Comment

Sarah1984
May 06, 2016Sarah1984 rated this title 2.5 out of 5 stars
I'm enjoying the story. I have no problem with the violence, blood and gore, in fact I like a good bit of violence and sometimes see sense in it where others wouldn't. On the other hand the language, words, style are confounding me. If this was a SPA romance or erotica I would be transcribing the page long sentences as examples of why the book is dreadful and not one I would recommend. I would also have DNFd it by now. But this is Cormac McCarthy, he's reputed to be a fabulous writer and he made a conscious decision to write those page long sentences. That must mean that an atrocious lack of what is considered correct grammar is okay when it's done by a best-selling author. Right? Well, I'm not so sure about that. I'm not sure whether it speaks of literary genius or, as another reviewer Jonathan, put it literary gimmickry. As I am still enjoying the plot and managing to continue to follow the language I will persevere, but I'm pretty sure I won't be attempting any other of his novels if they are filled with this style of writing. It's just not my cup of tea (or any other beverage of any kind). The frequent use of Spanish without any hope of a translation is just adding to the ever-growing pile of hay on that camel's back. I don't speak any Spanish, not any at all (except muchos gracias). It's just not fair *stamps foot in frustration* to use a foreign language in an English language book without either repeating the phrases in English or having a glossary. How can McCarthy expect his readers to get the full benefit of his story if not all of them can read all of the dialogue? It's not like it's single words either, they're whole sentences, which makes it hard (impossible) to guess what's being said from the context. Moving on from the foreign language problems to sentences whose words I can read with ease, but whose meaning I still can't make heads or tails of: "He passed and so passed all into the problematical destruction of darkness." *In a small, slightly embarrassed voice* What does that mean? I'm not sure if the darkness is destructive or if the darkness is being destroyed. To be continued... P.S. Great death scene at the campfire!! Very evocative and memorable. I've just read on Wikipedia's Blood Meridian page that it's considered McCarthy's masterpiece. That scares me, because if the language in this is difficult, I'm never going to manage any of his lesser works where I'll likely get the same language with a less interesting plot. Has anyone else heard the urban legend that if you listen to The Beatles' White Album backwards there are satanic messages in the lyrics? Well, while I'm reading Blood Meridian I keep getting subliminal messages, but they're not telling me to kill, they're telling me to DNF because life is too short and I have better books waiting for me. Let's do a poll! Hands up if you think I should listen to the subliminal messages. Okay, now hands up if you think I should just ignore them. Thanks, I'll take your opinions into consideration. *sigh* This just stopped being worth my time. I really wasn't enjoying the language and as I skimmed a couple of other reviews I saw that there were comments about the book not really going anywhere plotwise (didn't really encourage me to persevere with the book despite my difficulties with the language). Sorry Mr McCarthy it looks like your books are going to be a DNF followed by numerous NFMs (not for me).