found drama

Before we begin in earnest, a quote:

If much in the world were mystery the limits of that world were not, for it was without measure or bound and there were contained within it creatures more horrible yet and men of other colors and beings which no man has looked upon and yet not alien none of it more than were their own hearts alien in them, whatever wilderness contained there and whatever beasts.

Of Cormac McCarthy’s corpus, a friend once said: “In those novels, the best thing that can happen is that the worst thing doesn’t happen.”

Of Blood Meridian in particular, I’d be willing to say: “The best thing that can happen is that the worst thing eventually halts.”

This novel is a surreal peregrination into the muddy moralities of war–a novel so sociopathic and alienating and fraught with existential anxiety that solipsism becomes akin to salvation.

It’s a disturbing and troubling and bleak read, but worthy of being read, and perhaps even necessary.

About Rob Friesel