I recently finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s
disturbingly unforgettable book Blood Meridian. It’s
not a book for everyone. In fact, it’s harsh brutality
and matter-of-fact-violence-as-a-way-of-life-ness is not
for most people. McCarthy makes no excuses for the
violence, nor does he simply use it as a gimmick or
mere plot-mover. In many ways, the violence is the
plot. If Camus’ Stranger had kept on killing, we might
have something of the kid/man.

This is a book that requires a lot of the reader.
Within the first few pages, we are jarred to attention
by what seems to be senseless violence perpetrated
by men without conscience. The violence does not
relent through the entire novel and it’s almost as if
McCarthy is asking the reader not only to persevere
but to become desensitized to the violence. It is
the proverbial car-wreck. You know you shouldn’t
look, but you want to. You can’t look away as the
kid and Judge Holden play their parts in the dance
of war; “the last of the true.”

The novel is heavy on allusion and is planted firmly in
the traditions of several literary forms. Its prose is often grand while focusing on minutia. I recently came across
these two lectures from Yale’s course “The American Novel Since 1945″ which I found extremely interesting: