Do you feel fond of your life right now as you read this? If not trust me what im about to describe in this book will make your life seem like a blessing. The desert is a harsh place where you can practically get killed by anything the american western theme is a heavily explored theme through out movies, documentaries, tv shows, and books you will mostly find the american man duals some mexicans or roudy drunk men outside a tavern shoot them square in the head then walk off with the hottest lady from the bar simply put. The american western genre is romanticized a lot but blood meridian takes that and throws it across a river set in 1840's america a gang called the glanton gang they are scalp hunters and as the name applys they grab a knife or cleaver and chop the scalp off a victim to sell they do this to men and woman and kids and infants collecting scalps for money they do it for the glee of sadism they kill peaceful travelers and soldiers without a second thought they commit war crimes and torture often they kill there own members. This book contains one of the most intellectualized evil and sadistic characters in all of literature he is a philospher he can speak 20 languages he is a master at science and philosphy he incites henious acts against the innocent and preys against the vulnerable such as chucking puppies in a river or making the main character the kid take the innocence away of a little girl in a saloon he is not human he never ages he is hairless and albino he looks like a baby and he never sleeps he quotes: Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent. Cormac Mcarthy's writing style is also genuinely interesting and its normally what i base my writing style off of he never uses punctuation and he uses massive biblical words the world is also apocalyptic with red dust couting the thick air its beautiful but also depraved in a lot of ways