Blood Meridian

A hard novel to read. Its endless mindless savagery and violence and an incredibly weak plot. Or non-existant plot. There seems to be no reason, no purpose. Its emptiness and death and violence with no real voice of humanity in any of the characters. The most seductive character is the Judge who seems the most evil as well. So...why do people read it and continually give it 4 or 5 stars (myself included). Its hard to explain. For a plotless book the prose is gripping. It seems to be saying something important about that time in America and perhaps even about man's general state on Earth and our relationship to each other. So, the sentences that lead nowhere but to more scalpings, more babies being bashed together, more piles of bodies in saloons, are read carefully to try and figure out - what the heck is he trying to say here. The literary allusions - to Melville, to the Bible, to Paradise Lost - are all there and left to the reader to wrestle with and derive some meaning beyond the horrible bleakness of the violent life that is described. Its definitely not for everyone. It may take multiple tries to get through it. But its a novel worth wrestling with.