Customer Reviews

Notes on Blood Meridian (Southwestern Writers Collection)

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Out of print for many years, copies of the first edition of this book sold on Ebay for hundreds of dollars. There was an outcry for a new edition, but John Sepich seemed to be as reclusive as Cormac McCarthy during the 1990s, and so we waited.

Finally, at long last, here it is. Scholars everywhere will delight in this new edition.

McCarthy's masterpiece, BLOOD MERIDIAN, is based upon historical sources, not just Chamberlain's MY CONFESSSION, but a whole library of western memoirs and documents. John Sepich documents and annotates the work here. The real histories of many of McCarthy's characters are examined. This edition features an easy-to-map of the locations named in the novel.

In addition, the literary, mythic, and cosmological allusions are itemized, discussed, explained, and indexed. John Sepich, in association with other scholars, now maintains his own website and presents a concordance of the work which, last time I checked, was available for free.

I only wish the original cover artwork had been retained for the dustjacket, as the romantic picture here, so recently used on Per Petterson's Pulitzer-nominated OUT STEALING HORSES just has the wrong feel. It may grow on me in time. But the text of the book is magnificently presented.

Those who already treasure BLOOD MERIDIAN will want to purchase the expanded hardcover edition of this work, which features two new essays by Sepich, "Knitting The Winds," and "Why Believe The Judge?" They are a definite treat.

All in all, the amazing work of scholarship worthy of the masterpiece it illuminates.

John Sepich, Notes on Blood Meridian (Bellarmine College Press, 1983)


Isn't it always the way? The first truly indispensable book of 2001 and it's impossible to find. Even bookfinder.com doesn't list a copy.


Cormac McCarthy's 1985 novel Blood Meridian is one of the finest novels in the English language, and the realization that much of the book is based on true events of 1849-1850 makes McCarthy's achievement even more harrowing. John Sepich gives us an overview of Mcarthy's cources as well as a look into some of the other conceits that tie the book together. Whether you take all of Sepich's assertions at face value or not (and he certainly does stretch things a little with his Tarot interpretations), the end result of reading Notes on Blood Meridian is an even deeper appreciation for the genius of Cormac McCarthy. Sepich hunted down obscure references by the score, source material that's been out of print for a century and a half, authors of critical works, unpublished dissertations, you name it. It's all here. You'd have to spend years doing the research yourself. Why not let Sepich hand it to you on a silver platter? This is great stuff, and as a companion to Blood Meridian itself, it's indispensable.

After years of hearing about Notes On Blood Meridan by John Sepich, but not wanting to pay US$400 for a copy, I finally went down to my local branch of the public library and requested a copy through the inter-library loan department. In a few weeks a copy was delivered and now I have the copy right in front of me. (The inter-library loan fee was $10.00 but that's better than paying someone $400 if all you're after is the information in the book).

The book goes into great detail explaining the sources McCarthy used for Blood Meridian. Translations are provided for the non-English dialog. I plan to go back and re-read Blood Meridian after a careful study of Sepich's work. I think I can convey what's in the book best by setting out the table of contents:

Preface

INTRODUCTION

The Problem of Information--1; Three Sections--4; Scalp Hunting and The Glanton Gang--5; Indian Haters--9.

BIOGRAPHIES

Reverend Green--13; Judge Holden--14; Captain White--24; John Joel Glanton--27; Albert Speyer--42; Consul Bennett Riddells--44; Governor Angel Trias--45; Grannyrat--46; Bathcat--47; Mangas Colorado--48; Sarah Borginnis--51; Yuma Chiefs--53; Callaghan--56.

ADDENDA

Leonids--57; Comanche Attack--61; Ciboleros--66; Hueco Tanks--68; Jesus Maria--68; Wild Bull--70; Meteorite--71; Fort Griffin--72; Chamberlain--74; Ruxton--76; Audubon--81; Bartlett--84; Wislizenus--88; Hughes--94; Reid--96; Dobie--97; Ober--98; Bourke--99.

ESSAYS

Tarot and Divination--105; Judge Holden's Gunpowder.

APPENDICES

A: Massacre Accounts--129
B: Concordances: Narrative Voice--141; Hallunicatory Void--142; Wolves--145; Apes--146; Blindness--146; Celestial--148; Marine--151; Carnival--152; Religious--154; Smiles and Laughter--159; Egg and Dome--161; Ritual, Music and Dance--162; Fools and Crazies--163; Chance, Fortune, and Deception--164.
C: Languages: Spanish--167; French--171; German--171.
D: Map Citations--173.

BIBLIOGRAPHY--175

INDEX--187

I just purchased this book and have read the first half. I think several points are worth making.

1. The author (Sepich) makes hundreds of references to specific page numbers in Blood Meridian. However, the 2010 Modern Library Edition of Blood Meridian now being sold (on Amazon and elsewhere) has different pagination from the edition Sepich used. So unless you buy an older edition, expect lots of trouble when searching for the pages Sepich is citing!

2. I have so far found two errors, one of commission and one of omission. In the Addenda on Map Citations, Sepich says that in the novel's closing section the "kid" character crosses the Arkansas and Concho Rivers. In fact, in the novel it's an old buffalo hunter who mentions those two rivers, not the "kid". (And at that point, the Arkansas River is far north of the kid's location.) The kid, who has already crossed the northernmost fork of the Brazos River, then continues south and crosses the Clear Fork (middle fork) of the Brazos River, though this map citation is not mentioned in Sepich's book. These errors of detail are notable mostly because Sepich's book is so devoted to detail. And they cause me to wonder what other inaccuracies may exist in the book.

3. The detail in this book is fairly exhaustive and indicates a large amount (perhaps even an obsessive amount) of research. In that regard, I toast the author (Sepich). In truth, I do not need so much detail, and at times it makes the reading a bit of a slog, but it is there if I want it.

4. Some of the observations are highly speculative. That is, there is no proof or even evidence that McCarthy used some of the resources the book suggests. Where evidence does exist, Sepich sometimes tends to overwork the apparent metaphorical or symbolic connection to Blood Meridian; that is, I suspect McCarthy did not intend much of the overly complex and highly esoteric symbology Sepich suggests. In some instances, I suspect most of the symbology is pure fantasy on the part of Sepich. But as in the case of too much detail, I can choose to ignore what seems outlandish and find useful what seems substantially accurate.

5. It is interesting to learn about the books that McCarthy likely used as resources for Blood Meridian. And because I have so thoroughly enjoyed his novel, I may now read some of those resource books.

6. But you certainly do not need this book by Sepich in order to enjoy Blood Meridian. In fact, I'm hoping it doesn't cause me to read Blood Meridian in a self-conscious way in the future. The novel, after all, is akin to narrative poetry, and one can ruin great poetry by analyzing it too closely.

If you're here you have read "Blood Meridian" way more than twice, perhaps like some readers of the Bible, you read this book continuously or backwards or in sections or theme- parts; you sift over the text, the segments and paragraphs not for more history or story but because McCarthys voice soothes and holds and lets you survey a wider earth's horizon, a moral wilderness.

It is rare that you encounter people who even know Blood Meridian, and rarer still those who recognize that it as an poem, an epic like Beowulf, the Iliad or Moby Dick. It's rarer still that anyone has read the four. I laugh when I mention all four in one sentence and someone steps back shocked that in our lifetime in our century in our language we have a work that approaches epic. I give it to acquaintances and strangers, "Here read this, it is not an Ophra book". Without exception they shun me from then on. On a few occastions they have returned the book, "I can't do this."

Sepich, aside from one of the most horrific maps of NW Mexico ever printed, has made a well indexed and a well analyzed historic, biographic, geographic and social guide to McCarthys story. Sepich ties all of that across a library of other books and into the news as reported at that time. Selected parts of McCarthy's work are referenced and cross linked, each character, fictional and real, indexed and footnoted to a historic or semi-historic actor. Sepich reconstructs the basis of McCarthy's novel and roots the fiction in the real, or at least the myth of the real. For those readers light in Spanish there is a gazetteer.

Sepich falts are from omission.

The two survivors of this 30 year story are Tobin, the de-frocked priest turned scalp hunter and the Judge, the embodied devil. They decide to stay away from each other. Sepich has no comment on that. My take is that recognizing each other, they continue to abide by the division of the spoils; morality, geography, faith, legend, souls.
He has no comment on the pairing of the Judge and the Fool; this has got to push Cervantes off the edge.
He has a long comment on the firing of guns into the throat of the volcano, as a method of amplifying sound, but misses the testing of the Judges alchemy or the fain of group suicide as a more object purpose.
The novel is full of firearm craft and knowledge but Sepich has no comment on the characters arms skill nor the character of a half-dozen arms mentioned. He misses the firearms as the tools,the extensions of the minds of the men.
In a novel of some very serious outlaws, Sepich misses the uber-out laws, the Delawares.
McCarthy gives some time to, in the last years of this story, Buffalo Hunters; saviors of the kid and foil to the bloodletting of the Glanton gang. We see here killing and scalping on a hemispheric scale, Sepich misses that.

As I said, all of us apostles of Blood Meridian can pick holes in Sepich's study; few of us have the focus nor time to produce anything finer. Let's hope that Sepich turns out another expanded edition.

After seven or eight reads of BLOOD MERIDIAN, this was a must. The character background is worth the price of the book. It is definitely for the BLOOD MERIDIAN fans. Not bedside reading. The only down side, if there really is one is the print size. Can't have everything.

This book was purchased as a gift for a reader who enjoys BLOOD MERIDIEN. He likes this companion book.