Depravity and Destruction in Blood Meridian Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is a passionate, lyrical, ugly novel about the depravity and destruction of life in the Old West. It is the story of a hellish journey where violence and corruption are common currency in a life of murder and betrayal. Contrasting scenes of scenic beauty, poetically described by McCarthy, are negated by his gruesome accounts of despicable scenes of human cruelty in the examination of evil. Like all of McCarthy's early novels, Blood Meridian (1985) had a lukewarm arrival in the literary world in the sense of sales and publicity, partly due to McCarthy's aversion to self-promotion (Woodward 28). Yet critics and scholars remained fascinated by the story's senseless violence and its tale of deception, genocide, and gruesome realities set around the U.S.-Mexico border in the 1840s (James 31). Blood Meridian, McCarthy's fifth book, was met with a range of critical reactions. Terence Moran, while finding McCarthy's writing "evocative," believed that the author "in Blood Meridian had failed to tell a simple Western in his haunting, original voice" (37). In contrast, Steven Shaviro wrote: "Cormac McCarthy, the solitary poet of his exultation, is our greatest living author... [this novel] manifests a sublime visionary power that is equaled only by an even more ferocious irony" (144). The novel, thanks to its frank narration of barbaric events, prevails as one of the few books that challenge traditional patterns of literature. Not the story of a redeemable antagonist or a helpless victim, Blood Meridian blurs the lines between sanctity and depravity in this lawless and demoralized land. This examination of the most unimaginable e...... middle of paper ......stence in a world of depravity that seems alien to the reader, but is all too normal in the world created in the book (147).While the novel tells the boy's frightening journey, much of the action seen focuses on Judge Holden. The mysterious and evil man varies in interpretation from divine to childish. Many critics have commented on Holden's manipulative power, ability to remain unchanged over the years, and his appearance in several locations at what appears to be the same time. Many lines are drawn between Judge Holden and the devil (Wallach 125). While not a literary success in terms of book sales and general recognition, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian tells an intriguing story in a light in which the Old West is rarely seen. Conscienceless violence, diabolical characters and breathtaking scenery fill this novel uninhibited by morality or righteousness..