Blood Meridian
Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West is a novel by Cormac McCarthy, published in 1985.
Set primarily in the 1850's, Blood Meridian describes a scalping expedition gone wrong by a posse of U.S. cut-throats in Mexico, based in part an account of John Joel Glanton. The novel is historically accurate in general, but some portions are based on Samuel Chamberlin's My Confession, a work that has been criticised as unreliable.
Despite the extreme violence, McCarthy's prose grandiose and has an often biblical quality; there are frequent religious, apparently gnostic allusions. McCarthy has not granted interviews regarding the novel, and the work is open to several interpretations.
The protagonist, only called the Kid, seems to have vaguely Christ-like qualities despite his participation in the atrocities; his antagonist, the monstrous and near omnipotent Judge Holden, is perhaps comparable to an archon or demiurge.
Harold Bloom has praised Blood Meridian as one of the 20th century's finest novels.
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