Blood Meridian: Cormac McCarthy (Picador Collection)

Brutally violent, Blood Meridian is the story of one teenage runaway in the nineteenth-century American South, as a sadistic gang unleashes its massacre across the desert land. It is the work that sealed Cormac McCarthy's reputation as one of the twentieth century's greatest writers – his magnum opus.

‘[A] brilliant, uncompromising work of fiction – imagine if the authors of the King James Bible, their hands guided by Satan, wrote a western’ – The Times

Through the hostile landscape of the Texas–Mexico border wanders the Kid, a fourteen year-old Tennessean who is quickly swept up in the relentless tide of blood.

A group known as the Glanton gang hunt Indigenous Americans, collecting scalps as their bloody trophies. At the centre of this violence stands Judge Holden: a massive, hairless man, mysterious if not supernatural, erudite and cold-blooded. He is singularly extreme in his sadistic violence.

But the apparent chaos is not without order – the Glanton gang, too, are stalked as prey.

Read as both a brilliant subversion of the Western novel and a blazing example of that form, it is a powerful, mesmerizing and savagely beautiful novel – and one of the most important works in American fiction of the last century.

‘In Blood Meridian, McCarthy reaches the peak of his style: spare and ornate at once, repetitious but endlessly readable’ – Guardian

Praise for Cormac McCarthy:

'His prose takes on an almost biblical quality, hallucinatory in its effect and evangelical in its power' – Stephen King, author of The Shining and the Dark Tower series

‘McCarthy worked close to some religious impulse, his books were terrifying and absolute’ – Anne Enright, author of The Green Road and The Wren, The Wren

'[I]n presenting the darker human impulses in his rich prose, [McCarthy] showed readers the necessity of facing up to existence' – Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain

Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

Produktbeschreibung des Verlags

Produktbeschreibungen

Pressestimmen

Blood Meridian is his masterpiece . . . An astonishing sanguinary epic dealing with the Indian wars of the 1840s in West Texas and Mexico . . . Unlike anything I have ever read in recent years, an extraordinary, breathtaking achievement -- John Banville, author of The Sea

A bloody and starkly beautiful tale -- Stephen Amidon ― Sunday Times

Possibly the greatest American novel of the past 25 years -- Aleksandar Hemon, author of The World and All That It Holds and The Lazarus Project

I have rarely encountered anything as powerful, as unsettling, or as memorable as Blood Meridian . . . A nightmare odyssey ― Evening Standard

The Judge is the book, and the Judge is, short of Moby Dick, the most monstrous apparition in all of American literature -- Harlold Bloom, on the character of Judge Holden in Blood Meridian

McCarthy distances us not only from the historical past, not only from our cowboy-and-Indian images of it, but also revisionist theories that make white men the villains and Indians the victims. All men are unremittingly bloodthirsty here, poised at a peak of violence, the "meridian" from which their civilization will quickly fall ― New York Times Book Review

In Blood Meridian, McCarthy reaches the peak of his style: spare and ornate at once, repetitious but endlessly readable ― Guardian

Blood Meridian, published in 1985, is a brilliant, uncompromising work of fiction – imagine if the authors of the King James Bible, their hands guided Satan, wrote a western ― The Times

Rezension

McCarthy distances us not only from the historical past, not only from our cowboy-and-Indian images of it, but also revisionist theories that make white men the villains and Indians the victims. All men are unremittingly bloodthirsty here, poised at a peak of violence, the "meridian" from which their civilization will quickly fall. ― New York Times Book Review

Blood Meridian is his masterpiece . . . An astonishing sanguinary epic dealing with the Indian wars of the 1840s in West Texas and Mexico . . . Unlike anything I have ever read in recent years, an extraordinary, breathtaking achievement. -- John Banville ― Observer

McCarthy's achievement is to establish a new mythology which is as potent and vivid as that of the movies, yet one which has absolutely the opposite effect . . . He is a great writer. ― Independent

A bloody and starkly beautiful tale -- Stephen Amidon ― Sunday Times

Possibly the greatest American novel of the past 25 years. -- Aleksandar Hemon, author of THE LAZARUS PROJECT and NOWHERE MAN

Unlike anything I have read in recent years, an extraordinary, breathtaking achievement. -- John Banville

I have rarely encountered anything as powerful, as unsettling, or as memorable as Blood Meridian . . . A nightmare odyssey. ― Evening Standard

The ultimate Western -- Harlold Bloom

Buchrückseite

Set in the anarchic world opened up by America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is an epic and potent account of the barbarous violence that man visits upon man. Through the hostile landscape of the Texas-Mexico border wanders the Kid, a fourteen year-old Tennessean who is quickly swept-up in the relentless tide of blood. But the apparent chaos is not without its order: while Americans hunt Indians - collecting scalps as their bloody trophies - they too are stalked as prey.

Since its first publication in 1985, Blood Meridian has been read as both a brilliant subversion of the Western novel and a blazing example of that form. Powerful and savagely beautiful, it has emerged as one of the most important works in American fiction of the last century. A truly mesmerising classic.

Über den Autor und weitere Mitwirkende

Cormac McCarthy was the author of many acclaimed novels, including Blood Meridian, Child of God and The Passenger. Among his honours are the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His works adapted to film include All the Pretty Horses, The Road and No Country for Old Men – the latter film receiving four Academy Awards, including the award for Best Picture. McCarthy died in 2023 in Santa Fe, NM at the age of 89.

Produktinformation

• Herausgeber ‏ : ‎ Picador; Main Market Edition (17. Februar 2022)
• Sprache ‏ : ‎ Englisch
• Taschenbuch ‏ : ‎ 384 Seiten
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1529077168
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1529077162
• Lesealter ‏ : ‎ Ab 18 Jahren
• Abmessungen ‏ : ‎ 3.6 x 12.7 x 19.7 cm