Textual Detritus is a running series of notes focused on my reading list for exams related to my PhD studies.  These are not reviews so I will refrain from explaining plot lines.  These posts also contain any number of spoilers for the books in question though I’ll try to keep them hidden behind a cut.  Simply, the idea here is to get some of my immediate thoughts down in a coherent manner for later use or discussion.  As such, I make no claim about the level of thought, coherence, or grammar to any of these posts.

Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy

I completed this novel over a number of months with large breaks in between my opportunities to pick it up.  As such my thoughts here are more scattered than what I hope to get down as I move forward with this project.

Trying to capture my thoughts about Blood Meridian resembles trying to capture the exact portent in a dream that informs the sleeper that he or she is in fact in a nightmare.  Once the fear settles in those first moments always turn a bit fuzzy.  That isn’t to say that the novel is bad.  Rather, it is beautifully written, particularly McCarthy’s descriptions of the landscapes.  His focus is intense on detail to such an extent that when the nightmare begins, that is when the violence literally erupts from the landscape in one of any number of ambushes that populate the novel, you’re left staggered.  The intensity of the detail is perhaps best captured in a passage describing the Judge that occurs late in the novel: Continue reading “Textual Detritus – McCarthy’s Blood Meridian” →