Epistemological violence in America

It’s funny how your personal level of angst and unhappiness ebbs and flows in inverse relation to your level of success. As I become a functioning person, as I accomplish things I am proud of, I see myself not just accepting, but celebrating, others’ success. When you’re down and out in whichever place you find yourself, it’s easy to looks upon other people’s accomplishments with annoyance. But when you’re on ascent everything is hunky-dory.

I've passed the halfway point in the aforementioned Blood Meridian and I've come to several conclusions. First, Cormac McCarthy is way smarter than am I. I appreciate the opportunity to read a book so genius that I'm left dumbfounded by the writer's talents. I cannot fathom how one goes about creating such a work. Second, I need to read fiction to remain sane. Of course, I like reading books about politics, urban planning, nature and what not, but there's something about a well told story that feeds the soul like no other type of book can. I just hope to fit in a few more novels before the grip of school work becomes too tight. As of this moment I intend to read Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury next, though Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles has been sitting on my bookshelf for far too long. Finally, I need a break from modern culture. I've had enough of cell phones, television and facebook. I need something real.

At present, I am devouring Cormac McCarthy's ridiculously terrific Blood Meridian. The novel, which mostly takes place in Mexico in the early- to mid-nineteenth century, requires use of two dictionaries: one to translate the semi-frequent Spanish dialogue and another to translate McCarthy's arcane lexicon. For example, he tosses around words such as djinn (which I knew thanks to the Final Fantasy series of games), caesura, and filibuster (used with regard to a person, not the infamous legislative (in)action.)

It isn't often that I reread a work of fiction. The Great Gatsby and Broom of the System (and the first fifty or so pages of Infinite Jest) are the only such books that come to mind. But in the case of Blood Meridian, I expect to turn back to page one upon completing the first read. As the critic's blurb on the back cover states, "The book reads like a conflation of the Inferno, the Iliad, and Moby Dick." What more can one ask for?

Labels: Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy, dictionary