Thoughts On Blood Meridian: One Week In

I think after I finish Blood Meridian I may never read another book. Perhaps I exaggerate. Yet I will need time to recover. I've been at this a week now and it's psychically exhausting - it's not hard to read stylistically - but the violence and the atavism take a toll. What happens when you take away the nostalgia and the romanticism from the wild west? You get Blood Meridian and for that I admire it. But it is one of the most challenging works of art I've encountered in many a year. I'm 3/4 of the way through and McCarthy still manages to shock me with every violent episode.