Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West

I've read 'No Country For Old Men' and 'The Road' before and remember really enjoying both so I thought I'd pick Cormac McCarthy as a third author to investigate a bit, but would read one of his books I hadn't read before. I landed on 'Blood Meridian' and am glad I did. It's one of the strangest books I think I've ever read and the writing is incredible. 

McCarthy seems to have this penchant for marrying together extreme violence with sort of pseudo - philosophical musings, at least in the books I've read anyway, and 'Blood Meridian' seems to provide this incongruous partnership in its most extreme form. Most notably within the character of Judge Holden, a very odd character who seems to me to be predominantly symbolic due to his bazaar physical appearance, superior intelligence and incredible skill in every field. As well as his huge capacity for evil. I've had a go at drawing him a few times. He is described as being around 7ft tall, quite fat/round and being completely hairless with very pale, almost white skin. He is also described as having oddly childish features (e.g. small nose, ears, hands etc.) 

         























This is just a quick drawing I made of him with sharpie marker but I think it's pretty good and despite having done more developed depictions of him since this one I think this has the best facial expression and appears the most as i picture him in my head. 

I was also pretty happy with this acrylic paint and oil pastel rendition, it's much more atmospheric and gets across the general mood of the book more than the sharpie version, although I didn't get as much expression into the face as might be necessary to fully describe his character. He is often described as being naked or topless so this picture depicting his whole figure (sat with his hands on his knees as he is described as doing a lot of the time) is also a bit more all encompassing.

     























This depiction might be favourite. It translates his violent, sinister character and the general atmosphere of the book well and also allowed for some more expression in the face. I tried to use a lot of red and dirty colours to communicate the semantics of violence which surround him, but this might have obscured the fact that he has incredibly pale, white skin a bit. This is my only real problem with it.  


After reading 'Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West' I have decided I'm going to study Cormac mcCarthy for this brief. Reading his work inspires me in a much more instinctual way than the other authors I researched. I got bored of trying to create work in relation to Poe and Kafka pretty soon but still feel motivated to create all kinds of different things related to McCarthy and haven't had any trouble with ideas. The way he writes gives me visual ideas without me even having to try really and despite having only read one book recently, I've been able to get a lot out of it and feel like there's still a load more left in the tank.