Blood Meridian is a classic novel whose fame and literary merit has already been praised for longer than I have lived; however, it is entirely unbearable. Blood Meridian isn’t illegible or poorly written, in fact, Cormac McCarthy’s brilliant writing style is unrivaled when it comes to delivering a powerful message. What makes Blood Meridian unbearable is the shear amount of senseless conflict, dimming the brilliance of the compelling language with a screen of blood.

Violence in a book would normally seem to be manageable, the reader can’t see the rivers of blood or the grotesque deaths with their eyes. But if McCarthy’s potent imagery doesn’t force the reader to reel in shock, then the quantity will make up for the lack of visuals. In the first chapter alone, the main character almost dies in a fight twice, a priest is murdered in a bout of violence, the kid (the main character doesn’t even have a name) sets hotel ablaze to wake up a man, and then he kills the man as well as the clerk of the hotel, all without any reason or justification. The plot hereon doesn’t slow down or become less intense. In reality, the book revels in displaying as many atrocious, meaningless deaths as possible in a single chapter. From children to puppies, from murderers to sheriffs, from friends to enemies, the kid and his companions indiscriminately butcher without cause (besides the thrill of massacre). After a certain point, readers are forced to either stop reading or become insensitive to the image of children dying horrifically (since the children become a few more on a nameless, endless list) at the hands of mass murderers.

Besides the appalling nature of the butcheries, the violence overshadows other aspects of the book. Whether that was McCarthy’s purpose or not, it detracts from the quality of both the characters and the impact of the text. The characters never develop from their initial roles or become anything more than archetypes. In fact, most of the characters don’t have names or are only mentioned by their titles (the kid, the judge, the ex-priest). McCarthy denies the characters the right to their names and lowers them to the status of a machine, simple cogs for the purpose of reinforcing the image of mass violence. And as for the well written prose, the violence diverts the focus from its powerful meaning to the horrors surrounding. Quotes as powerful as “If much in the world were mystery the limits of that world were not, for it was without measure or bound and there were contained within it creatures more horrible yet and men of other colors and beings which no man has looked upon and yet not alien none of it more than were their own hearts alien in them, whatever wilderness contained there and whatever beasts” (McCarthy 144) are hidden after a scene displaying one of the many nameless characters shredded by a bear and dragged off into the woods. McCarthy makes fun of the scene and compares it to a fairy tale, because, of course, being killed by a bear is the perfect plot line for a Disney movie. The impact of the violence, in at least this scene, clouds the powerful quotes with needless blood and diminishes their significance.

McCarthy’s vivid depictions of violence are, really, meaningless. Because Blood Meridian is extremely well-written, it allows readers to easily visualize the horrifying scenes. And although some people prefer reading books than watching television because they can picture the story in their heads the way they want to see it, Blood Meridian is definitely not something you’d want your imagination to recreate. I don’t know what shocked me more–the fact that I was able to play out the violence so clearly in my head, or the fact that I had become so immune to McCarthy’s violent depictions. It didn’t matter a guy died in chapter one… by the middle of chapter two he’s already killing for sport! Honestly, I started reading Blood Meridian with my mouth ajar, but by the end of the book I was just nodding and thinking, how will McCarthy top this disturbing scene? Somehow, he never failed to disappoint in that aspect. If you can stomach the horror stored in Blood Meridian, bear with the lack of characters, and find the intricacy hidden in blood bathes, then maybe McCarthy’s brilliance will still be visible for you.