Spoilers!
I'm just going to jump right into it. The "I Read" series here is always going to be for people who have read the books or just want to see what I have to say about it, and will always contain spoilers of major or minor importance.
Review
This was one of the darkest books I've ever read. Not just the subject matter—scalp hunting—but the vibe. It was a wicked fever dream. It's like walking through a cavern of redness where things constantly jump out at you from the shadows, and those things are the murderous people you're walking through the story with, who have been there all along.
The Judge is fascinating. I thought he was awesome and had no real reason not to like him until he threw the puppies in the river. That act symbolizes the worst thing you could do, I think—as if murdering and scalping natives is not evil enough. He bought them, and then threw them in a river just after. Inexplicable.
Glanton was true evil. The whole gang had the feel of a hungry pack of powerful wolves. A plague that washed over the land and sucked up all goodness from the ground it passed over.
It's strange because I don't think there was a real moment of happiness in the whole book. What good thing happened? I can't recall. The greatest mercy in the book was Toadvine shooting the pups after the Judge threw them in the river. A horrible thing standing out as goodness in such a dark, dark, landscape.
I think the book was supposed to be all those things, it was supposed to be terrible and unforgiving, supposed to be a ride you wanted off of but were strapped into, and there's no stopping it once it begins.
At first I thought the writing was overly simplistic, but then Cormac McCarthy would suddenly wax poetic and paint a twisted picture that was painful and beautiful.
I've heard people wonder about the end of the book, whether or not the Judge kills (or does something else unspeakable) to the kid, who is now the man. And I don't know. I realized I'm not much for finishing a story in my own head. The story is the story. Yes, it's partially ours in our heads, but conjecture is the most unreal. Is it the author's truth that prevails? If the author thinks the future in their head but never writes it, is that truly canonical? I'd argue no. But if it's written? Unpublished? I don't know. There are a lot of other stories that have similar endings, but I didn't warn you about spoilers for those, so I'll keep my hands tied.
Do you come up with the ending you want? Do you grab evidence to support the likely conclusion?
I think I just let it be open, because it is, until it's written. I haven't even been trying to guess the endings of books with this marathon of reading I’ve done this year. I just walk through them, wide-eyed and open to whatever comes next.
I gave Blood Meridian five stars. I think it accomplished its goal, making me feel all kinds of ways. The characters were terrible and evil, and there was satisfaction in their deaths. I suppose THAT was the good thing that happened in the book. They all died.
Except maybe the Judge. Who must still be out there somewhere.