and babies that were even more horribly murdered? I don’t know. Perhaps the knowledge of animals being unable to comprehend their situation–but that wouldn’t explain the children. I like, but am no great animal lover and do not currently have a pet. Maybe my past experience as an EMT, where I knelt by a motorcyclist on a stretch of highway to control the bleeding from a leg newly amputated at the knee has raised my tolerance level. But the more important question is where does the reader go from here—after experiencing the horrors of Blood Meridian? Will the next reading or a story similar in graphic violence render one a bit less squeamish, a bit less sensitive? Isn’t this parallel to what has happened to Glanton, the judge, the kid and all the rest?

On a less philosophical note, I was truly bummed out by Glanton’s death. My mental picture of him was the spittin’ image of Sam Elliot.