u/laudida

5/5. An absolutely fantastic, extremely thought provoking book. I've read four Cormac McCarthy books before this one, with two I loved (The Road and No Country for Old Men), one I enjoyed (Child of God), and one I felt mixed on (All the Pretty Horses). Good thing too because this was easily the most dense book by him so far, and unfortunately his artistic writing choices (not using typical punctuation) make reading Blood Meridian unnecessarily difficult at times. But, that being said, I think the book is well worth reading if you're able to handle the writing style, you're interested in the themes, or you can handle the violence in the story.

At it's heart, I think Blood Meridian spends the most time focusing on the ideas of war, violence, and the human condition. I don't even know where to start because there's so much to chew on in the book. Maybe the best place would be to address how the violence is depicted in the book to help determine if this is something you would want to read. The barebones story is that there is a 15 year old kid who joins a gang of men who are hunting Native Americans to scalp them and get monetary rewards for each one. Obviously, with a premise like that, there is some pretty gruesome material here. There are multiple depictions of murder, scalping, senseless violence against men, women, children, and even infants, people getting shot, stabbed, decapitated, set on fire, and basically anything that could have happened to a person in the mid 1800s. For the most part, the violence is graphic but not explicit. McCarthy writes everything very matter-of-factly but you won't be reading gratuitous descriptions like you would in an extreme horror novel (although arguably the base level of content here would fit in the genre). I could see people saying that the violence seems unnecessary and pointless, but I would argue that that's exactly the point McCarthy is trying to make and that it fits thematically.

Speaking of the themes, McCarthy has a lot of interesting ideas here. As addressed already, violence and domination are probably the biggest and also the central themes of the book. This is most heavily illustrated by Judge Holden, one of the most well written evil characters that has ever graced the pages of a book. Talk about an absolutely terrifying, creepy, and just completely unsettling character. The judge is this satanic, seemingly supernatural and immortal, charismatic, agent of chaos and warfare that is utterly compelling to read about. His ideas about how war is the only God, and how domination over creation is the most important concept make for great discussions. There are so many examples from the book to illustrate these themes that it'd be impossible to talk about them all here so, suffice to say, if that interests you just know that you will be well rewarded.

Tied into the ideas of violence and domination, we also get to see moments of mercy which, in this story, particularly stick out. The kid does a handful of things that contrast tremendously with the actions of those around him, and yet he himself is an incredibly violent individual. This brings us around to the good ol' free will versus determinism debate. Are the characters fated to the lives they have? Can they change things? The judge and the kid play off each other and ask these questions, but the reader is never given any definitive answer. Blood Meridian also tackles religion, the existence of God, racism, nihilism, knowledge vs wisdom, natural evils, identity, morality, and more.

I am not a prose snob by any means, but I just have to address McCarthy's writing style real quick. The prose is absolutely wonderful. There were multiple times while reading this book that I just took a moment and thought to myself, "Wow. That is some really well crafted writing." This happened especially in McCarthy's descriptions of the landscapes and weather; early in the book there is a scene where the host of characters is traveling and the descriptions of the mountains and the thunderstorms seen in the distance was just so dang good that it felt like I was transported to that time and place. It's not all good though; there were also times where I would read a sentence, reread it again, try to tackle it a third time, and then give up because it was so obtuse that I had no idea what it was trying to say. This is probably a personal problem and I'm not intelligent enough to decipher it, but I figured I'd address it anyway.

All in all, I think this is a really great book if you're looking for a lot of thought provoking material. Reading it was not always an enjoyable experience; in fact I think I'd give the reading enjoyment a 3/5, but the literary merit a 5/5, which more than makes up for the difficulty I had at times. The book is also only 350ish pages which makes it way more approachable. This is one I would reread, especially now that I am more familiar with the story and the themes, and I would recommend others do as well (with the caveats already mentioned above).

I'd love to hear your thoughts if you've read it, whether you liked it or hated it!

4.5/5. It's easy to see why Kristin Lavransdatter has the acclaim it does. It reminded me, to a degree, of The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky in that it's this broad, sweeping tale of a family and all of the dysfunction caused by sin and focuses a lot on theological ideas throughout the story. At its core, this is a book about sin and repentance and I think the novel succeeds in its portrayal of it, but sometimes I think the book succeeded almost *too* much. I'm being a little tongue in cheek here, but reading about Kristin and Erlend make terrible decisions for basically the entire book (which was 1145ish pages), then try to do better, then do poorly again, then go back again, and flip flop repeatedly over and over could be a frustrating and exasperating experience (like real life, right?). The characters are extremely well realized and behave how you would expect them to, which is the highest compliment I can give to an author.

I think the frustration and tiredness I felt while reading this book would've been cut down significantly if the book itself had been shortened, but I think Sigrid Unset pretty deliberately had the book the length it is. Unset goes into almost excruciating detail of what day to day life is like in 14th century Norway. Granted, I know very little about any of this, but it seemed very realistic and she does a wonderful job of transporting the reader to this place and time, as well as just demonstrating the importance of mundane tasks in family life and how they can sanctify one's life.

There are a lot of great themes throughout the book: one of my favorites is that sin can have consequences that can last a lifetime. The events of Kristin's childhood affect her and everyone else around her for the entirety of the book, and it is heartbreaking to see. Tied into that we also see how parents shape their children; there is a fantastic juxtaposition between seeing Kristin and her father dealing with her actions, and then Kristin wrestling with her own children with their similar actions in the future. There is also a big emphasis on pride; characters who do immoral actions think that they are the exception, that they are the special ones, that rules don't apply to them like they do to others, and we see how deeply this harms them. The biggest theme is redemption and Unset shows that regardless of how many setbacks there are, redemption is always possible to the very end. But this can be a very messy and drawn out process, and a person might be wrestling with this for a lifetime.

Going back to the comparison to The Brothers Karamazov, I think that that book worked better for me because it was (or at least felt to me) shorter, but also because its length felt justified due to the sheer amount of philosophical and theological ideas packed into it. Kristin Lavransdatter has a few core ideas and then just goes over and over and over them. Kristin makes a mistake, she feels bad, she tries to do better, rinse and repeat. I understand that this is a realistic portrayal of the human experience, but when I was at page 703 and only 62% of the way through the book, I was feeling extremely burnt out. Kristin Lavransdatter deserves the acclaim it has, but the length was a pretty major con to me. Regardless, if you can handle the heft, this is well worth checking out.

I've been reading John-Mark Miravalle's How to Feel Good and How Not To, and although it isn't a book specifically about marijuana or drug use, I think it provides one of the clearest frameworks I've encountered for understanding why the Church teaches that recreational drug use is immoral.

Miravalle's central point is that there is a profound difference between feeling good and being good. We all naturally seek happiness, but authentic happiness isn't found by chasing pleasurable feelings or escaping unpleasant ones. Instead, it comes from living according to truth, virtue, and ultimately God. Pleasure has its proper place, but it isn't the highest good.

That perspective helped me better understand the Catechism's teaching:

"The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense." (CCC 2291)

At first glance, this can seem like an arbitrary rule. But Miravalle's approach suggests the issue is much deeper than simply "drugs are bad."

As Catholics, we believe that reason and free will are gifts from God. The virtue of temperance orders our desires under reason rather than allowing our desires to rule us (CCC 1809). Recreational marijuana is ordinarily used because of its intoxicating effects—the altered state of consciousness is the point. Instead of exercising greater mastery over ourselves, we intentionally diminish the faculties that allow us to know truth and freely choose the good.

One objection I often hear is, "How is that different from alcohol?"

I think the Church makes an important distinction here. Alcohol itself isn't condemned. Jesus drank wine, turned water into wine at Cana, and instituted the Eucharist with wine. What Scripture condemns is drunkenness (Ephesians 5:18), and the Catechism warns against the abuse of alcohol as well (CCC 2290).

A person can enjoy a glass of wine with dinner without intending to become intoxicated. The enjoyment comes from the meal, the taste, and fellowship. Drunkenness becomes sinful because the person intentionally seeks—or willingly embraces—the impairment of reason.

By contrast, recreational marijuana is generally used for its psychoactive effects. The altered mental state is ordinarily the desired outcome, not an unintended possibility. That seems to explain why the Church treats recreational drugs differently from the moderate use of alcohol.

What I appreciated most about Miravalle's book is that he shifts the conversation away from "What can I get away with?" and toward "What kind of person am I becoming?" Every habit either strengthens or weakens virtue. If I habitually seek relief through intoxication, am I becoming more temperate, more free, and more capable of loving God and my neighbor? Or am I training myself to seek chemically induced feelings instead of the deeper joy that comes through virtue and grace?

I realize this is a topic where faithful Catholics sometimes have questions—especially as marijuana becomes more socially accepted and legally available. I'm interested in hearing how others understand the Church's reasoning here.

If you've read How to Feel Good and How Not To, I'd love to hear your thoughts. And if you haven't, I'd highly recommend it. Even though it isn't a book about marijuana, I found its explanation of authentic happiness, virtue, and freedom to be one of the most helpful lenses for understanding this and many other moral questions.

2.5/5. Guess how many times the word "corn" or its derivations appear in this book. FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY ONE TIMES. If you are just super passionate about corn, or just love descriptions of harvest festivals and small town village customs, or long purple prose-like descriptions of vegetation, with just a smidgen of horror, then you will 100% love this book. I picked up Harvest Home because I heard it was one of the horror classics from the 70s and is considered one of the genre defining pagan folk horror books. This was a massive disappointment. Nothing overly horrific happened until the last quarter of the book, with the other 75% being everything I described above. Actually, the pacing might be the scariest thing about the book because it felt like eons passed and civilizations went by the wayside in the time it took for something to actually happen here. I have a lot of beef with the characters as well, particularly Ned, the main character. Weird and bizarre things will happen and he's so dang passive and bland about everything; in one scene he sees this strange apparition and hears music and just thinks to himself, "huh, that's weird" and moves on (especially with a particularly violent scene late in the book that felt wildly out of place and exploitative). The actual pagan folk horror aspects of the book are extremely familiar for anyone who has dabbled at all in the horror genre. That being said, I didn't outright *hate* this book, but I found it extremely flawed and had significantly more gripes than likes. I will say that the book had some good ideas and did a good job of conveying a moody autumn atmosphere. Massive disappointment here overall though.

4/5. As far as modern horror classics go, Psycho is probably one of the most well known because of Alfred Hitchcock's movie adaptation. This was a good horror novel that has a lot of concepts that were probably pretty revolutionary when it came out back in 1959 but are now commonplace to any current fan of horror. Lots of themes of identity, mental illness, childhood trauma, isolation, repression, and a heavy dose of "humans are the real monsters". A quick and spooky read, and one that horror fans should feel obligated to check out because of its influence on the genre, but also because it's just a fun and creepy read.

4/5 stars. Another fun B-movie-esque story by one of my absolute favorite authors, Robert McCammon. McCammon excels in taking extremely cheesy, and maybe even dumb, sounding ideas and turning them into fun books that give you the same feeling as bad-but-good horror movies. In this case, The Wolf's Hour is what you'd get if you tossed werewolves, James Bond, and Inglourious Basterds into a blender. If that sounds like a good mix to you, you'll probably enjoy this one! I thought this was an entertaining book and it was easy to get through (good thing too because it was 712 pages). I do think that it could've been a bit shorter, and for a special agent the main character gets caught in some dumb ways, plus the villains have a penchant to never want to kill any of our protagonists but instead lock them away until they inevitably escape (and this happens multiple times), but at the end of the day, this isn't a book that's trying to do anything serious, it just wants to entertain and it succeeds in doing so.

How do you even follow up a book as good as Lonesome Dove? Lonesome Dove did an exceptional job with its themes and character work and I'm happy to say that The Streets of Laredo follows this just as well. This book is very different though; it is significantly darker, more grim, much more bleak and depressing, and in general has a much more violent tone. In fact, there were numerous moments that reminded me of Cormac McCarthy. There is a big emphasis on the growth of civilization and how all of the old West ways of life are winding down and coming to an end. This is especially shown by the character of Brookshire, an accountant who is forced to go along with Call to hunt down an outlaw and who is significantly out of his depth for the entirety of the book.

McMurtry did a great job of doing a very grounded and realistic take of the Old West in Lonesome Dove, but it still had some of those romantic feeling elements just by the nature of the work that the characters were doing (driving cattle, chasing buffalo, etc) and, although the world was brutal and rugged, there were still moments of beauty and goodness to be found. Here though, that is practically nonexistent. The Streets of Laredo is extremely brutal and violent, and one of the major themes McMurtry is showing here is that there is nothing beautiful or romantic in gunfights, no matter how they may be portrayed in TV or movies. Violence begets violence, some characters are just mean for its own sake, and the actions they carry out have consequences for everyone involved, whether directly or indirectly. Things are chaotic, messy, and violence is ultimately meaningless.

Tied into this, another major theme is the idea of aging, decline, death, and mortality. In Lonesome Dove we saw plenty of death, but here, the events are set about two decades in the future. The characters we know are getting old, decrepit, and we get to see how they face these trials and it's not pretty.

The last major theme I'll address here is violence, but specifically against women. There is a lot of abuse and sexual violence here. None of it is explicit or graphic in any way, but it is present throughout the entirety of the novel and is very difficult to stomach, but is very thought provoking as it explores the nature of human relationships, motherhood, family dynamics, and the nature of suffering.

The character work is exceptionally done and all of the themes are explored through the cast, and I think all the characters here are absolutely fantastic. They are well realized, realistic, and there were many character interactions that were extremely moving, and many moments that provoked deep emotional responses.

Despite how depressing and dark this book is, I thought it was excellent. While I didn't enjoy it as much as Lonesome Dove, I think that it is well worth reading. Read Lonesome Dove first, and if you enjoy it as much as I did, you absolutely need to give this one a try.

Had an absolute blast reading this one. Usher's Passing had everything I love in a Robert McCammon book, bizarre characters, stories of creepy figures and creatures, fantastic writing, and an atmosphere that just oozes an unsettling nature. This was a wild book that kept on adding elements that I didn't expect all the way till the very end. This book also has tons of little nods to Edgar Allen Poe's works with things that reminded me of The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death, The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Fall of the House of Usher (obviously). This was such a fun horror read from the very beginning of the book all the way to the end that I tore through it in a few days. I don't really want to say much more about the story than what you would find on the back of the book because it went in so many directions I didn't anticipate and I think it's best going in cold. All in all, one of my favorite McCammon books and one I'd highly recommend.