Blood Meridian / by Cormac McCarthy

[Kim Allen Scott]

A Sydney friend of mine recommended this book, but getting my hands on a copy was not that easy.  In the library where I work there are two books with this title in the catalog, one of which is actually a series of scholarly essays which examine the text of the novel in minute detail.  Of course it was the critical book that was on the shelf, and the novel itself was nowhere to be found until I got the acquisitions department to add an additional copy.  Once I sat down to read it, I realized it may not have been worth the effort.  This is a well-written story of American frontier violence, tracing the movements of a savage band of scalp hunters who operate along the northern Mexican border and do not practice much discrimination in selecting their victims.  I say it is well written because the descriptions are quite graphic, not only the stomach churning incidents of violence, but also of the stark beauty of the landscape.  However, in the long run I found the story pointless.  Reading it was like watching a traffic accident....you are appalled at the blood, but you feel compelled to look nevertheless.