BLOOD MERIDIAN

I've tried reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy three times before, but I never made it more than a third of the way through the book. Today, on my fourth attempt to finish this novel, I made it farther than I have in the past.

The main stumbling block for me has always been the brutal violence that undergirds the narrative, especially the encounter around an evening campfire between white Jackson and black Jackson in chapter eight. But I survived it and moved on.

I'm glad I did, because I encountered the brutality and beauty of chapter ten. In it, I hear echoes of Moby-Dick, especially the Judge as an off-kilter character and/or madman in an indirect lineage from Captain Ahab and a pissing scene (to add the final ingredient needed to make powder for their rifles) that reminds me of "A Squeeze of the Hand" (Chapter 94 of Moby-Dick). It's a strange and hallucinatory chapter that makes me feel as though I'm just as famished and suffering from heatstroke as the group of American soldiers and mercenaries who are fleeing from pursuing Apaches across the Mexican desert.

It's quite the wild adventure, so on I trudge with Glanton, the Judge, the Kid, Toadvine, and company!