Status
Available
Call number
Publication
New York : Vintage Books, 1992.
Description
Fiction. Literature. Author of the National Book Award winner All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy is one of the most provocative American stylists to emerge in the last century. The striking novel Blood Meridian offers an unflinching narrative of the brutality that accompanied the push west on the 1850s Texas frontier. His birth ended his mother's life in Tennessee. Scrawny and wiry, he runs away at the age of 14. As he makes his way westward, the impoverished and illiterate youth finds trouble at every turn. Then he's recruited by Army irregulars, lured by the promise of spoils and bound for Mexico. Churning a dusty path toward destiny, he witnesses unknown horrors and suffering-and yet, as if shielded by the almighty hand of God, he survives to breathe another day. Earning McCarthy comparisons to greats like Melville and Faulkner, Blood Meridian is a masterwork of rare genius. Gifted narrator Richard Poe wields the author's prose like a man born to speak it.… (more)
Media reviews
This latest book is his most important, for it puts in perspective the Faulknerian language and unprovoked violence running through the previous works, which were often viewed as exercises in style or studies of evil. ''Blood Meridian'' makes it clear that all along Mr. McCarthy has asked us to
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witness evil not in order to understand it but to affirm its inexplicable reality; his elaborate language invents a world hinged between the real and surreal, jolting us out of complacency. Show Less
Virtually all of McCarthy's idiosyncratic fiction (The Orchard Keeper, Child of God, Suttree) is suffused with fierce pessimism, relentlessly illustrating the feral destiny of mankind; and this new novel is no exception—though it is equally committed to a large allegorical structure, one that
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yanks its larger-than-life figures across a sere historical stage. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member Banoo
Oh my goodness... This is a western novel that doesn't sanitize the west like the television shows Gunsmoke or Bonanza did. This novel peels off it's skin and pisses in it and drags it through bloody viscera, blackened ears, and spit. It's what I imagine part of the wild west was really about in
What I do know is I wouldn't have survived one breath with that gang of scalp harvesters. I can't sleep when I'm cold. I like to take baths. Wearing another's blood unnerves me (not that I ever really wore blood before). I don't do well in the presence of someone losing limbs, especially heads. And I don't spit well. And you have to spit. And you have to spit at the right time and in the right place. Attitude is all about spitting. One wrong spit could get you killed.
So a gang of bad-asses roam the southwest collecting scalps from 'injuns' and anyone else they happen to kill. Imagine the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but more of them. Imagine the movie 'Natural Born Killers' with a whole bunch of Mickey and Mallory's set in the west...
The story follows the 'Kid', a 16 year old man, shot twice at the age of 15, and will more likely kill you than answer a simple question. He joins up with the scalp harvesters and ventures west towards the coast. Many things happen. Bloody and terrifying things.
And then there's the Judge, the hairless philosopher and all-round crazy man. If Satan is ruler of the earth, the Judge is surely Satan.
He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.
Death can be creative. Death can come in many ways. And I believe McCarthy has described them all.
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the early/mid 1800's. And I'm glad I was conceived later in life.What I do know is I wouldn't have survived one breath with that gang of scalp harvesters. I can't sleep when I'm cold. I like to take baths. Wearing another's blood unnerves me (not that I ever really wore blood before). I don't do well in the presence of someone losing limbs, especially heads. And I don't spit well. And you have to spit. And you have to spit at the right time and in the right place. Attitude is all about spitting. One wrong spit could get you killed.
So a gang of bad-asses roam the southwest collecting scalps from 'injuns' and anyone else they happen to kill. Imagine the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but more of them. Imagine the movie 'Natural Born Killers' with a whole bunch of Mickey and Mallory's set in the west...
The story follows the 'Kid', a 16 year old man, shot twice at the age of 15, and will more likely kill you than answer a simple question. He joins up with the scalp harvesters and ventures west towards the coast. Many things happen. Bloody and terrifying things.
And then there's the Judge, the hairless philosopher and all-round crazy man. If Satan is ruler of the earth, the Judge is surely Satan.
He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.
Death can be creative. Death can come in many ways. And I believe McCarthy has described them all.
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LibraryThing member gonzobrarian
In addition to watching the recent movie No Country for Old Men and reading The Road, I thought I'd explore Cormac McCarthy more deeply by reading his novel Blood Meridian. I'd heard about it from friends and intrigued for a good story, I dove in. Thrown in is more appropriate, like an infant into
Which is an exquisite thing. Blood Meridian is an astounding work that spans styles and genres, from the most erudite works of literature, to historical fiction, to sheer horror. It takes a story, an era ( the old West) that has been fantasized and romanticized to the point of nausea, and recreates it for what it most likely approximated in my opinion...unbridled lawlessness, havoc and murder.
Blood Meridian is a work depicting immense violence, detailing the events surrounding the escapades of a young character called 'the kid', as he makes his way westward from Tennessee around the year 1848. He wanders purposelessly until faced with the prospect of adventure in joining a band of scalp hunters destined for the American Southwest. Initially starting with a more specific objective, the band's purpose slowly embraces the means rather than the end, under the direction of their leaders Captain Glanton and Holden, more commonly known as 'the judge'; the band consequently sweeps across the southwest deserts and mountains in a sandstorm of terror, through Texas, Mexico, California and all places in between.
Though without glorifying war, McCarthy's style of writing leaves no detail of atrocity untold. The extent to which he elaborates on brutality and chaos reifies his more or less consistent theme of society's lack of morality, or at least the laughable facade of law and order. Which leads a reader to believe that this work is just as much a philosophical offering as it is one of fiction. That there are those among us who can manipulate situations and people to the extent as one particular character does in this story is the most frightening aspect. His insistence that existence of something requires someone else's consent is a highly disturbing credo and is the underlying current to the justification of events as they progress.
In any case, that violence is eternal is but one aspect and message of Blood Meridian that's thoroughly thought provoking and engrossing and bizarre and frightening. Read it, if you get the chance.
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the deep end of the pool, from atop the high dive while held by a seven-foot-tall, four-hundred pound freakshow delicately bouncing upon the board to get as much leverage as insanely possible. The atomic splat of sentience that resulted after reading the work brought a self-awareness that I now have truly entered McCarthy's world in as much as his writing syntax will allow.Which is an exquisite thing. Blood Meridian is an astounding work that spans styles and genres, from the most erudite works of literature, to historical fiction, to sheer horror. It takes a story, an era ( the old West) that has been fantasized and romanticized to the point of nausea, and recreates it for what it most likely approximated in my opinion...unbridled lawlessness, havoc and murder.
Blood Meridian is a work depicting immense violence, detailing the events surrounding the escapades of a young character called 'the kid', as he makes his way westward from Tennessee around the year 1848. He wanders purposelessly until faced with the prospect of adventure in joining a band of scalp hunters destined for the American Southwest. Initially starting with a more specific objective, the band's purpose slowly embraces the means rather than the end, under the direction of their leaders Captain Glanton and Holden, more commonly known as 'the judge'; the band consequently sweeps across the southwest deserts and mountains in a sandstorm of terror, through Texas, Mexico, California and all places in between.
Though without glorifying war, McCarthy's style of writing leaves no detail of atrocity untold. The extent to which he elaborates on brutality and chaos reifies his more or less consistent theme of society's lack of morality, or at least the laughable facade of law and order. Which leads a reader to believe that this work is just as much a philosophical offering as it is one of fiction. That there are those among us who can manipulate situations and people to the extent as one particular character does in this story is the most frightening aspect. His insistence that existence of something requires someone else's consent is a highly disturbing credo and is the underlying current to the justification of events as they progress.
In any case, that violence is eternal is but one aspect and message of Blood Meridian that's thoroughly thought provoking and engrossing and bizarre and frightening. Read it, if you get the chance.
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LibraryThing member John
I was led to Blood Meridian by Michael Ondaatje who listed it as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century. And now, having read McCarthy, I look forward to doing so again. He is a powerful writer with an almost unparalleled facility for description of places that evoke not only
"They entered the city in a gauntlet of flung offal, driven like cattle through the cobbled streets with shouts going up behind for the soldiery who smiled as became them and nodded among the flowers and proffered cups, herding the tattered fortune-seekers through the plaza where the water splashed in a fountain and idlers reclined on carven seats of white porphyry and past the governor's palace and past the cathedral where vultures squatted along the dusty entablatures and among the niches in the carved facade hard by the figures of Christ and the apostles, the birds holding out their own dark vestments in postures of strange benevolence while about them flapped on the wind the dried scalps of slaughtered indians strung on cords, the long dull hair swinging like the filaments of certain seaforms and the dry hides clapping against the stones."
McCarthy is also a writer with a prodigious vocabulary, not just for local fauna, but more generally as well, and he sent me scurrying to the dictionary often.
The story starts with a fourteen year old boy who runs away from home in Tennessee and is recruited into a band of marauders working in and around the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s. The objective of the group is to hunt down and kill and scalp as many indians as possible and to receive payment from the Mexican authorities for the scalps. They kill indiscriminately: men, women and children, and they wipe out whole small villages of Mexicans as well, as the opportunity arises. Their world is unrelentingly Hobbesian: dark, dangerous, deadly, and without a shred of civilization in the sense of any care, or any passing thought for other bipedal creatures as possibly deserving even a scintilla of compassion. The concept does not exist in their world. They are:
"Spectre horsemen, pale with dust, anonymous in the crenellated heat. Above all else they appeared wholly at venture, of the absolute rock and set nameless and at no remove from their own loomings to wander ravenous and doomed and mute as gorgons shambling the brutal wastes of Gondwanaland in times before nomenclature was and each was all."
These men live only for the moment, expect no future, relive no past, think very little if at all on the broader scheme of things, accept death and dole it out with the casualness of breathing:
"He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to him He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at every hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should cease. He'd long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men's destinies are ever given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he'd drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he'd ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them."
The one character that stands out in the group is known as the judge: learned in ways that set him well apart from his peers: a linguist, naturalist, geologist, historian, chemist, collector and describer of fauna and flora, astronomer...and yet, his interest in nature is to confine and control it, he is offended by the freedom and uncontrolled aspects of nature; he is a huge man of prodigious strength and despite his learning which one might consider the trappings of civilization, he is a murderous and amoral, or even more so, than any of the group. His philosophy of life summed up in the contention that, "Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak".
The denouement of the novel has the kid, one of the few survivors, now grown into a man, meeting again with the judge in what the judge clearly sees as a pre-ordained occurrence that seems to be the end for both of them. And I think that the character and role of the judge makes sense in the novel only if we see him as the incarnation of the devil.
A very interesting book and a very interesting writer.
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physical presences, but moods and atmospheres as well. The book at times feels like one long descriptive narrative. You can open the book on almost any page for an example, such as the following:"They entered the city in a gauntlet of flung offal, driven like cattle through the cobbled streets with shouts going up behind for the soldiery who smiled as became them and nodded among the flowers and proffered cups, herding the tattered fortune-seekers through the plaza where the water splashed in a fountain and idlers reclined on carven seats of white porphyry and past the governor's palace and past the cathedral where vultures squatted along the dusty entablatures and among the niches in the carved facade hard by the figures of Christ and the apostles, the birds holding out their own dark vestments in postures of strange benevolence while about them flapped on the wind the dried scalps of slaughtered indians strung on cords, the long dull hair swinging like the filaments of certain seaforms and the dry hides clapping against the stones."
McCarthy is also a writer with a prodigious vocabulary, not just for local fauna, but more generally as well, and he sent me scurrying to the dictionary often.
The story starts with a fourteen year old boy who runs away from home in Tennessee and is recruited into a band of marauders working in and around the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s. The objective of the group is to hunt down and kill and scalp as many indians as possible and to receive payment from the Mexican authorities for the scalps. They kill indiscriminately: men, women and children, and they wipe out whole small villages of Mexicans as well, as the opportunity arises. Their world is unrelentingly Hobbesian: dark, dangerous, deadly, and without a shred of civilization in the sense of any care, or any passing thought for other bipedal creatures as possibly deserving even a scintilla of compassion. The concept does not exist in their world. They are:
"Spectre horsemen, pale with dust, anonymous in the crenellated heat. Above all else they appeared wholly at venture, of the absolute rock and set nameless and at no remove from their own loomings to wander ravenous and doomed and mute as gorgons shambling the brutal wastes of Gondwanaland in times before nomenclature was and each was all."
These men live only for the moment, expect no future, relive no past, think very little if at all on the broader scheme of things, accept death and dole it out with the casualness of breathing:
"He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to him He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at every hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should cease. He'd long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men's destinies are ever given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he'd drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he'd ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them."
The one character that stands out in the group is known as the judge: learned in ways that set him well apart from his peers: a linguist, naturalist, geologist, historian, chemist, collector and describer of fauna and flora, astronomer...and yet, his interest in nature is to confine and control it, he is offended by the freedom and uncontrolled aspects of nature; he is a huge man of prodigious strength and despite his learning which one might consider the trappings of civilization, he is a murderous and amoral, or even more so, than any of the group. His philosophy of life summed up in the contention that, "Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak".
The denouement of the novel has the kid, one of the few survivors, now grown into a man, meeting again with the judge in what the judge clearly sees as a pre-ordained occurrence that seems to be the end for both of them. And I think that the character and role of the judge makes sense in the novel only if we see him as the incarnation of the devil.
A very interesting book and a very interesting writer.
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LibraryThing member kettle666
Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, is the most overwhelming novel I've read for years. I came late to it in two senses. It's almost 20 years since it was published in 1985, and it is late in my own reading life, because I'm 63. I read it on holiday. Not a comfortable choice, and certainly not the
You might well have to try it more than once, because it is very strong - at times even rancid - meat. But a lot of people, after they've closed the book, might find they can't read another novel for a while.
I finished the book, and picked up another. But the pages were slipping by and all my head could think on was Blood Meridian. So I did something I very rarely do. I put the other novel down and turned back to Blood Meridian, and read it again. It's a hell of a book. And I'm not speaking particularly metaphorically. It tells us more about the human condition than most other respectable works we laud so much. Blood Meridian is original, disturbing, heretical, challenging, difficult, and awe inspiring. Just like King Lear.
Here endeth my rant.
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best thing to relax with on a sunlounger, while supping a drink with a hat on. But Blood Meridian is, at the risk of sounding pretentious, on a par with Faulkner's 'As I Lay Dying' or Beckett's 'Waiting For Godot' or even that most astounding work of all, 'King Lear'. High claims, but give it a try.You might well have to try it more than once, because it is very strong - at times even rancid - meat. But a lot of people, after they've closed the book, might find they can't read another novel for a while.
I finished the book, and picked up another. But the pages were slipping by and all my head could think on was Blood Meridian. So I did something I very rarely do. I put the other novel down and turned back to Blood Meridian, and read it again. It's a hell of a book. And I'm not speaking particularly metaphorically. It tells us more about the human condition than most other respectable works we laud so much. Blood Meridian is original, disturbing, heretical, challenging, difficult, and awe inspiring. Just like King Lear.
Here endeth my rant.
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LibraryThing member ThePam
This book virtually defies description.
Personally, I found it hauntingly beautiful and tremendously loathsome at the same time. Typical of McCarthy's work there is a decided lack of character development. And the violence! Every depravity is pretty much covered. They even shoot and drown puppies.
And, of course, Cormac's use of language is awe inspiring. If you need heroes or characters in your books, give this one a pass. Certainly not for those who are easily depressed. There is no silver lining in this one.
* If you disliked McCarthy's previous books at all, you will loath Blood Meridian*
Personally, I found it hauntingly beautiful and tremendously loathsome at the same time. Typical of McCarthy's work there is a decided lack of character development. And the violence! Every depravity is pretty much covered. They even shoot and drown puppies.
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I had to take a break... but was drawn back by the compelling nature of the narrative. And, of course, Cormac's use of language is awe inspiring. If you need heroes or characters in your books, give this one a pass. Certainly not for those who are easily depressed. There is no silver lining in this one.
* If you disliked McCarthy's previous books at all, you will loath Blood Meridian*
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LibraryThing member The_Wiz
When I read this book it reminded me of a passage from Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game – “only those who kill have power; and those who don’t are subjects to those who do.” (Of course this was all written after McCarthy’s work, but my reading list does not follow in chronological
McCarthy is just as much a philosopher as he is an author. It’s easy to see influences of Machiavelli and Hobbes and (oddly placed) Virgil. But it’s Hobbes who shines through more than the others. Providing a modern interpretation off the same theory, McCarthy suggest the external forces of the universe are already established, and that champions – or, as he refers to them, “dancers” – are judged by their ability to control the dance, and in turn, the universe. But McCarthy goes one step further than Hobbes’ Leviathan, for McCarthy suggest suzerainty.
This is all very intriguing, and worth the time of reading, re-reading, and then re-re-reading. But honestly, the story itself is a gem. You can skip over all the philosophical and theological discussions that McCarthy attempts with the reader and just get straight into the battles – some of the bloodiest I’ve ever read – and you would still be entertained. Just be mindful of your tempo. I found that when I read the book slowly I was able to absorb every illustrating detail but lost track of where the story was going. When I read it fast I kept up with the story’s direction but missed the imagery. Keeping a middle pace might seem like a fair compromise, but the reader will lose portions of both story and imagery. This book allows the reader to adjust their experience as if one was merely shifting the sides of a mirror reflecting various angles.
I won’t end with a corny tagline like “a must read” but anybody who doesn’t read this book is missing out. Cormac McCarthy breathes excellence. There’s not a better author alive, and this is one of his finest works. (Okay, I couldn’t resist – it’s a must read)
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order.) McCarthy is just as much a philosopher as he is an author. It’s easy to see influences of Machiavelli and Hobbes and (oddly placed) Virgil. But it’s Hobbes who shines through more than the others. Providing a modern interpretation off the same theory, McCarthy suggest the external forces of the universe are already established, and that champions – or, as he refers to them, “dancers” – are judged by their ability to control the dance, and in turn, the universe. But McCarthy goes one step further than Hobbes’ Leviathan, for McCarthy suggest suzerainty.
This is all very intriguing, and worth the time of reading, re-reading, and then re-re-reading. But honestly, the story itself is a gem. You can skip over all the philosophical and theological discussions that McCarthy attempts with the reader and just get straight into the battles – some of the bloodiest I’ve ever read – and you would still be entertained. Just be mindful of your tempo. I found that when I read the book slowly I was able to absorb every illustrating detail but lost track of where the story was going. When I read it fast I kept up with the story’s direction but missed the imagery. Keeping a middle pace might seem like a fair compromise, but the reader will lose portions of both story and imagery. This book allows the reader to adjust their experience as if one was merely shifting the sides of a mirror reflecting various angles.
I won’t end with a corny tagline like “a must read” but anybody who doesn’t read this book is missing out. Cormac McCarthy breathes excellence. There’s not a better author alive, and this is one of his finest works. (Okay, I couldn’t resist – it’s a must read)
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LibraryThing member goddamn_phony
Lyrical, visceral, sickening and beautiful. Bret Easton Ellis, look upon this and despair.
LibraryThing member donaldmorgan
Thankfully the characters don't "mature" or learn...it would turn this book into a load of moralistic crap. I get so tired of reviews that say "nothing happens". What happens in this book is language. If you want plot, watch a Disney Movie, with a nice sappy ending where everyone very predictably
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and boringly learns and matures. Show Less
LibraryThing member stillatim
Here's what's weird about this book: it's not the violence. It's pretty over the top, but hey, so is every second action movie. What's weird about this book is that it completely ignores the interiority of its characters. There are physical events in the book; and there are measurements or facts.
So, sure, there's no development of character and the 'plot' is basically picaresque. But that's true of lots of the best late twentieth century novels (e.g., Gravity's Rainbow, The Recognitions.) People who review this and complain that there are no nice characters to sympathize with should go party with the people who review Jane Austen and complain because she didn't write about the slave trade. Seriously. You don't drink a red wine and expect it to taste like riesling; that would be revolting. So don't read this book and expect Jane Austen. But do read it. And Austen. A little variety will do you all good.
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There are no thoughts or feelings. 'Blood Meridian' isn't bleak because a few puppies a thrown into the river and a few babies slaughtered; it's bleak because, in the world of the book, the most important character - 'the judge' - is more or less right in all his horrific opinions. It's not absolutely, irredeemably bleak because a few people hold out against him, and this suggests that you, dear reader, might also hold out against him and all he stands for. (As a side note, it's also bleak because McCarthy's vocabulary is perfectly suited to bleakness. Who knew 'deadman' was word for any kind of anchor?) So, sure, there's no development of character and the 'plot' is basically picaresque. But that's true of lots of the best late twentieth century novels (e.g., Gravity's Rainbow, The Recognitions.) People who review this and complain that there are no nice characters to sympathize with should go party with the people who review Jane Austen and complain because she didn't write about the slave trade. Seriously. You don't drink a red wine and expect it to taste like riesling; that would be revolting. So don't read this book and expect Jane Austen. But do read it. And Austen. A little variety will do you all good.
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LibraryThing member jpporter
Another reason to admire Cormac McCarthy. His minimalist prose style is effective here in providing us with a brutal story about American incursions into Mexico in the early 19th Century.
The novel follows "the kid," a run-away from Tennessee who finds himself in Texas, around the age of 15, being
Throughout the brutal story are philosophical discussions (usually by the Judge) about God, man, and the nature of good and evil.
McCarthy fans will love this book, and those who haven't read his work yet will find this to be an excellent example of some of the greatest prose to be written by a contemporary American author.
The novel follows "the kid," a run-away from Tennessee who finds himself in Texas, around the age of 15, being
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recruited to reconquer Mexico in the name of the United States. What follows is a string of incidents putting the kid under the charge of the Judge and Glanton, two men whose taste for killing knows no bounds. Throughout the brutal story are philosophical discussions (usually by the Judge) about God, man, and the nature of good and evil.
McCarthy fans will love this book, and those who haven't read his work yet will find this to be an excellent example of some of the greatest prose to be written by a contemporary American author.
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LibraryThing member lkernagh
Having previously read The Road and Suttree, I “thought” I had an idea of what I was going to be in for with Blood Meridian. Nope, not by a long shot. For starters, this is not your typical Western of villains versus heroes, where at the end of the day the heroes win and ride off into the
For me, this story really brings to mind Roberto Bolano’s 2666, in particular, the on-going senseless violence of the murders in Santa Teresa. Both authors have a skill for writing sharp, vivid descriptions while at the same time weaving a story with an opaque denseness that can convey a myriad of deeper meanings.
Overall, a worthy read but please keep in mind that this anti-western epic is brutally violent with disturbing imagery in its commentary of man’s inhumanity to man.
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sunset. The wild west of McCarthy’s creation is a world gone mad, filled with cascading mindless violence, and no heroes in sight. I am not sure to what extent McCarthy borrows from history, but I do know that there is a real historical figure called Glanton who lead mercenaries tracking down and scalping Apaches for the Mexican authorities, so there is a vein of truth to be found within the pages of this story. Where Suttree was more grounded in the decline of the community living along the Tennessee River, and The Road is a journey of desperation through a sparsely populated post-apocalyptic world, both stories still retained some glimpses for optimism/ redemption. Blood Meridian is McCarthy at his most pessimistic. It is a very surreal read, with an allegorical structure and characters like "the Kid" and "the Judge" - whom I could not help but envision as being the Devil himself, what with the way he creates by alchemy gunpowder and expounds a philosophy that is so bloodthirsty it is hard to accept any kindness coming from him except with a dark twist to fulfill a self-serving purpose. I believe that the desert landscape of this story is in fact Hell. Maybe not Dante’s vision of Hell, but just as vivid in its portrayal, maybe even more so in that some readers will have an easier time making the connections with a western setting. For me, this story really brings to mind Roberto Bolano’s 2666, in particular, the on-going senseless violence of the murders in Santa Teresa. Both authors have a skill for writing sharp, vivid descriptions while at the same time weaving a story with an opaque denseness that can convey a myriad of deeper meanings.
Overall, a worthy read but please keep in mind that this anti-western epic is brutally violent with disturbing imagery in its commentary of man’s inhumanity to man.
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LibraryThing member Narboink
The Modern Library edition of "Blood Meridian" contains an introduction by Harold Bloom that is a monument of literary excrement; it is easily the worst, most pernicious and irresponsible introduction I've ever read. He not only reveals the novel's ending in exacting detail (even going so far as to
As for the novel itself, I found that it grew on me quite unexpectedly. My initial impression was that it was a spiritually hollow and desiccated mess with an aesthetic sensibility better suited to a cheap graphic novel. The incessant violence read like a prurient affectation, rather than a meaningful contribution to either form or function. As I got deeper into the novel, however, the raw power of the writing itself began to demand a kind of begrudging respect. McCarthy evidences an attention to detail here that is regrettably absent in some of his later work, and the result is often mesmerizing.
The story is essentially historical fiction, based largely on the doings of the Glanton gang and their bloody work as mercenary scalpers of native Americans in the mid-19th century. There is a deliberately epic and unabashedly biblical quality to the prose; fortunately the writing is both expansive and comprehensive enough to actually make such conceits seem reasonable.
This isn't a book for everyone. The gore is relentless and normative conventions of plot and character are clearly subservient to McCarthy's desire to create a parable out of mood and style. Oh, and the introduction is simply unforgivable.
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quote the epilogue and provide his own critical take on what the ending means in relation to the whole novel), but he also maps an entire symbology onto the characters which completely prejudices the reader and makes a fair and open-minded reading of the text nearly impossible.As for the novel itself, I found that it grew on me quite unexpectedly. My initial impression was that it was a spiritually hollow and desiccated mess with an aesthetic sensibility better suited to a cheap graphic novel. The incessant violence read like a prurient affectation, rather than a meaningful contribution to either form or function. As I got deeper into the novel, however, the raw power of the writing itself began to demand a kind of begrudging respect. McCarthy evidences an attention to detail here that is regrettably absent in some of his later work, and the result is often mesmerizing.
The story is essentially historical fiction, based largely on the doings of the Glanton gang and their bloody work as mercenary scalpers of native Americans in the mid-19th century. There is a deliberately epic and unabashedly biblical quality to the prose; fortunately the writing is both expansive and comprehensive enough to actually make such conceits seem reasonable.
This isn't a book for everyone. The gore is relentless and normative conventions of plot and character are clearly subservient to McCarthy's desire to create a parable out of mood and style. Oh, and the introduction is simply unforgivable.
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LibraryThing member SeanLong
It’s been quite awhile since I’ve had a reading experience to that of Blood Meridian, and although I’m trying to write a review, I’m finding it an arduous task. I don’t know, the book just eludes any interpretation for me at the moment, especially interpretation that would translate it
I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that’s included such an episodic, rampant kaleidoscope of violence told with such impersonal authority. Throughout my reading Flannery O’Connor’s stories immediately came to mind. McCarthy’s book resembles O’Connor’s in its violence, but he entirely lacks O’Connor’s penchant for theology and the symbolic plot resolutions that make theology seem plausible. The violence in Blood Meridian tends to be just that, and it is not a sign or symbol of something else. McCarthy refuses to bring in a moral verdict on the characters and actions, and there are surely no moments of “grace.”
But damn, not only is the violence barbarous on a level beyond any I’ve ever read, but I was struck by the lack of any human decency shown by any of the characters. The only ethical objection I can recall is made by Toadvine when the judge scalped the child – “Goddamn you, Holden.” But he never took any action or spoke for any decency. However, backtracking in my thoughts and reviewing the sections I highlighted, there are a few acts of human kindness – the kid giving Shelby his supply of water, the Yuma women taking care of the imbecile and the judge saving him from drowning, but I think that’s the extent of it. The dominant impression conveyed by the incessant violence is that no ethical, moral or civic sense is allowed to act upon the characters. It’s just there, take it for what it is.
It’s all just so fascinating, and beyond what I’ve said, I’m a little loss for words at the moment. I need to let everything sink in and think about it a little more. All components that I use in my yardstick for measuring what constitutes a great book, and Blood Meridian is definitely a great book.
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into some supposedly more essential language, but that’s due, I’m sure, to my lack of understanding. Blood Meridian is definitely one of those rare, complicated books that come along in one’s reading life that will require successive readings. But having said that, it’s one of the most intriguing books I’ve read in years, and I was fascinated by every page and can’t wait to read more of McCarthy. Anyway, here’s a couple of initial thoughts.I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that’s included such an episodic, rampant kaleidoscope of violence told with such impersonal authority. Throughout my reading Flannery O’Connor’s stories immediately came to mind. McCarthy’s book resembles O’Connor’s in its violence, but he entirely lacks O’Connor’s penchant for theology and the symbolic plot resolutions that make theology seem plausible. The violence in Blood Meridian tends to be just that, and it is not a sign or symbol of something else. McCarthy refuses to bring in a moral verdict on the characters and actions, and there are surely no moments of “grace.”
But damn, not only is the violence barbarous on a level beyond any I’ve ever read, but I was struck by the lack of any human decency shown by any of the characters. The only ethical objection I can recall is made by Toadvine when the judge scalped the child – “Goddamn you, Holden.” But he never took any action or spoke for any decency. However, backtracking in my thoughts and reviewing the sections I highlighted, there are a few acts of human kindness – the kid giving Shelby his supply of water, the Yuma women taking care of the imbecile and the judge saving him from drowning, but I think that’s the extent of it. The dominant impression conveyed by the incessant violence is that no ethical, moral or civic sense is allowed to act upon the characters. It’s just there, take it for what it is.
It’s all just so fascinating, and beyond what I’ve said, I’m a little loss for words at the moment. I need to let everything sink in and think about it a little more. All components that I use in my yardstick for measuring what constitutes a great book, and Blood Meridian is definitely a great book.
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LibraryThing member kant1066
Harold Bloom is right about Cormac McCarthy: he really does wear his influences on his sleeve. His language has all the dark brooding of Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor’s tang of Gothic surrealism. For me, the real pleasure of this book, my first novel by McCarthy, was the language. There are
But it is an fascinating group of characters, including a spiritually lost ex-priest named Tobin and Judge Holden, a seven-foot tall, muscular, completely hairless man who has some demonic affinities, though I’m not so sure he’s actually meant to be the Devil himself (or a symbol thereof), as many others seem to think. For all his caprice and cruelty, he may well be one of the most human people in the group. McCarthy also gives the Judge an inferiority that he completely deprives the other characters of. He knows several languages, is extraordinarily well-read, and often waxes philosophically about subjects that leave others disconcerted and confused. He has a tremendous intelligence and ability to reason, but often uses these for the ends of violence, deceit, and bloodshed. Isn’t Judge Holden, then, the model not for the Devil, but for human beings themselves?
And there is the violence, which is sometimes difficult to bear. One of the major characters wears a necklace made of desiccated Indian ears; Judge Holden spends one night comforting a young Indian boy to gain his trust, only to be found the next morning scalping the boy in flagrante delicto. McCarthy’s repetitive scenes of shootings and scalping have a peculiar way of becoming – even to type it feels eerie – boring. It is morally and sometimes even aesthetically desensitizing. This is certainly part of McCarthy’s purpose, too. I suppose complaints about human psychology, though, might fall on deaf ears.
Most everything you’ve likely already heard about this novel is true. It is violent. It is bloody and full of gore. And, perhaps most painfully, it doesn’t apologize for being either of these. Surprisingly, though, many readers seem to want an apology for what Cormac McCarthy has chosen to write about here. If you read a summary of the novel, you know you will, at the very least, read about scalping. It seems to me that you’re doing the book a real disservice if you’re a reader who can’t stand to read about violence like this, but goes on to knock it precisely because of that. This is like reading “The Compleat Angler,” and writing a review saying “It was great, but I don’t really like fishing – I give it two stars.” If you can’t stomach large doses of violence, this book simply isn’t for you. You won’t enjoy it. But for your sake as a potential reader, I hope that’s not the case. There’s a lot to enjoy here including the spectacular writing, and plenty to keep you up thinking at night.
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magnificent descriptions of deserts, mountains, animals, and the blindness we encounter when we forgive, or perhaps even when we remember, our human moral sense. This isn’t in any way a plot-driven novel; in fact, nothing much happens in way of action at all. It is just a story of a kid – that’s actually his name – who runs away from home at a tender age and travels west to join up with a gang patrolling the Texas-Mexico border. “Patrolling” is a bit of a formal word for a group of vagabonds who have been commissioned to bring back the scalps of Indians, but there it is. They wander and wander and wander, heading west aimlessly. But it is an fascinating group of characters, including a spiritually lost ex-priest named Tobin and Judge Holden, a seven-foot tall, muscular, completely hairless man who has some demonic affinities, though I’m not so sure he’s actually meant to be the Devil himself (or a symbol thereof), as many others seem to think. For all his caprice and cruelty, he may well be one of the most human people in the group. McCarthy also gives the Judge an inferiority that he completely deprives the other characters of. He knows several languages, is extraordinarily well-read, and often waxes philosophically about subjects that leave others disconcerted and confused. He has a tremendous intelligence and ability to reason, but often uses these for the ends of violence, deceit, and bloodshed. Isn’t Judge Holden, then, the model not for the Devil, but for human beings themselves?
And there is the violence, which is sometimes difficult to bear. One of the major characters wears a necklace made of desiccated Indian ears; Judge Holden spends one night comforting a young Indian boy to gain his trust, only to be found the next morning scalping the boy in flagrante delicto. McCarthy’s repetitive scenes of shootings and scalping have a peculiar way of becoming – even to type it feels eerie – boring. It is morally and sometimes even aesthetically desensitizing. This is certainly part of McCarthy’s purpose, too. I suppose complaints about human psychology, though, might fall on deaf ears.
Most everything you’ve likely already heard about this novel is true. It is violent. It is bloody and full of gore. And, perhaps most painfully, it doesn’t apologize for being either of these. Surprisingly, though, many readers seem to want an apology for what Cormac McCarthy has chosen to write about here. If you read a summary of the novel, you know you will, at the very least, read about scalping. It seems to me that you’re doing the book a real disservice if you’re a reader who can’t stand to read about violence like this, but goes on to knock it precisely because of that. This is like reading “The Compleat Angler,” and writing a review saying “It was great, but I don’t really like fishing – I give it two stars.” If you can’t stomach large doses of violence, this book simply isn’t for you. You won’t enjoy it. But for your sake as a potential reader, I hope that’s not the case. There’s a lot to enjoy here including the spectacular writing, and plenty to keep you up thinking at night.
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LibraryThing member DCArchitect
This can be a hard book to read. While the language can be dense, at times archaic, it is the absolute horror and savagery of the character's actions and the excruciating detail Mr. McCarthy employs to relate them that daunts the reader.
Don't let that stop you. This is a tremendous piece of writing.
Don't let that stop you. This is a tremendous piece of writing.
LibraryThing member lucienspringer
There is no bleaker or more bitter book. There is no better or more beautiful one, either. This novel, Cormac McCarthy's finest, depicts violence so depraved as to be almost unbearable, and doesn't ameliorate its impact by confining the evil within one or two sociopathic characters. His violence is
The writing in this book, though, is so careful and pure that the act of reading it is itself redemptive. As the story grows ever more horrific and threatens to engulf the reader in despair, the cumulative power of detail and diction elevates the spirit and mind. More than almost any other book, "Blood Meridian" shows art's ability to ennoble us while it illustrates our worst aspects.
The experience is exhilarating.
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institutionalized and endemic. His vision indicts the entire project of Western expansionism, and goes farther to become a threnody for the debased human condition.The writing in this book, though, is so careful and pure that the act of reading it is itself redemptive. As the story grows ever more horrific and threatens to engulf the reader in despair, the cumulative power of detail and diction elevates the spirit and mind. More than almost any other book, "Blood Meridian" shows art's ability to ennoble us while it illustrates our worst aspects.
The experience is exhilarating.
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LibraryThing member GingerbreadMan
A nameless youth, on the run away from home, joins Glanton’s band of scalp hunters, operating in the borderlands between Texas and Mexico. It’s the middle of the 19th century, and the borderlands are a frontier, a sinister, vast and unmapped landscape. Glanton’s band, a grotesque gallery of
This is an exhausting read. McCarthy paints an utterly nihilistic world, where almost every event is random violence. Paired with a lazy, detached language where everything from describing a cactus to killing an infant is given equal weight, this creates a dense, distorted and extremely disturbing reading experience.
I can totally see why many call this a masterpiece. The slow, sly gliding into strangeness and madness is really remarkable writing. But for me, it’s like McCarthy’s constant need to bring up horrid examples to remind me that this is a world completely without moral, dulls me down a little. I miss the sliver of light that was present in The Road. Still, I wouldn’t want to be without this powerful read. Recommended, but only if you have the stomach for it; and don’t expect a story per se.
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toothless, smelly, crazy, human-ear-necklace wearing murderers, are under contract to kill (or rather exterminate) warring apaches. But pretty soon they are killing peaceful Indians, farmers, Mexican soldiers, and more or less everyone they meet. At the reins of the events is the luciferan judge Holden, a hairless giant of a man, with a keen interest for geography and human weakness and with an umbrella made from human skin and bone as just one of his attributes. And as they travel deeper into the unknown, events are gradually turning more and more surreal.This is an exhausting read. McCarthy paints an utterly nihilistic world, where almost every event is random violence. Paired with a lazy, detached language where everything from describing a cactus to killing an infant is given equal weight, this creates a dense, distorted and extremely disturbing reading experience.
I can totally see why many call this a masterpiece. The slow, sly gliding into strangeness and madness is really remarkable writing. But for me, it’s like McCarthy’s constant need to bring up horrid examples to remind me that this is a world completely without moral, dulls me down a little. I miss the sliver of light that was present in The Road. Still, I wouldn’t want to be without this powerful read. Recommended, but only if you have the stomach for it; and don’t expect a story per se.
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LibraryThing member wrmjr66
Blood Meridian is a beautifully written book--at times it seems like the landscape is the main character--but also an extremely violent and graphic book. The problem I had with it is that thematically it seems to wander as much as its main character. The book follows the life of "The Kid" who
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wanders around from one violent episode to the next. The characters of the Judge and the Ex-priest try to give the novel some thematic coherence on the big questions of violence, war and death, but I don't think ultimately they are successful. Show Less
LibraryThing member jeniwren
This is the fourth McCarthy novel I have read and by far this is the most challenging. Critics have cited its magnificent language and its close representation of a defining period in American history. This is no easy read with its depictions of violence with a cast of characters who appear less
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than human. The prose is haunting and the desert descriptions are truly beautiful in contrast to the graphic torture scenes. Show Less
LibraryThing member samfsmith
Subtitled: Or the Evening Redness in the West
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 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.
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 –
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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.
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LibraryThing member PopeLinus
McCarthy writes a brutally violent story, yet one with such beauty and depth. It's horrifying, almost Dante-esque, but there is something transcendent at work as well, a beauty amidst chaos, all created with an almost biblical tone.
LibraryThing member gbill
Ok, I think I get McCarthy now. His central message is that brutal violence was a huge part of mankind's past (Blood Meridian), it's a huge part of our present (No Country for Old Men), and will be a huge part of our future (The Road). Here the violence is over the top. The book lacks restraint;
Here's a snippet of what I mean by that last bit:
"They road through regions of particolored stone upthrust in ragged kerfs and shelves of traprock reared in faults and anticlines curved back among themselves and broken off like stumps of great stone treeboles and stones the lightning had clove open, seeps exploding in steam in some old storm. They road past trapdykes of brown rock running down the narrow chines of the ridges and onto the plain...."
Particolored? Kerfs? Traprock? Anticlines? Treeboles? Trapdykes? Chines?
Quotes:
"You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow."
"...the sun when it rose caught the moon in the west so that they lay opposed to each other across the earth, the sun whitehot and the moon a pale replica, as if they were the ends of a common bore beyond whose terminals burned worlds past all reckoning."
"And so these parties divided upon that midnight plain, each passing back the way the other had come, pursuing as all travelers must inversions without end upon other men's journeys."
"They wandered the borderland for weeks seeking some sign of the Apache. Deployed upon that plain they moved in a constant elision, ordained agents of the actual dividing out the world which they encountered and leaving what had been and what would never be alike extinguished on the ground behind them."
"...in the circuit of few suns all traces of the destruction of these people would be erased. The desert wind would salt their ruins and their would be nothing, nor ghost nor scribe, to tell to any pilgrim in his passing how it was that people had lived in this place and in this place died."
"The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.
The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others."
"It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."
"Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views."
"I dont threaten people. I told him I'd whip his ass and that's as good as notarized."
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I'll spare you the details so you can keep your lunch down. I also found the symbolism of the Judge as a judge from the Old Testament and the frequent use of the color red in the environment as "blood red" to be cliche. Lastly, McCarthy's somewhat maddening lack of punctuation and penchant for using obscure words also made this book less enjoyable.Here's a snippet of what I mean by that last bit:
"They road through regions of particolored stone upthrust in ragged kerfs and shelves of traprock reared in faults and anticlines curved back among themselves and broken off like stumps of great stone treeboles and stones the lightning had clove open, seeps exploding in steam in some old storm. They road past trapdykes of brown rock running down the narrow chines of the ridges and onto the plain...."
Particolored? Kerfs? Traprock? Anticlines? Treeboles? Trapdykes? Chines?
Quotes:
"You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow."
"...the sun when it rose caught the moon in the west so that they lay opposed to each other across the earth, the sun whitehot and the moon a pale replica, as if they were the ends of a common bore beyond whose terminals burned worlds past all reckoning."
"And so these parties divided upon that midnight plain, each passing back the way the other had come, pursuing as all travelers must inversions without end upon other men's journeys."
"They wandered the borderland for weeks seeking some sign of the Apache. Deployed upon that plain they moved in a constant elision, ordained agents of the actual dividing out the world which they encountered and leaving what had been and what would never be alike extinguished on the ground behind them."
"...in the circuit of few suns all traces of the destruction of these people would be erased. The desert wind would salt their ruins and their would be nothing, nor ghost nor scribe, to tell to any pilgrim in his passing how it was that people had lived in this place and in this place died."
"The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.
The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others."
"It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."
"Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views."
"I dont threaten people. I told him I'd whip his ass and that's as good as notarized."
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LibraryThing member George_Hamilton
A bunch of American mercenaries are hired by various Mexican governors to hunt down and kill the Apache renegades who have been wreaking havoc across their states. The men must return with Apache scalps to collect their bounty. But in short time these misfits are killing and scalping Apache and
The novel is set in an environment both beautiful and unrelentingly savage. This feels like the real Wild West, where death and suffering are a part of most days. Some of the brutality had me draw sudden breath, cringe and close my eyes so shocking was it. Yet still, I couldn’t put it down. In one paragraph several men hang by their feet over coals which had roasted them, their brains bubbling and steaming out of their heads. And in the very next paragraph we witness the beauty of a pale green meteor shooting across the night sky.
I wasn’t at my most receptive whilst reading the book, so I couldn’t see the theme. But I have since read Josh’s brilliant review and the associated comments at Goodreads, which has made it clearer.
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Mexican citizen alike. Soon the hunters also become the hunted, by both the Apache and the Mexican cavalry. The novel is set in an environment both beautiful and unrelentingly savage. This feels like the real Wild West, where death and suffering are a part of most days. Some of the brutality had me draw sudden breath, cringe and close my eyes so shocking was it. Yet still, I couldn’t put it down. In one paragraph several men hang by their feet over coals which had roasted them, their brains bubbling and steaming out of their heads. And in the very next paragraph we witness the beauty of a pale green meteor shooting across the night sky.
I wasn’t at my most receptive whilst reading the book, so I couldn’t see the theme. But I have since read Josh’s brilliant review and the associated comments at Goodreads, which has made it clearer.
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LibraryThing member jonbrammer
This novel is religious in the way Melville or Malick are religious. The idea that there is no God outside of nature and that Satan is the separation, the division of man and nature, the desire of man to master the mystery that surrounds him.
The depraved sin that the country of the West creates in
Man's destruction of the innocent in nature is exemplified in the holocaust of the wild buffalo, described towards the end of Blood Meridian. The last image is of the judge dancing madly and claiming immortality. This is the loss of man in our embrace of evil.
The depraved sin that the country of the West creates in
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the hearts of men is personified in Judge Holden, the dark shepherd of the Glanton gang. The partisans ride through Mexico slaughtering Indians and Mexicans alike and selling their scalps for gold. With their gold they destroy towns in drunken debauchery. Meanwhile, the cold stars and eternal rugged landscape of the West look on in silent witness. Man's destruction of the innocent in nature is exemplified in the holocaust of the wild buffalo, described towards the end of Blood Meridian. The last image is of the judge dancing madly and claiming immortality. This is the loss of man in our embrace of evil.
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LibraryThing member Belial
This is the greatest work of American literature period.
Subjects
Awards
Language
Original publication date
1985 (1e édition originale américaine)
1988-04-14 (1e traduction et édition française, Gallimard)
1992-10-16 (Réédition française, Le Loire, Gallimard)
1998-10-21 (Nouvelle édition française, Editions de l'Olivier)
2001-02-10 (Réédition française, Points, Seuil)
2016-09-01 (Réédition française, Points, Seuil)
2021-03-25 (Réédition française, Bibliothèque, Editions de l'Olivier)
Physical description
375 p.; 21 inches
ISBN
0679728759 / 9780679728757
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