The folks over at
The Blue Bookcase sponsor "The Literary Blog Hop," a weekly meme, that gives all of us who read and write about books an opportunity to find and make new friends, and exchange ideas. This week's question was submitted by Debbie Nance at
Readerbuzz--
"
What is the most difficult literary work you've ever read? What made it so difficult?
At first blush
I thought that this'd be a snap. Then I re-read the question again. "What is the most difficult literary work you've
read?" Ahh, well then, I guess I can't talk about the dozen, or more times, that I have tried to read
Ulysses by James Joyce, and ended up hurling it across the room in frustration several days later. Yes, gentle reader, I even broke the back of an edition of
Ulysses in one of my momentary fits of rage and frustration. I have since entered a 12-step program that has kept me Joyce-free for nearly fifteen years now, and I have never injured another book.
Okay, back to the question at hand. My answer to the question must surely be Cormac McCarthy's horrific novel
Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West published in 1985. While not profoundly intellectually challenging like one of Joyce's novels, or something by Pynchon, McCarthy has basically put a small thermonuclear device between the covers of this novel, and then double-dares you to open it and read it. This novel is probably the most relentlessly brutal and savage novel that you'll ever read. I compare reading this novel to looking at and trying to decipher the meaning of a painting by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516).
Blood Meridian is ostensibly based upon a series of historical events that occurred along the U.S./Mexico border region from Texas to San Diego in the mid-19th century, involving a gang of outlaws (the Glanton Gang) led by the fictional 'Judge Holden'--a man so evil that he almost defies description. And like Herman Melville's
Moby-Dick, the novel is loaded with biblical references and imagery. The ending is vintage McCarthy too, i.e., completely and totally unexpected. Harold Bloom considers McCarthy's
Blood Meridian to be one of the great American novels of the 20th century and called it "the ultimate western." Bloom and several other critics have compared it to Melville's
Moby-Dick in its literary quality and importance to the American canon
. Even though it is a tough read, every time I read
Blood Meridian I am able to discover something new, kind of like peeling an onion, layer-by-layer and gain a better sense of the novel's message. I have come to the conclusion that Cormac McCarthy is the modern-American equivalent of Thomas Hardy--bleak, dark, and that fate and chance play a major role in his plotting.
Is
Blood Meridian McCarthy's best novel? Well, the critics would sure have you think so. For me though, I think that I like his much earlier novel
Outer Dark (1968) even more; and then his "Borderlands Trilogy" that includes
All The Pretty Horses (1992),
The Crossing (1994), and
Cities of the Plain (1998) are truly amazing novels that I re-read every few years. And for those of you who have read McCarthy's
No Country for Old Men (2005), or saw the recent film adaptation by Joel and Ethan Coen of the same title; well, you obviously have an understanding of McCarthy's penchant for unrelenting violence and a difficult ending.
Well, there it is--my most difficult novel to read--
Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy.
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