Blood Meridian
Harold Bloom called it "the greatest single novel published by an American writer since Faulkner." Set on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it is a relentless, biblical meditation on human violence. The Judge is among literature's most terrifying figures. McCarthy published it in 1985 to little fanfare; its reputation has only grown.
One reader filed it as "one of the worst reading experiences of my life." The prose: a "sporadic Tourette's syndrome of similes," in one reader's phrase, archaic diction, untranslated Spanish, and no quotation marks, as if, another reader jabs, dropping them "somehow makes the book classier." The violence: massacre after massacre with nothing building between them, a "nonstop onslaught of cruelty" that lands, in the words of a third, "too cold and unmoving to be disturbing." The cast: beyond the Judge, the gang blurs into hats and rifles, and the Kid stays so passive readers stop tracking him. An early scene of violence against children is the page where many quit for good; others report abandoning it twice around page two hundred and feeling only relief.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
