Blood Meridian or Cormac McCarthy's How the West was Won

Unlike the classic John Ford film, How the West was Won, which depicts the westward expansion as an effort of good, God-fearing Christians in pursuit of an honest and prosperous life only to be relentlessly plagued by savage Indians and the lawlessness of the frontier, Blood Meridian takes the reader on the other side this idealistic depiction, revealing America’s own unspeakable savagery and culpability in the birth of a nation rooted in violence and massacre for the sake of nothing except their own virtues.

Click to read more ...

A Book Club Dropout's Review: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

The Road is expected to be a big hit at the movie theaters this holiday season; a story that is about a father and son relationship. There are many writers that explore this family dynamic but few have done it well like Potok’s The Chosen or Hemingway’s “Up in Michigan”. Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses (2003) examines this father and son relationship during and after WWII years in Finland and the woods that border Sweden. A book rich in natural description and stoic language, it overcomes its weaknesses of plot structure and characterization to reveal an important literary and metaphorical look at our haunting pasts and the relationships we regain in reconnecting with them.

Click to read more ...